I’ve been wanting to visit Lac de Gaube for quite some time. It’s a bit far from where I live, and to really experience it properly, I knew I’d need to spend the night there. This past Saturday morning, with nothing in particular planned, I thought — why not? I decided to go for it and headed out to buy some basic backpacking gear.
I picked up a lightweight tent, a sleeping bag, and an air mattress. Not wanting to miss my train, I hopped on an electric scooter to get to the station quickly. From there, I caught a train to Lourdes, then a bus to Cauterets, and finally another bus to Le Pont d’Espagne — the trailhead that leads up to the lake.
In my backpack, I packed two lenses: my new Sigma 24mm f/1.4 HSM wide-angle and my trusted Nikkor 55mm f/2.8 AIS. I would’ve loved to bring my Zeiss lenses, but the extra weight just wasn’t worth it for a hike like this.
As for film — I shot part of the hike on a rare roll of Recordak 5786, an obscure high resolution Kodak microfilm rated between ISO 20 and 50, which I stumbled across months ago, maybe even a year back. I haven’t seen any for sale since. Online, there are only a handful of posts about developing it — usually in Rodinal or other high-contrast developers. I, as always, chose POTA, which tends to bring out much smoother tonal transitions and preserves shadow detail beautifully when working with microfilms.
Here’s a shot of me in front of my brand new tent at Lac de Gaube. When I arrived on Saturday evening, the sky was overcast and the air was chilly. I set up the tent — a lightweight model weighing just 900 grams, which I really appreciated given the extra load of cameras and lenses I was carrying. I was hoping the weather would clear by morning — and fortunately, it did. I woke up to blue skies and crisp mountain light, perfect for exploring and shooting the roll.
As I was loading the film in my F5, I noticed it had a purplish tint — an unusual color for 35mm. I wasn’t sure if the emulsion had held up after all those years, but fortunately, the roll developed just fine. In fact, it seems to have retained its impressively high resolution.
I shot the roll at ISO 6. Kodak rates it between ISO 20 and 50, but that’s typically meant for high-contrast reproduction work. For pictorial use, I believe the effective ISO is lower. Still, because I was using a wide-angle lens, I was surprisingly able to get a few decent handheld shots—wide angles are generally more forgiving when it comes to slower shutter speeds. That said, I definitely prefer the ones I took with a tripod. They seem a little sharper.
The yellow box this roll came in was marked “Develop before 12/1980.”
That was 44 years ago. While the images aren’t perfect tonally, I’m genuinely impressed by how good they look for a film that expired over four decades ago.
At the top of the waterfall shown in the image, you can see a triangular-shaped mountain protruding on the right. This is “La Pique Longue” — Vignemale, the highest peak in the French Pyrenees.
The white arrow marks the spot near the Refuge des Oulettes de Gaube, where I had originally planned to spend the night. The blue arrow, located at the southern end of Lac de Gaube, shows where I actually ended up camping. Since I only bought my gear on Saturday morning, I had to take a later train than expected — which pushed everything back. By the time I reached the trailhead and hiked up to the lake, it was already Saturday evening, so I set up camp near the blue arrow. On Sunday, I managed to get much closer to the white arrow and the refuge, but with time running short, I decided to play it safe. Rather than pushing on and risking missing my connection, I turned back earlier than planned to make sure I caught all my buses and train home.
Unfortunately, this shot didn’t turn out well. The Sigma lens is known for flaring, and pointing it almost directly at the sun wasn’t the brightest idea. On top of that, the matrix metering exposed for the highlights, leaving the rest of the scene too dark. I had also screwed on an ND filter, hoping to capture a long exposure of the waterfall — but no luck this time.
I had also brought along a roll of ORWO DN21 to shoot, but for some reason, it didn’t turn out at all. I had made the effort — set up the tripod, took long exposures, the whole works — but something must have gone wrong. It looks like the roll may have been exposed at some point, as the entire film came out with a dark background and very little image detail.
This was originally supposed to be an ORWO + Recordak review, but in the end, only the 44-year-old Recordak made it into the article. Funny how that happens.
This trip to Lac de Gaube was short, spontaneous, and far from perfect — but that’s what made it memorable. Between the last-minute gear, the rare expired film, and the unpredictable weather, everything could have gone wrong, yet somehow it all came together. Shooting RECORDAK 5786 in such a stunning setting was a unique experience, and while the film may have been made for documents, it held up surprisingly well out in the wild. I may not have made it to the refuge this time, but that just gives me a reason to return — next time, with more time, and maybe a few extra rolls.
RECORDAK 5786 Specs:
- Type: Panchromatic microfilm, silver-halide, medium-speed, fine-grain
- Use: High-resolution copying of documents, books, technical drawings
- Resolution:
- 630 lines/mm at high contrast (1000:1)
- 180 lines/mm at low contrast (1.6:1)
- ISO (ASA): Rated between 20 and 50, depending on exposure conditions.
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