I started a roll of Lomography’s Lomochrome Metropolis in Montreal, Quebec after finishing up a roll of Street Savvy 400. These shots were from Summer 2025, and it took me nearly another year to finish the roll and get it developed. This is my first roll of Metropolis and it probably won’t be my last, but I’ll probably use a different camera next time. I find the shadows and underexposed frames to be really ugly on this film. Almost no detail, and an ugly muddy brown color that I’ve corrected a little bit in these shots, and it’s still pretty ugly. I think this is a tough film with the Hi-Matic, particularly, because it’s a totally automatic camera so I have nearly no control over the exposure. Add to that the fact that the meter tends to underexpose due to the voltage difference between modern batteries and the mercury batteries it was designed for, and the fact that Lomochrome Metropolis doesn’t have a specific box speed (it says 100-400 speed) and I find this film really hard to shoot in the Hi-Matic…
…But when the exposure is just right and the subject suits the film, the results are pretty spectacular! The first few frames in this gallery really work for me! If I shot this combo again, I’d shoot the whole roll in a city, doing street photography and being careful to keep the sky out of the frame. The Hi-Matic does a great job exposing skies, to the detriment of everything else in the frame. But when the exposure is even and the subject is street-level, the resulting photos are gritty and characterful with a sort of sheen to them that looks really cool. On to the images!
Gallery: Lomochrome Metropolis in the Minolta Hi-Matic F
