Ultimate Slow Photography: When No One Prints or Scans Specialist Negs

For those of you who aren’t familiar with it, the Sprocket Rocket from Lomography.com is a 35mm panoramic camera that exposes the entire width of the film, sprocket holes and all.

The plastic lens has a good amount of barrel distortion and the focus starts to blur at the edges of the frame. It has two apertures—f/11 and f/16 for cloudy/dull and sunny conditions respectively—and the shutter is set either to ‘N’ for Normal (1/60th of a second) or ‘B’ for Bulb (hold it down for as long as you like to keep the shutter open and let more light fall on the film). As for focus, there are two settings: one for close subjects (0.6-1m away) and one for faraway vistas (1m to infinity).

You can also take multiple exposures on the same frame and wind film forwards and backwards for all sorts of crazy creative effects. I haven’t gone down that route just yet, but I’m sure I will.

When the film is processed and scanned, because the entire film is visible in the final image, you can see the markings on the film such as the type of film (make and model) and frame number—as well as the sprocket holes, of course.

But that’s the issue: “when [it’s] processed and scanned.”

In my limited experience so far with this little treasure, there isn’t a lab that can either print or scan the entire width of the film. My usual lab, AG Photolab, can print and scan the bit in between the sprockets (as they use the sprockets as guides for the processing and scanning) and the results of that alone are stunning—the panoramic sprocket-less images from the first roll with the Rocket were printed on 5x14” paper—but nowhere seems to be able to reproduce those sprocket holes.

The Rocket does have a little insert, which can be put into the camera before loading a film to create panoramic sprocket-less negs, but where’s the fun in that?! I want sprocket holes!

Anyway, moaning aside, AG processed the film and returned it to me so I could scan the negs myself on a flatbed scanner, my trusty Epson V500 Photo.

(Incidentally, if anyone has this scanner and is annoyed that you have to move the mouse between scans to wake the device back up again, which is tedious when you have 12 frames sitting on the glass, download the Epson Scan Common Updater v1.00+ From Epson support. You're welcome.)

The stencils provided with the scanner are great for ‘normal’ scanning (35mm, slides or 120 film) but for the Sprocket Rocket shots, you need to freestyle a little more. Thankfully, there are more Rocketeers out there who have navigated the same woes and helpfully blogged about it, so after a quick Google, I was able to scan them in at 3200 dpi to make decent sized photos.

The results are impressive. From the first film, I had 17 shots, 16 of which were good quality and, if I may say so myself, well shot. You can judge for yourselves below.

Comparing the sprocket-less prints with the shots as they were intended was like chalk and cheese. The areas of the frame punctuated with the sprockets add so much depth and height (or width for those portrait shots). The barrel distortion from the lens at the edges of the frame have more context. The natural railing off of the focus is subtle and pleasing to the eye.

I’d encourage you to seek out the weird and wonderful cameras on offer and get some wacky film while you’re at it—there are loads of films still available, from Kodak- and Fujifilm-produced film to lesser-known lomography films. Tell your story in a creatively different way.

Some sample photos from the Sprocket Rocket

• Find more Sprocket Rocket shots on Flickr, Lomography.com or my Instagram feed (@sinamorphoto).