We’re about a month away from my first film-iversary at the time of drafting this. If it seems like I’ve tried a lot of different techniques and different films for a newbie, that’s because I’m a deranged person with no self-control and not because I actually know jack shit (I don’t). So when I say that shooting FPP Sun had been a goal of mine for quite some time, please know that when I first found out about this film, I was by no means ready to shoot it.
I started shooting film in August of 2025. By Thanksgiving I was telling my sister (who has been shooting for a while and was a big enabler when I got started) about FPP Sun. Even back then, I could tell just how big of a gap there was between the photographer I was, and a version of myself who could reasonably shoot this film. What I didn’t know was how much fun I would have bridging that gap.
You need a few things to shoot a film this slow. First, a camera with manual controls. I don’t know that any camera lets you set the ISO to 1. I’m pretty lucky that mine goes down to 6. (Seriously, shoutout to my photographer friend who gifted me my Elan. That camera rules.)
Then, to actually get settings that’ll expose this film, you need either 1) a tripod and shutter release cable, or 2) a bright sunny day and a fast lens. I chose both, shooting about half the roll handheld and half on a tripod. This gave me a great excuse to buy my 50mm f/1.4 lens. It turned out to be money well spent. Seriously, I love the bokeh on this thing.
I definitely missed focus a bit, but that’s hard not to do when you’re shooting everything at f/1.4. I’ll cut myself a little slack here.
It was about as sunny as it gets that day, and none of my shutter speeds was faster than 1/60. Definitely dicey. It is fun getting to shoot wide open in broad daylight like this, and I like the effect, but I’m glad I didn’t shoot the whole roll like this.
My tripod may be a cheap piece of garbage, but it does the job- as long as I don’t raise it above 2-3 feet or so. I’ve learned to love low angles. I’ve also really learned to love night photography. A whole genre of photography, opened up to me thanks to my senseless pursuit of FPP Sun.
I took this roll to my favorite spot by the Chicago River. There’s a ledge where you can sit and watch the night herons for hours if you want.
I love how still they are; it makes them perfect for long exposures. I’ll forgive this one for moving its head slightly during a 45 second exposure:
Truly nothing can save a poor composition like that, but I love seeing how the water blurred out. A pal of mine referred to it as “PS2 game water,” which is pretty apt.
Next, I went down to the riverbank and took my favorite shot of the roll:
FPP Sun’s high contrast and high resolution really work well together here. The crisp rocks and branches contrast beautifully against the glassy-smooth surface of the water. And those colors! Who needs Lomochrome Purple?
You may notice there’s a cool cast to all these photos. FPP Sun is presumably a technical film like its slightly-faster cousin, FPP Low ISO Color. Most likely it leans cool for similar reasons. The cast was definitely not the same from photo to photo though, which was interesting. The photos below were all adjacent frames, though with how long the exposures were, I can’t guarantee they were all taken in the same lighting:
Time to briefly shame myself. I metered off the sky during sunset. Gee, how’d that turn out?
What I’d hoped to be a silhouette turned out to be an orangeish mess. At least this is the only truly irredeemable shot of the roll. There is a surprising amount of detail in the middle, if you zoom in, but that detail does not amount to an attractive photo in my opinion.
That shot was 18 minutes at f/16. The next was 48 minutes at the same aperture, the following evening:
That was definitely the longest exposure I’ve ever done. I even remembered to tape over my viewfinder to avoid light leaks. The number of mosquito bites I endured for that shot does not bear mentioning. It’s not stellar, but I’m thrilled given the circumstances- I wasn’t sure it’d turn out at all. Towards the end of the exposure it dawned on me that it was sunset…meaning the lighting I metered for was not the light I ended with. The exposure isn’t bad, though. I guess the better part of an hour gets you a lot of light!
When I went to finish off this roll, I realized I was at frame 23, so I decided to finish off the roll doing some long exposures in my bedroom. Turns out, the Film Photography Project is very generous with their respooling, and there were 29 frames on this roll. I’ll spare you most of these photos- the high resolution of FPP Sun is very revealing of the absolute chaos that is my bedroom right now- but I will leave you with this photo of my cat.
It’s not just the detail that strikes me here (seriously, if you zoom in you can see exactly what manga I was reading in mid-June). It’s the controlled blur that really gets me. This guy is eighteen years old and was taking a nap, but even he moves around a bit in the span of two minutes.
In a way, photography is a record of movement over time. Long exposures really drive home the contrast between things that move and things that don’t. Things that are alive and things that aren’t.
If I think about that too much, I might get all sad and introspective. Let’s throw in another river photo for good measure:
Ah, much better.
This roll was the culmination of a lot, but it’s definitely not an end by any means. I’ve already got another roll sitting on my dresser, waiting for summer vacation to arrive.
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