Shooting Expired Mystery Color 110 Film from 1992

Shooting Expired Mystery Color 110 Film from 1992

Published by Dave Roberts on  February 16, 2023 under Film Photography Tips and Tutorials and tagged 110 Film, Expired Film, Ferrania, Mystery Film

The price for this mystery 110 format color film was so ridiculously low that I bought a brick of 10 rolls for a future re-loading project that will probably never happen. So I decided to shoot a test roll and see what I got, expecting very little! 

All I could deduce from the box was that it was an ISO 100 film and made in Italy, suggesting it may be a rebadged Ferraina film and could find no other information on what to expect from this film online. The only image results on the boxes, was typically even more of the film for sale on eBay or Etsy, often at optimistic prices by the sellers.

How I shot the Expired Mystery Color 110 Film

Having expired in 1992, I knew this would be a challenge and I had no idea how small format film would cope. It was originally rated at 100, so i would need to shoot this at 2 or 3 stops over, so somewhere between 12 and 25.

My trusty little Pentax Auto 110 may be a miniature SLR, but unfortunately lacks any way to compensate for exposure. So I had to shoot what was possibly by now an ISO 12 film at 100. So the only other way to compensate would be to ask the lab to push it two stops, and they were willing to give it a go!

I had initially tried the film in an old 110 Minolta Autopak 450x, an old family heirloom, but the film wouldn’t advance at all. I’m not sure if that’s the old film or camera, but it didn’t feel perfectly smooth in the PENTAX either. The Autopak may be basic, but I could have  performed a rudimentary sort of exposure compensation with it by shooting it in cloudy mode under bright lights.

How did the Expired Mystery Color 110 Film turn out and what was it?

I think there’s a look to these – and I’m not saying that’s a good or a bad thing! 

I also reckon that I need to compensate for the exposure – so I’m going to shoot any further rolls in a Minolta 110 ZOOM SLR Mk II. 

However, no clues were found from the film markings after development – you can see those on the gallery above. So this film will remain a mystery for now, although we know it’s Italian and very likely from Ferrania.

Does it look better in Black and White?

One further option with this stock is to consider shooting it as black and white film. I may go down that route as the images below show the results when converted to monochrome. I think it work quite well and at £2 a roll, and a cheap way of shooting BW in 110. I just need developing rolls and scanning masks for 110 to bring the price right down! If I have to pay to process and scan, I may stick to Lomography Orca instead.

I’m in no rush, this film’s been sored who knows how for the last 30 years, at least now It’s stored safely in my freezer.

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