5 Frames of Kodak Double XX 5222 on a Pentax Espio 24EW in Madrid

I’m sure that I’m no different from most photographers when I travel – I always take far more gear than I end up using. In February had a 10 day work trip, with a couple of days of leisure, to the USA, and took my Nikon FA, 3 lenses and assorted ‘vital’ accessories. I used one lens. Maybe one of the filters. Didn’t use the speedlight. And I keep packing tripods & monopods that never seem to leave my luggage.

In April, my wife & I travelled to Madrid & London to visit our son and his girlfriend, I decided to take JUST ONE CAMERA.

Before I get to the camera, film & destination, a bit about how I’m travelling with film these days …. Like lots of things in the online analogue world, there are as many opinions & and as much ‘expert advice’ as you can shake a stick at. There is an excellent article on Silvergrain Classics by Lina Bessonova on damage to films thanks to the new CT scanners replacing the older x-ray machines at airports. And it you’re a watcher not a reader, here’s the YouTube version.

The other side of this coin are all the posts and comments along the lines of “my film went through 27 x-rays and 12 CT scanners and it’s fine”.

Am I an expert? No. I’m going defer to Lina’s advice.

Do I care if my films suffer even a ‘little bit’ of damage? Of course I do! My current strategy is to buy film, and have it posted to my first destination, and either have it developed before I leave, or on the last day, post it to a local lab. We were due to arrive in Madrid late on the day before Good Friday, and fearing delayed flight and small retailers closing early the night before a national holiday, I ordered a few rolls of Carmencita’s Kodak Double XX 5222 to be delivered to our hotel in time for our arrival.

I’ve been shooting mainly Ilford HP5 the last few months, but picked the Double XX for its inky & rich blacks and the tonal range, and – probably the best reason – I felt like a change.

There are two point & shoots in my collection – a Ricoh R1 that I’ve since new (mid 90s) and a Pentax Espio 24EW that I bought a few months ago. The Ricoh is a bit too point & shoot for me, with no real controls to play with (I suppose that’s the point of a point & shoot), although it’s small enough to fit in a trouser pocket and has a cool panoramic mode (which it does by masking part of the frame).

The Espio, for me, offers a little more: 24mm to 105mm zoom, although the lens seems very soft at 105; exposure compensation; ability to turn the flash off (even if the camera thinks it should be on); redeye reduction; and a diopter on the viewfinder.

The camera was released in 2003, right at the end of the film era, and would have been one of Pentax’s last models in the Espio range that started almost two decades earlier in 1986. The lens has 7 elements in 5 groups, the aperture ranges from f/4.9 to f/12 and the shutter from 2 seconds to 1/400, along with a Bulb mode (I haven’t played with that yet), autofocus with focus lock, portrait mode, it reads DX codes, while there’s no manual ISO setting it does have exposure compensation of +/- 2 stops and date mode (I’ve not used that either).

I was attracted to it for the 24mm as I’ve been shooting a bit at this focal length, thanks to a 24mm f/2 Nikon AI-S lens I picked up last year .. the focal length is wide, and you’ve got to get close for a decent image, but it’s not ‘crazy wide’ like 21mm or 17mm.

It is an easy camera to travel with – fits comfortably in a jacket pocket, easy to use, and it’s other appeal is that it doesn’t look ‘serious’ – I doubt anyone noticed it.

It was our second visit to Madrid, and this time the weather was nothing special (overcast with a bit of rain), but I find it an achingly beautiful city, absolutely walkable, full of amazing food, and this time with the added attraction of Easter parades.

And the film? Double XX is a Kodak motion picture film that needs to be re-rolled into 35mm cassettes. Carmencita do it, Cinestill do it, and there any number of other small suppliers also offering it. It was used to make feature films like Raging Bull, Manhattan, and Schlinder’s List.

I really like the results – great blacks, a good tonal range through the greys. And plenty of grain without it being overpowering.

Will I try to carry just one camera next time I travel? I’d like to say I will, but I like the morning decision making of “what’s going in the camera bag/jacket pocket today?” and the regret when I get home of “why did I take that bloody tripod/speedlight?”. But I can safely say the Espio will be joining me on a few more travel adventures.

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