Frugal Film Project – Marius-Andrei Voicu

Meet Marius-Andrei Voicu, he’s a 32-year-old automotive engineer from Bucharest, Romania (EU). For the 2020 edition of this awesome project, he has chosen 4 used cameras.  They are: Kodak Twin 20, Smena 8M, Zorki 4 and Fed 2 or 3.  All have been outsourced from the local gray market, from guys or gals that didn’t know what they had. After swearing that he will not buy any Russian or crappy German cameras during last year’s edition of the FFP, now he will be using three Russian cameras (that he hopes will work as advertised). The first cameras (Kodak Twin 20 and Smena 8M) have been tested and are working as they should, but for the last two, some further tests are in order.  

Marius is going to use four different film stocks this year for the 2020 edition of the project (sourced locally, of course) shot in the following order: HP5, Lomo 800, Ektar and Tri-X. While Lomo 800 is the only stock that he did not test, he has had very good results with the others. Development will be done at a local lab, F64, but one of his goals is to develop film at home this year since he bought film development gear and chemicals. He is scanning the film on the same Epson V550 scanner and some third-party software (SilverFast), since Epson’s is not that great.  

The first edition of the project was awesome, as expected. We have had the chance to meet and talk to some really talented and passionate people about film photography. Some have had issues with their cameras and had to replace them, but it was a fun experience. Having a goal, small as it is (to shoot 1 roll of 135 or 120 per month), can give you some discipline and create a good habit. Even if you have a photographer’s block, having this deadline makes you go out and shoot, and get out of the creative rut, so it has only benefits. 

He is active in a few film photography communities on Twitter (@kondor_konami), can be found on Instagram (kondor_konami) and Facebook (Marius Andrei). In his spare time, you can find him out and about, shooting film on the streets of Bucharest, or where ever he is in that moment in time.