Expired - 8 Frames Of Polaroid One Film 200

Today, I'm trying something different.  I shoot a lot of film, and a lot of different brands of film as well.  And to find some of these off-brand films, which aren't made anymore, the only choice is to buy film that is expired.  Sometimes, it was stored properly and it is still in quite good condition for taking pictures.  Other times, age has played upon it and the colors fade or get distorted.  The main problem with this is, I never really know what condition it's in or how it's going to turn out.  What can be done with really old film is to compensate for it by giving it more exposure time when shooting it - actually over compensating it.  In this way, you can give the film a little more "oomph" to let those grains do their thing.

This past Sunday afternoon, September 7th, 2025, I loaded up some Polaroid-branded film, their One Film, which was rated at 200 ASA and had expired way back in 1999.  That's 26 years ago!  I used one of my 35mm SLRs to shoot it with - a Konica Autoreflex TC, that was made in the late 1970s and it's standard 50mm f/1.7 lens - a powerful combination.  I had figured that I was going to shoot the film at 3 stops below what it was rated at, 200 ASA.  That meant I was now going to shoot it 25 ASA to give it that extra exposure length that it probably needed.  I decided to go to a country road thas is about 4 miles from house and shoot the whole roll there - the road being only 7 miles long.  Here are some of those images from the 24-exposure roll of Polaroid One Film:

The first thing you notice is that the film turned out darker than it should have and exhibited some color shift.  I probably could have shot it at 4 or 5 stops below 200 ASA and it would have turned out slightly better.  I have three more rolls of this film, so next time I'll adjust shooting it accordingly.  This is the sign that marks the beginning of the road, Army Navy Store Road.  The road got it's name from Thompson's Army Navy Store that used to be on it 40-some years ago.  It was an Army surplus store and I shopped at it years ago:

 

Here's an old barn that I also shot back over 40 years ago:

 

There is a lot of oil field production in this area and oil wells and tank batteries dot the landscape.  Here was one such oil well site that had old storage tanks, a few pumps and some abandoned oil field vehicles.  Somebody had removed the seats from the trucks and made a bench out of one that was sitting on an old love seat:

 

Along this 7 mile stretch of road, there is not one, but two different little country churches, This one is Lick Creek Church so named because it sits next to Lick Creek.  Go figure:

There are also lots of field where various crops are planted.  Here's a cornfield that's almost ready to harvest:

An underground pipeline marker sign:

 

 

And here is a picture of Army Navy Store Road itself:

 

And here is another tank battery, with it's cryptic lease markings:

 

As you can see, all the pictures turned out about the same.  Dull and with a weird color shift.  Fortunately, I was able to improve them somewhat in Adobe Photoshop.  Here are those same 8 photographs cleaned up and looking more like they looked out in the bright sun while I was taking them:

So, even though the film wasn't in the greatest condition, I was still able to make it work and get useable images from it.  I hope you liked this post!

Nostalgia

Here's a post that is somewhat nostalgic for me.  Back in 1978, when I was 17 years old, I joined my high school's yearbook staff during the latter half of my junior year as photographer.  They used a huge Polaroid Land Camera and a Konica Autoreflex TC 35mm SLR for their picture-taking needs.  I ended up getting to use both of those cameras, but the one I remember most fondly, was the Konica 35mm.  Here's an image of it in the hands of the guy who was the yearbook photographer just before me, his name was Randy.  This was taken from my junior yearbook:

And here's that same camera in my hands from my senior yearbook.  Both images were cropped:

I learned a lot using that camera and here are some pictures I took using that camera.  The first three were for the yearbook, and the last three were some I took for myself:

I liked that camera so much that I ended up buying one of my own many years later.  When eBay came along and became huge, I realized that you could find practically anything there.  Remembering how much I liked the school's old Konica Autoreflex TC, I searched and found one on eBay - and bought it!  Here's a picture of it:

And a picture taken with it (after I had gotten a lens for it:

It didn't come with a lens, so I got me a second one from eBay that had a lens on it.  The second one didn't work, but was pretty cheap and it had the advantage of having the lens I needed.  That one looked like this:

The first one did work when I first got it, but it jammed up soon after and I haven't had a chance to fix it or use it until recently.  But I did manage to fix the second one I got that didn't work and here's a picture I took with it.  It shows some of the buttons in my late Mother's collection:

At first, however, I now had two of these Konicas and neither one of them worked.  So, I went back to eBay and found a third one that worked, but it, too, didn't have a lens on it.  Not to worry, though, because I had a lens.  Here's what that third one looked like:

And here's a couple pictures taken with that third Autoreflex TC:

Fast forward to 2019.  I was again searching on eBay and found an auction that had nine great old single lens reflex camera bodies, and two of them were Konica Autoreflex TCs!  I ended up getting those cameras and paid less than $10 for both of the Konicas together.  Here's what the first one looks like and a picture taken with it:

And here is the second one, now the fifth total Konica Autoreflex TC cameras in my collection, along with a picture taken just last night with that camera, more buttons in my late Mother's collection:

So, that's the tale, (so far....) of the Konica Autoreflex TC.  Who knows how it will end up?  But every time I use one, I'm transported back in time to when I was teenager and blissfully taking pictures that captured a special memory each time I clicked the shutter button.