Fly Away with Rollei Crossbird Slide Film

12

I shot two rolls of Rollei Crossbird 200 in my Lomography Diana F+ one late morning last October. The sun was out, which created the perfect lighting situation for this film. Vibrant blues and greens from the sky contrasted well with the yellows, oranges, and reds from the changing leaves. The Rollei Crossbird film captured these colors perfectly.

Since Rollei Crossbird is a slide film, it can be processed in either E-6 slide chemicals or C-41 color negative chemicals. As the name suggests, it is meant to be cross-processed. Therefore, I chose to cross-process the film in C41 color negative chemicals. I was pleasantly surprised in that not much resolution was lost in the cross-process development of this film.

Although I love my Diana F+ (it is, after all, a plastic camera with zone focusing), getting super crisp shots is out of the question. I have no doubt though, that the film has the capability to capture sharper images with the right camera. Rollei makes several other types of film, including Nightbird and Redbird, which are both rolled backward in the canister. Let me know if you try out any of these films, and what you find from the experience!


Hungry for film? Get your film fix from our online shop or one of our worldwide gallery stores!

written by sarah-addison-dobard on 2013-05-08 #gear #review #mediumformat-crossbird-rollei-120-iso200-200-xpro-crossprocess-film-lomo-agfa-vibrant-fall-leaves-color-autumn

12 Comments

  1. ropi
    ropi ·

    I used twice the 35mm crossbird... it was the first time I used slide film, and I wasn't really pleased with the results... they lost a LOT of resolution and turned out super grainy... there are a few of pics that can be "saved" :/ I expected a lot of it, specially because it's so expensive!

  2. maaikel
    maaikel ·

    Just tried my first Redbird 35mm 400iso. Shot it at 250iso in my Canon EOS. The colours on the prints are verry warm red, but dark. The scans (as you see here) turned out more orange, but lighter. I've a second roll waiting think I'll use one of my lomo camera's for that one. Just make sure you have a lot of light! www.lomography.com/homes/maaikel/walls/216019-montreal-in-r…

  3. quigs
    quigs ·

    These are with rollei redbird www.lomography.com/homes/quigs/albums/1930518-redscaling-bo… with the right amount of lights it's awesome!

  4. istionojr
    istionojr ·

    is that the same between rollei crossbird 200 and cr 200; www.lomography.com/homes/istionojr/albums/1672651-touch-ina… ?

  5. sarah-addison-dobard
    sarah-addison-dobard ·

    @istionojr Thanks for sharing your pics! Yours say Rollei Retro CR 200. I'm sure it's similar.

  6. sarah-addison-dobard
    sarah-addison-dobard ·

    @maaikel Thanks for the link to your pics! I have a Canon EOS too and I love it. Redscale is really hard to expose; I always underexpose it. Will have to try again.

  7. sarah-addison-dobard
    sarah-addison-dobard ·

    @maaikel Thanks for the link to your pics! I have a Canon EOS too and I love it. Redscale is really hard to expose; I always underexpose it. Will have to try again.

  8. sarah-addison-dobard
    sarah-addison-dobard ·

    @quigs Lovely, thanks!

  9. sarah-addison-dobard
    sarah-addison-dobard ·

    @ropi That's disappointing, especially since film is expensive both to purchase and develop. I've found with slide film it's easy to lose resolution if its overexposed. At the same time it needs a lot of light, especially since most are rated at ISO 100 (or 200 in this case with Crossbird). I mostly shoot slide film in the daytime when it's sunny.

  10. ropi
    ropi ·

    @sarah-addison-dobard yes, it was really dissapointing! but I know it was my first time using slide film, so maybe some of the pics are badly exposed, but the resolution results are a problem during developing... sadly, there's no other choices here of slide film :/ it's the rollei or nothing! :O

    Here I leave you the links to my albums with the Rollei Crossbird:
    www.lomography.com/homes/ropi/albums/1926966-27-my-1st-xpro
    www.lomography.com/homes/ropi/albums/1928819-29-celeste-x-p…

  11. sarah-addison-dobard
    sarah-addison-dobard ·

    @ropi I think you are being too critical of yourself because these albums that you shared are great! Did you cross-process the film or do slide / E6 processing? I'm no expert, but the colors look a bit too muted and natural, especially the skin tones, to have been cross-processed. I think you have some lovely exposures here, and the ones that are a bit grainy I like, because you can tell they are film shots rather than digital.

  12. ropi
    ropi ·

    thanks!! and yes, they were cross processed (in my city there's no place where develop with E6 process:/ ) and that's why a bit of my dissapointment, because I was expecting those saturated colors s o characteristic of the Xpro, but I got warm tones, which are lovely but not what I was expecting! :P

More Interesting Articles