My interest in photography began about three years ago when I picked up a digital camera and starting taking the same images that any photography noob would take: long exposures, landscapes, still lifes, sometimes street photography.
I shot everything that was “interesting” to me: a leaf, my dog, a tree, editing them, putting them on the Web, and waiting for the big likes (they never came/or did they? You’ll never know). But the process didn’t give me any real satisfaction. Last month, I bought my first film camera, a Nikon F3, this camera has changed the way I shoot, and been the single best investment in any piece of gear in years. Shooting on film isn’t some indulgent trip down a nostalgic lane though. It has snapped me out of the digital malaise and reminded me what it means to actually make a photograph. What on earth am I actually talking about here? Well, our DSLRs turned us into the equivalent of photographic sloths. We wander about with too much gear, sluggish pulling the camera up, staring at our LCDs and wondering where all the love and emotion went.
“Why shoot film?” Film is expensive. It is slow to process. It is time consuming to process. It can take weeks between shooting and having images available to share. Why would you waste your time with film when you can do it better, faster and cheaper with digital?
Well,
With film the film sets the ‘ISO’ for me so I am just left with aperture and shutter speed. For me film has a psychology effect where I don’t want to ‘waste an image’(again it’s expensive ((I’m Kutchi))). I am much more intentional in what I choose to take a picture of. I am lucky to make it home with two rolls shot. If you are a digital shooter and you want to better understand this ‘handicap’ go for a walk and limit yourself to 36 shots but do your best to ensure everyone of them is a keeper. It will be harder than you think.
I am working to break this a bit and try a few shots of each scene as I think I will ultimately get more keepers this way but I really enjoy being slowed down by film
How old is the oldest digital photograph you have, and where is it stored? Unless you’re incredibly organized, much of your first digital archives have already been lost. All it will take is one little knock and the hard drive with the last five years of holiday snaps and your only backup of them could suddenly be gone permanently – technology isn’t built to last forever.
The advent of digital photography brought with it some problems of its own, namely ephemerality. Both by intention and by accidental loss, photographs from the beginning of the digital age have either already vanished or are at high risk of never being seen again. There is indeed talk of a forgotten century because of our reliance on digital technology over tangible objects.
Man.. you get to see the world in full frame!
Many digital cameras have a crop factor of at least 1.5, which means digital photographers see the world in a semi-telephoto state all the time. A 50mm lens on a film camera does not have the same angle of coverage on a dSLR with a 1.5 crop factor, as it is now effectively a 75mm lens. (Full-frame digital cameras are available,(and are f*kn expensive) but if you don’t have one, you’re seeing the world through your lens differently.)
Sometimes i wonder if film is worth the trouble— it costs 150rs for a roll of 36 exposures, (4 RS per clicked photo) and 400rs to get them developed and scanned (which gets the total to about 15rs per photo) and it takes about a week to get them back from the photo lab, that week goes by thinking about if I got the shot I wanted right as there is no way to see it. The digital approach is objectively easier (not simpler, just easier), quicker, and more malleable. But I’ve discovered that, in the end, it’s not the medium I find most enjoyable, but the whole creative process. It’s palpable… it’s real. Nowadays in a world where nothing is real anymore. Getting physical photos in the end is the best part. memories matter. This is me being real.
