Out To Lunch: A Trip To Vagueira With The Ilford Pixie 35-II And A Roll Of Expired Film

Out To Lunch: A Trip To Vagueira With The Ilford Pixie 35-II And A Roll Of Expired Film

The plan was to go to Nazaré, big wave country, with the Zeh Goldi, the Pixie, and the Zeiss Ikon Nettar 517/16. But plans change, and that trip is postponed for a week or so. Instead, we decided to go to Vagueira for lunch at a lovely family-owned restaurant that specialises in fish dishes. Sardine season is just kicking off, so this is the main reason for going, but I'm very particular about eating fish and although I like the taste, I'm definitely not partial to the myriad small bones ('spinhas' in Portuguese) that seem to make up the average sardine. So instead I went for the grouper, which was absolutely amazing.

Anyhoo, our change of plans meant that I had to rejig slightly the cameras that I took with me. Instead of the Pixie, the Nettar and the Zeh Goldi, I decided to take the Pixie, the Lomography Diana F+, and the Zeiss Ikon Contessa. There were no images from the Diana, and the post about the Contessa can be found here (https://keithdevereux.wordpress.com/2026/06/22/filling-the-gaps-with-another-35mm-folding-camera-the-zeiss-ikon-contessa-533-24/). So this post will concentrate on the Ilford Pixie 35-II and a roll of extremely expired film. I have a small collection of expired films, and among these is a roll of Requa colour film that expired in May 1992. There seems to be a lot of this film available in Portugal, I've seen it offered in several shops online, though I can't find that much about it. Apart from that the batches are generally from the 1990s.

I'd bought this single roll from the batch at Cano Ameralo in Porto just as a test, and if I like it I'll get some more (Edit: I might get some more). It went into the Pixie as I'm keen to try some low ISO film on a sunny day at the widest aperture, to get maximum blur. I calculated that applying the 'give one stop extra exposure for every 10 years past the expiry date' rule, I should expose the film at roughly ISO 12, which coincidentally gave an exposure of f8 at 1/100s according to the Camera Meter app.

I exposed the whole roll at the widest aperture, and took it to Forever Blue for development. As this was a test, and I wasn't sure if I would get anything, I selected the develop only option. When the negatives came back, I was actually quite impressed; there were images! They were fainter than I had hoped, I reckon this film would have benefitted from a couple of stops more of exposure (ISO 6, anyone?) but there were definitely images. I scanned the film at home with an Epson Perfection v750 Pro flat bed scanner and Epson Scan software. If you're interested, I’ve posted the whole series in an album on my Flickr (https://www.flickr.com/gp/147583812@N06/010up8P8Tr).

After scanning, the images were very soft and 'hazy'. Part of this was a result of the camera, of course, but I reckon that the 30-year-old film had a lot to do with it. However, at least the combination of the sunny day and a wide open aperture produced something from this film. I went to town on the images with Snapseed, and after some experimentation with the curves, brightness, and contrast, I think I got some nice images from the day. I'll probably invest in another roll of Requa, but I won't use it in the Ilford Pixie again. (But I do have a roll of expired Fuji Superia that I think might be ideal in the Pixie.)

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