For my Frugal Film Project May 2024 roll, I decided to take my film camera with me on a trip North to Grand Lake St. Mary’s on May 18th. The last of the migrating birds were heading through the area and I was hoping to see a few new species before Spring Migration ended and we settled into our usual collection of inhabitants for the area.

I used my trusty Nikon F80 and the roll of EZ400 to document what I saw along the way, while I also had my Nikon D850 and 500mm PF lens for bird opportunities.

Before I left the house at 7am, I saw that there was a general fog warning for the area. It wasn’t that bad at home, so I doubted that I would see much. As I headed into downtown Dayton, the fog became thicker.

By the time I headed North out of Dayton on State Route 49, the fog was growing very thick with no signs of letting up. I stopped for a while at the Abbotsville Cemetery to shoot some images of memorials in the fog.

After a while longer on the road, I made it to Grand Lake St. Mary’s, where the fog had mostly dissipated. Just a little bit hanging around to make it look hazy in the distance.

I didn’t see many birds while I was in the area. The one new lifer bird that I added was a Black Tern. He was flying around catching bugs in the air near the Fish Hatchery on the West side of the lake. This image was a difficult capture, as his flight pattern made it feel like trying to photograph a large tree swallow, with his dynamic changes in direction and speed.

I made it home in the early afternoon and shot the last two shots of the roll at my house.

Later that day I developed it and some other films. I’ve developed it in Rodinal before, but only in Semi-Stand method. I decided to try a 1:25 mix and developed it for 5.5 minutes @20c, with gentle inversions every 60 seconds. I’m quite pleased with the images, and also how well the film handles different developers.

Thanks for reading, and stay tuned for next month’s roll.

Jeremy