I have always wanted to shoot real Aerochrome film but had consigned myself to digital and trichrome representations since the Kodak film has been long discontinued since 2009. There has been the odd roll on eBay but you never know the quality.
About a year back, a company called Celluloid Collective acquired a big roll from government cold storage and they put them up for the very reasonable price of $50 for a 24Exp roll with a cap of 2 rolls per person! they soled out in less than a minute! Thankfully I goth them, now where to shot this special film!
With permission from the finance I planned to shoot at least one roll at our upcoming wedding. Special film for a special occasion and I think this fits the bill. Normally its not the thing you think goes well with a wedding but given my pension for those aerochrome colors I just know I would kick myself for not getting a few shots in.
For Aerochrome there are tons of guides on how to shoot it properly but I followed the guide linked on the Celluloid Collective site going for a Hoya Yellow 15 filter with the plan to develop it in E6 for those beautiful slides. Others have gotten great results in cross developing for negatives but I just had to go for it.
My camera of choice was my Leica M4 with my new 35mm Summicron ASPH V2 lens and shot the film at 400 speed.
Staying in the moment was my goal so I didn’t think about the shots too much, just nice to have these memories and the feelings of the day represented in film and photos.
Development
I went to my favorite film development company Underdog Film Lab here in Oakland. They did an amazing job and were so careful with the film, making sure to make specific notes about the color infrared film and processing. I think at the time Underdog was sending it out to Oscars Photo Lab in because their E6 machine was down so I also want to thank them as well! Both labs have been amazing to work with.
Photo Gallery
Lessons
Correct exposure was something that you really need to calculate. I somehow did pretty well with just my cheap external light meter and intuition. Most of my mistakes were due to trying to capture the moment and being in the wrong speed or aperture. Basically not updating to the new exposure value.
The next roll I’ll try to slow down for each shot but also need to find another special time to shoot it! I also want to remember that I need to balance the infrared elements and made the mistake of shooting in the shade where the film gets oversaturated and you lose color contrast and the film gives more of a duo-chrome red and white kinda like a black and white photo where black is replaced with shades of red.
Check out my photography instagram @hallowed_halides for more infrared photo explorations and reach out if you have also tried Aerochrome and how your results turned out!
