5 Frames with the Pentax Spotmatic F and Kodak Gold 200 – By Jérémie Schuler

I’m a French Sales Engineer living in Berlin, also working part time as a photographer and videographer. Over the years, I just managed to get rid of the French accent, but not my passion for great mechanics, or capturing images.

My analog photography started thanks to adapting vintage lenses to my first digital camera. I wanted something that gives a vintage aspect but still with a respectable image quality. Then I remembered that my parents had a Fujica ST801 somewhere in the basement. I challenged myself for the next month to take this camera on a solo trip in Vietnam. Because, why not?! The pictures are not worth showing, the camera had light leaks and the light meter wasn’t very accurate. But I just loved handling this camera. So I decided to find an SLR in good shape as soon as I’m back in Europe.

After trying different SLRs, I settled with a Pentax Spotmatic F as my go to travel and everyday camera. It was important to me to have a mechanical camera with a built-in light meter, no aperture or shutter priority. A simple camera, easy to operate. Something that just feels great in my hands, like my parents’ Fujica. Pentax made an excellent camera that feels well built and will probably last me a life-time if I decide so.

Regarding lenses, I switch between the well-known Super-Takumar 50mm f/1.4 and the 28mm f/3.5. If you read a lot of articles about analog photography, you probably heard about these lenses. Long story short, they’re great!

When I started with film photography, I tried to test every film stock possible. Kodak Gold sits in the market as a consumer film, not a professional one. For this you have Portra or Fuji Pro 400h. But I believe that each film stock exists for a good reason. Beyond the sharpness, latitude or grain structure, some film just have an emotional identity. Kodak Gold is the consumer film stock you can take with you for a picnic, a walk with friends or whilst traveling.

Just look at the amount of people releasing Lightroom presets named “Kodak Summer”, “Kodak Tones” and so on. And it’s dirt cheap. You can currently get 3 rolls of 36 exposures in Germany for 13€.

I never really know what I’m going to get, but that’s exactly what I’m looking for. Some pictures in direct sunlight gave me a greenish aspect, others more warm yellow. In a sense, it can look a bit dreamy, and this is exactly what I expect from a film that is meant for capturing memories​.

I shot half the roll this summer during random walks in Berlin, the rest has been shot by my girlfriend – she’d never shot film before. And we are both truly in love with how the pictures that turned out.

Find me on instagram @jeremie.slr

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