An Introduction to Shooting Film
Introduction
It’s no secret that analog film is having a resurgence. Digital cameras these days are so powerful. As someone that shoots the bulk of his professional work with Canon R6 mirrorless cameras, I can attest to how quick and accurate the autofocus is, how good the sensors are, and the incredible low light performance packed into these (relatively) small cameras. With AI making it’s way into our workflow, a lot of the fun stuff is being taken away from us and we are left feeling under challenged. So what do we do when the modern shooting experience becomes stale? Well we take a step back… a lot of steps back actually. Film is the overcorrection that I needed when I started getting lazy. I regressed to some bad habits. When your camera cant miss and you can get usable work at nearly any ISO, who wouldn’t lose their edge a little bit? Film will punish every mistake in glaring fashion. It will also force you to really slow down. If you go deep enough down the rabbit hole and start developing, scanning, and printing your own film, you will challenge yourself to learn more about color theory. Make no mistake, this is probably the most expensive way to push your photography to the next level but it can also be the most rewarding. If you are interested in dipping your toes in film, this is the article for you. Enjoy.
Cameras
When choosing a film camera theres a few things to consider. There’s a bunch of different film formats. For the sake of this article we are going to focus on two. The dominant film formats on the market are 35mm and 120. 35mm film is the most common and offers the best value. Each roll is good for 24 or 36 exposures and there are a ton of options on the market. If you are getting into shooting film as a way to deviate from the monotony of shooting digital, I highly recommend an older mechanical camera. Sure, you could go get a Canon EOS 3 and slap an EF mount lens on there with sophisticated autofocus and multi field light meter, but how is that really any different from how you are already doing things? Wether it is 35mm or 120, I am partial to the older cameras. Older cameras and lenses are imperfect what they lack in advanced features, they more than make up for it in character.
Here is a list of some 35mm cameras I recommend:
ENTRY LEVEL
Canon AE-1
Pentax K1000
Olympus OM-10
Contax G1
Nikon FM2
Nikon F3
PREMIUM
Leica m6
Contax G2
So we have covered 35mm cameras. Let’s get into my personal favorite; 120. This is medium format film which is great because it is a much larger negative, the cameras have a lot more quirks, and the images really have a unique “look”. Medium format cameras come in all kinds of shapes and sizes. Some have waist level view finders, some are rangefinders, and some are SLR style cameras. These do tend to come at a higher price point but these cameras will offer you something you will not get with your full frame digital cameras. The depth of field you get with these cameras looks wild. With the negatives being so much bigger, your f2.8 and even f4 lenses allow you to get incredibly blurry backgrounds. Another benefit of shooting 120 film is that you can scan/print these images at astronomical sizes.
Heres a few of my favorite medium format film cameras:
ENTRY LEVEL
Bronica SQ-AI
Bronica ETRS
Fujifilm GW690II
Yashica Mat 124G
Mamiya RB67
Mamiya 645
PREMIUM
Mamiya RZ67
Hasselblad 500CM
Pentax 67
Contax 645
Mamiya 7
Film
Choosing an appropriate film to shoot makes this process even more fun. The film you choose will influence how you shoot and what the final images are going to look like. Wether you shoot 35mm or 120, you need to choose what film you are going to shoot based off of what you are shooting. Film has a fixed sensitivity to light. Our digital cameras borrow this concept from film. While you can change the shutter speed and the aperture, once you load a roll of film, whatever ISO that film is rated at is what you are stuck shooting at (for that roll). So if you are shooting in lowlight, you might reach for a film thats rated for ISO 800 or even 3200. If you are in broad daylight or using a flash, you can use a lower ISO film. For the sake of this article, I am going to cover film that is available in both 35mm and 120.
Here are some of my favorite Black and White films (ranked)
Ilford HP5+
Ilford FP4
Fujifilm Neopan 100 Acros II
Kodak Tri-X
Ilford Ortho Plus
Here are some of my favorite Color films (ranked)
Kodak Portra 400
Fujifilm Pro400H (Discontinued in 35mm but seems to be readily available still in 120)
Kodak Gold 200
Cinestill 400D
Kodak Portra 160
There’s two other types of film that are worth mentioning. ECN-2 and Slide films are also pretty easy to find these days but beware, developing these films is a different stories. Both of these films offer amazing results but a lot of local labs wont touch any of it. Slide films like Kodak Ektachrome and Fuji Provia are fantastic. These are color transparency films so rather than having a negative, you actually have a positive image that just requires being backlit to view. A lot of the boutique labs will develop these slide films using the E6 process. ECN-2 is a little different. This is motion picture film. ECN-2 film is available in a number of different ISOs and they will be color balanced for either Daylight or Tungsten light sources. The issue with these films is that almost no lab is going to develop this for you and developing it on your own at home is not at all for a beginner. These films have something called a REMJET layer. This is an antistatic layer on the film so that when it runs quickly through a movie projector, it doesn’t catch fire. That being said, Cinestill is a company that repackages motion picture film without the remjet layer and sells it in 35mm and 120 sizes. Cinestill’s 800T is a cult classic film with its faster ISO and Tungsten balanced colors. I encourage you to explore all of the different options available to see what appeals to you most.
Developing your film
Ok so you have shot through a few rolls of film… now what? When you are first getting started, it makes sense to send your film off to be developed and scanned. There are a bunch of labs that offer mail in services. Here’s a few to check out The Darkroom, Indie Film Lab, and The FINDlab. If you do decide to develop and scan your own film you would save yourself a good chunk of money in the long run. I will write a separate article for home developing.
Scanning
Digitizing your film is as dense a subject as the film itself. There are a number of different ways to scan your film at home but we are going to focus on the main two.
Flatbed Scanner: This is the easiest and cheapest way of scanning your own film. Scanners like the Epson V600 have dedicated film holders and the program that comes with the scanner is designed for digitizing negatives. The pros are that it’s easy to learn and use, you can get really high resolution scans, and it doesn’t take much room. The con is really just that it is slow. It can take a few minutes to scan one single image and if you have a roll of 36 images, this can be a real hinderance.
Camera Scanning: Scanning with your DSLR/Mirrorless Digital camera has becoming increasingly popular. All you need is a camera, macro lens, copy stand, a film holder system, and a light source. It does cost a bit more to get into but this is by far the fastest way of scanning your film.
I will write a more in depth article on scanning film in the near future.
If you have any questions, shoot me a message on Instagram!
