Shooting Expired Fuji Velvia 100 at Kew Gardens
This week marks an important milestone as this blog is number one hundred! It’s one that’s crept up on me the past few weeks, but what better way to celebrate it than with my first ever trip to Kew Gardens armed with an expired roll of Fuji Velvia 100 in my Nikon F100. Thankfully it is a lot less expired than last week’s Kodak Ektachrome 64, this one only passed its best in 2013, so it is less than a decade old. With my previous attempts at shooting an expired roll of Fuji Sensia 200 yielding images that were slightly overexposed, I thought I’d try shooting this roll at its original box speed. A decision that proved to be the right one.
For those few who are unfamiliar with Kew Gardens, this three-hundred-acre botanical garden houses one of the largest botanical and mycological collections in the world and was founded in 1840. However, this was built upon the legacy of previous exotic garden, which was founded by Henry Capell, 1st Baron Capell of Tewkesbury and was later expanded by Augusta, Dowager Princess of Wales, who was the mother of King George III. It’s Palm and Temperatures houses are two of the most enduring symbols of Victorian architecture which are amongst the multiple Grade I & II listed buildings on site. From ancient trees to giant lilies, to cacti and everything in between, there’s no better place for the horticultural enthusiast to be.
I could sit here and write thousands upon thousands of words about Kew, but I will let the images do the talking. There’s so much more I could have shot but with only one thirty-six shot roll of film you can’t capture everything. But that’s part of the fun! What was great about this shoot is it proved how useable expired slide film can be, even when it hasn’t been stored properly, provided it is less than a decade old. If you see anything like this up for sale you can almost assume it is as good as fresh and you are mostly likely picking it up at a big discount. I did bring my tripod on the day which, thankfully you are allowed to use in Kew, but it did help that this was Velvia 100 and not Velvia 50. Once again, the light meter in the Nikon F100 was spot on despite it being rather primitive compared to modern DSLR and mirrorless cameras and the limitations of slide film’s dynamic range. I can assure you there will be plenty more blogs like this in the future, so long as I can find the right expired film!
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