Either Contax RTS with my lovely single coated Pentacon electric 29mm f2.8
or
Minolta SR-T 303 ( or Super) with a Rokkor SI 28mm f2.5
or
Minolta X-500 with a Rokkor-PG 28mm f3.5 ( more lightweight than the SR-T combination )
or
Konica Autoreflex T with a Vivitar ( Kiron-made ) 28mm f2.5.
Life is difficult enough.

The author of this most excellent article is critical of using expired film, quite unfairly I think, respectfully said. He goes away with his family, so top quality images are not so important. The memories captured along the way are everything. Who cares if the color is a bit off or there is salt-shaker grain??

As I see it, travel snaps are precious memories. A world apart from the usual taken-at-home images of the kids, the partner in the garden or weeding the lawn, the family birthdays and the Christmas lunch, the pets lying on the couch wanting pats and cuddles. All worth taking and keeping, of course. So who cares if the cat is purple or the dog is lime green??

Nostalgia, wow. In my own case, well beyond the three-score-and-ten-plus stage, those visual memories in whatever colours they have deteriorated to, are even more important, but they can be… devastating. Too much deja vu. Bitter recollections of times past, moments enjoyed, now vanished into the ether or the universe. Only the images remain.

But this is about film and travel, not my historical (or hysterical) memories. Let’s move on. Now my life, my travels, my cameras.

1960s. After boarding school I went to work as a junior news reporter/photographer. A lot of weekend travel in Canada, Bermuda and three visits to Europe. A Yashica D I bought in 1962 did everything, with Verichrome Pan or Plus-X. I shot sparingly and published a lot. Back then one could sell almost everything, even in black-and-white. The golden era.

1970s. Finished university, work/career took over. In early 1975 I was posted to Saigon. I had a Mamiya 500 SLR with the then-whizzbang 50/1.4 Sekor and Hanimex 28 and 135 lenses, the then standard kit of that time. Kodachrome and Ektachrome from the American PX cost a buck a roll and I bought up big. Everything I photographed sold. In mid-April I was evac’d to Bangkok, stayed for a year, then six months in Malaysia, eventually to Australia.I reckon I did 10,000+ slides with that Mamiya before it wore out. A photo series I did in 1976 on Bali dance now resides in a university archive in Holland – it seems I was the only dude on deck at the time with a camera. Now just try giving away your Bali travel snaps. Ha!! 1979 saw me travelling ten months around North America, reconnecting with family in New Mexico, Arizona and eastern Canada. I was single then and travelling to anywhere was cheap, as was anything to do with photography. Overnighting in Taos, NM, I wandered into a pawn shop and paid a whopping $45 for Nikkor 35/2 and 85/2 ex-news lenses which I still own. By then I had a Nikkormat FTN but that ’35 let me dump those too-soft Hanimexes. My New Mex Kodachrome have survived 40+ years in 95% pristine condition. They still inspire me.

1980s. I left journalism for media marketing in Sydney (Australia) and did well. Another year in North America in 1982, for work and travel. In those days I didn’t take a camera along with me, but bought used gear as I went. A Pentax KM and a Minolta SRT101. I married a great gal I’d met in Santa Fe in ’79 and took her back to Sydney after a year. I got back into Nikkormats and Nikons from 1983. We did one or two overseas trips every year when I could squeeze the time from my business, mostly to Southeast Asia. Lean times hit in 1987 with a major recession and almost all my gear was sold for living expenses. We got divorced in 1989, by mutual decision, no rancor or remorse, we are still good mates. Like everybody else in those days, when I travelled I took everything. In 1986 I did Indonesia with two Nikkormats, four Nikkors, a Rollei, a Linhof with two film backs and three lenses, 100 rolls of film. The good old days before airport X-rays started to fry anything analog. I do wonder how I managed to lift, let alone carry that kit…

1990s. Did well in interior design, not much money but a lot of credit. Bought Rolleis, a second Linhof tformy designed interiors, Nikons. I got a new darkroom, my first since 1962-1969. Travels. Every year from 1993, I went around Asia, one time six countries in as many weeks. I fell in love with Japan even if ten days there cost me half my travel budget. In Kyoto I met a Canadian lady who came to Sydney to be with me, for two years. I bought newe Nikkormats, my then-favourite SLRs. FTNs traded in for ELs traded in for FT2s, the latter the best of the lot for light, fast travel.

2000s. Less to say here, as we knowThe Big D suddenly hit the scene big-time and suddenly everyone who’d been into film was proudly sporting a 5.1 MB pocket camera. I still travelled, again mostly to Asia and the Pacific, now and then to Hawaii, with a Leica kit (M2, M3, four lenses, Leitz bits) until another recession saw those being flogged off too. I did keep my Nikkormats and two Rollei TLRs.

By the late ’90s I had figured out that going ‘OS’ with every camera and lens I owned was a no-go. Two Nikkormats and three lenses were enough, then one ‘mat and two lenses, 28 or 35 and 85, which made me really work for my images, by then almost everything I took reflected what I was looking at, not the template postcard shots or pretty landscapes.

In 1997 in Ipoh, Malaysia I went into a small photo shop to buy film. And met my current partner, who has lived in Australia with me since 2001. We are both keen photographers and we travel as much as we can. In my 70s now, I still get away. In June this year, I’ll hit the road again for two or three months, to Brunei, Sarawak, Malaysia and Indonesia.

Sadly, airport X-rays are now so lethal to film, that I no longer take any analog cameras with me. Time passes and all things change.

From Dann in Melbourne, Australia

The images are great. Even expired.

I shoot film on Vacations because in the end, they are the only images that get printed and survive computer hard drive meltdowns. Always shoot some film on vacations because 20+ years from now, not many will wade through hard drives with thousands of images to find one. They will look at the photo album

Well, so far it’s been pretty expensive, mostly because so many people started shooting film between last year and now, plus this whole pandemic schtick causing havoc in the supply chains, and then Kodak quitting selling officially in Brazil, only to come back two months later. It’s been mad drama for the budding local film community, but passionate enthusiasts did what they do best and got creative.

About two years ago, you could get a roll of ProImage for 15-20 bucks, Gold and Colorplus went around 20-25, Ultramax and Superia could be had for 30-40 and professional stuff like Portra, TriX, TMax, Pro400H, Acros, Slide films etc ran the gamut from 60 bucks all the way to 100 or so. At the worst of it, you probably couldn’t get film for less than double those prices, which is why folks started stashing expired Colorplus and Ferrania Solaris.

Now, I don’t really know the details, but some stores seem to have access to a nearly endless supply of rolls from a specific lot of Colorplus made in 2012 that still performs like new, I have about 8 rolls of the stuff still stashed away in my freezer, and I did some comparison shots last year, and you really can’t tell it apart from brand new Portra 400, for example. It just works. The stuff is so ubiquitous, even publicity campaigns have been using it locally for the retro film look. You can usually get these rolls for 20-30 bucks per 36 exposures, so not that bad.

Motion picture film also got huge here in Brazil due to the shortages and price increases. Most labs now sell their own lines of rebranded Kodak and Fuji cinematic emulsions, mostly Vision 3 and Double X, and because reloading used cartridges is a lot more cost effective than buying traditional boxed film, you can get them for the same price of an expired roll of Colorplus. You can also order them with as many or as few exposures as you want, and some labs will even go the distance and hack the DX coding with duct tape if you so desire. Vision 3 is probably the bulk of my shooting these days, with Double X and Ektachrome right behind.

Film photography has actually grown a lot here im Brazil in these last couple years, goes to show what a bunch of passionate enthusiasts are really capable of.