 Yo what up welcome back to another episode of whoa the background is different Everything has changed and change is bad. That's why we still shoot film Do you remember the best day of your life? Maybe it was the day you got married or the day your kid was born Maybe it was the day you graduated college. Hell. Maybe it's the day you finally learned how to use the toilet as an adult Personally, my best day ever is when I found out that my favorite slide film Rolly vario Chrome is most likely expired Government ectochrome and the film photography project is selling that like hot pancakes Rolly vario Chrome was a limited-run film about two or three years ago And nowadays it's kind of hard to find but I haven't let go of the possibility of ever shooting it again Some say that might mean I'm living in the past, but hey, aren't we all after all we still shoot film Oh wait, I made that joke already. What is the best way to describe Rolly vario Chrome for those who have not shot it before? I suppose it's what smashmouth was singing about when they sang walking on the Sun because as you'll see it looks like the Sun Exploded right next to you in every shot. Here's some sample shots from my dedicated vario Chrome video So when this friendly neighborhood film shooter commented and said that vario Chrome looks a lot like FPP retro Chrome I had to investigate. I grabbed two rolls of FPP retro Chrome my contacts T2 and my speedo and headed out to Wildwood New Jersey to visit Monica's parents It would be our first time flying since COVID so Monica told me I wasn't allowed to whole mouth any water fountains in the airport When we touched down I loaded up my contacts T2 and was ready to hit the beach and make everyone disgusted by my beach body Because the night before I went on a crazy bagelbites bender If you're confused, there's actually two available iterations of FPP retro Chrome one in 400 ISO and the other in 320 ISO For this trip I shot with the 400 speed variation I can't imagine that the 320 ISO version is substantially different and yes, these were shot at box speed While we were in Wildwood I insisted that we sample every ice cream place in close proximity mostly because I'm irresponsible with sugar But also because I wanted to photograph new locations at DQ the sunset was getting more and more gorgeous by the minute All I hoped in that moment was that the meter on the contacts T2 would do it justice and thankfully I think it did The next day we went to a different beach and Mother Nature was threatening me with good light. So I finished the role Monica also had a blast of pretending to be a professional seashell collector Unfortunately, she had grown attached to the shells giving them names and such which only made things harder when I had to smash them So what exactly is retro Chrome? Luckily the film photography project has all the answers to summarize real quick It's basically expired government surplus ectochrome that the FPP stumbled upon at an auction This particular batch comes from the Tenopa test range in Nevada and was likely stored in the freezer until that fateful day When the test range decided to switch over to the D word in the early 2000s. So what does that mean for us? Well, not much it does mean that there probably is a very limited amount of this stock left in the world though I long wondered what might be the best scenario to shoot this film stock because of its Distinctive look as you probably notice with this film one of the major characteristics is this sort of orange yellow wash That kind of looks like it was developed in highly acidic cat piss This effect really tends to surface in the brighter parts of the image like the sun the sky the lights etc So that's cool, but what does it look like at night? I was determined to find out but I was a little more determined to smash more ice cream So maybe you noticed or didn't notice because you're as oblivious as I am this film is pretty grainy and to put Things simply there was shit all over it after scanning I had to paint out a lot of little specs on the film and one of the roles had a dotted line through the entire thing Which was an excruciating pain in the dick to paint out the other role that I shot that week did not have a line through it So I'm not sure what happened, but since the Tenopa test range is about 70 miles north of area 51 I think we can assume it was aliens Furthermore retrochrome is a color-positive film which means when it comes out of the developing tank It's ready to go as a comprehensible image whereas color-negative film is inverted So it needs to be flipped as well as corrected to see a balanced image If you're having trouble wrapping your mind around that concept think of slide film as a pizza delivery when it's delivered the pizza is ready to consume or Rubble over your body depending on whatever you do with pizza whereas color-negative film is more like grocery store pizza You'll need to take it home pop it in the freezer and eventually bake it for 30 minutes before you can have a slice Does that make sense these analogies doing anything for you? I shot some more night scenes, but they didn't really turn out To be fair the contact T2 only goes down to f2.8 So I wouldn't really classify it as a low light beast Colors on this film don't seem to apply any sort of logic as to how they render sometimes in the shade You'll get blue shadows, but at other times you'll get purple and sometimes for no reason at all The entire shot will just look like it's washed out in yellow. It's pure chaos, and I love it Eventually it became time to go so I regained consciousness early and decided to finish up the role by shooting some morning light That was coming through the windows So retro chrome would you ever shoot it? Is it just like vario chrome or not quite? I don't have the answer, but damn it does look suspiciously similar The physical film stock is even the same base color perhaps one day I can leave vario chrome behind and learn to love again, you know after I've had enough time to grieve personally I would shoot the crap out of this again, and I plan to pick up some more roles that way every time I go through a vario Chrome withdrawal I can turn to retro chrome for a quick pick me up. That sounds like healthy behavior, right? There's just something about the colors that works well for me I think of course I'd say that these colors are not very true to real life But real life is boring and needs to be spiced up sometimes anyway oddly enough This is one of those film stocks that when I get the natives back I kind of think they generally just look okay, but then after two or three months I look back at them something weird happens and I kind of fall in love with them It's a weird phenomenon for sure and I'm sure that all of you have experienced that to some degree in your own work So that's something for you to reflect upon I suppose until then I guess I'm gonna go order a pizza