Nikon F60 x Expired Fujifilm Superia 800

I had picked up this Nikon F60 a couple of years ago for pretty cheap, replacing one that I had stolen many many years ago. It was a nostalgic purchase to fill the gap of that missing camera. It is a pretty basic 35mm SLR that was designed and marketed towards beginner photo enthusiasts. It has manual capabilities, but I found it worked best in auto mode or aperture priority which I found myself using the most. These things were mass produced and I am sure you could find one for next to nothing out there if you want to find one! The one I had was made in Japan if that is something that interests you.

I loaded up the F60 with an old expired roll of Fujifilm Superia 800 film that I had that had been sitting in my fridge for the last 15 years. I have a few of these rolls kicking around from a time when I bought a bunch of film from a blowout sale when film was dying in the early 2000’s. I believe it was a box of 4 rolls of Fujifilm Superia 200 with a “bonus” roll of this Superia 800. I had shot it before and it was super grainy with soft colours. Something that did not excite me back then. I figured I would give it another shot to see what would happen after it had been aging.

I shot the film at a 400 ISO setting. One of my professors back in college suggested that we should overexpose our film by 1 stop to maximize the exposure on the film. So I have adopted the habit of adjusting the ISO setting on my camera to accommodate for that and it has always worked out well for me. Better to overexpose than to underexpose your film! I have also read recently that it is a good practice to overexpose old film by 1 full stop for every 10 years past it’s expiration date!

I shot this roll in the summer of 2021 walking around the Arboretum here in Ottawa. I wasn’t expecting much from the film to be honest, so I casually blasted off shots of whatever. I really wanted to see how the film was going to perform and see if I was going to shoot the other rolls I had.

As I expected the pictures were very grainy and the colours were soft, but in a good way. They seem subdued and faded and had a soft pastel look. A little softer than I am used to. The exposures were solid, the camera was fun to use and I ended up with a bunch of dreamy shots.

I ended up doing some post work in Adobe Lightroom and pushed the contrast up and shifted the colours a little bit to make these images a more dramatic. They are moody but have a life of their own. I have added one of the original scans for you to see the the image straight from the negative. Maybe that is a look you are wanting for your next project. 

All in all I am looking forward to shooting this film stock again this spring and summer. A positive experience shooting expired Superia 800!

Take care and keep shooting film,

Jeremy Shane Reid