First roll of 120 film

Over the summer, after getting familiar with film photography through my Hogla 135BC and a Canon AE-1, I decided to take the leap into medium format.  I found a new Diana F+ on eBay for $35.  It seemed to good to be true, as the Lomography website sells them for $95 and the seller said they had included film with it.  I waited for the package to come, and it was perfect.  Unopened, the box contained everything that matched up with the description on the Lomography website and I also got 3 rolls of black and while 120 film (Lomography brand, 100 ASA).

If you're interested in getting a Diana F+, I really recommend either eBay or Amazon.  I got lucky with eBay, but you can get the camera without the flash on Amazon for less than $40 and the camera with the flash for about $80.  Although I love to drool over the lomography website, they're way overpriced.

It took me a while to get through the roll.  A whole semester, in fact.  Part of this was because I had no idea how to use 120 properly.  As I have now seen online, the Lomographic 120 black and white film is just cheap Shanghai brand film repackaged and marked up significantly.  Now there's nothing exactly wrong with the film- but it's not the easiest to use.  The backing paper is black, and the numbers that tell you what frame you're at are silver.  If that's not hard to see behind the little red door, I don't know what is, especially if you're nervous because it's your first roll!

Another problem I had was I loaded my film wrong the first time.  I don't really know how I did it, but I managed to shut the door on the roll of film the first time.  I realized the film wasn't advancing at all, had to open up the camera, and expose the film.  This is why I think I got the very high number of light leaks I did on my roll (there was one on almost every frame).  I finally finished the roll and didn't realize I had done so and tried to take a few more pictures before I realized I had no resistance when winding!  Obviously, 35mm film has spoiled me.

I had thought about processing my film at my local Ritz camera, where I usually drop off my 35mm rolls (only partly to talk to the cute guy that works behind the counter), but I had hear Walmart was significantly cheaper and had fine results.  So, two weeks and $8.23 later, I got 9 usable pictures from my roll of 16.  Not bad for a first try!  I only got 10 or so off of my first 35mm roll because I wasn't used to having to have a separate flash for indoor pictures.

So, on to some results!

My favorite from the roll.

Example of the light leaks I got on most of the roll

I think this picture really shows the feel of a Diana, even with the flash.

Overall, I was pretty happy with my first attempt's results, and I know that my next roll should get more pictures, as I loaded it properly!