Why I Returned to Film Photography

Digital cameras and DLSR’s are truly amazing. They’re fast, instant, they connect to WiFi, they’ll allow you to shoot in black and white or colour before going near Photoshop. So why am I even bothering with 35mm, analogue, film photography!?

It’s a good question. Why would anyone in their right mind return to endure this regressive, old, film technology? Before there was a time when digital cameras were still met with scepticism. The old “film feel” wasn’t there. The noise or grain of the images wasn’t the same as old film. But that’s not true of now. Digital photography has come so far, it’s really amazing.

Another thing lost to the digital world are the nostalgic rituals of a film photographer: The careful loading of film, making sure it’s clasped on to the camera’s spool that will wind and eventually hold on to some of your fondest memories. There’s also the lack instant image review. I don’t know how many times I stored film in the fridge only to have completely forgotten what was on the rolls. Or receiving prints back weeks after the I’ve taken the photo and actually forgetting a moment when I took a photo.

Warm, Fuzzy, Nostalgia

For it only takes less than a second to take a photo in the moment. And the time it takes for your brain to make that decision to the time your finger releases the shutter, even less than that. It’s a moment in time that’s gone in a flash, pardon the pun. So when you finally get around to get those rolls from last summer developed there’s always a nice surprise in there.

Each print is like a little trigger of nostalgia. Each time we’re taking photos, we’re usually in a happier moment. A camera usually comes out because whatever the moment is, we want it to keep going. We don’t want to forget it. Or we find beauty in things that we want to share with others. I certainly don’t recall ever having an argument with a friend or a loved one and feeling I wanted to take my camera out and take a picture of the moment! So when we collect our prints, there’s always a little excitement. A fond memory we can return to. A little jolt of nostalgia.

More Than a Feeling

Film photography is a little more than feelings of nostalgia, and old rituals. As a photographer, there’s a real skill and discipline to be learned from using an old 35mm camera, particularly if a lot of the functions are manual. I’m lucky to have 2 35mm cameras. One is an old Canon AE-1 Program which dates back as far as 1981, when they were first produced and the other a more modern Canon EOS 300X. The 300X automatically winds the film once it’s loaded. It has many more modern features but the AE-1 is really manual.

Having to focus manually really means a level of time is needed to get the best shot. This compounded with the fact rolls of film can be relatively expensive, especially when with digital, you have unlimited attempts at a particular shot. You can always delete bad photos and retake them the best you can. With film there’s a element of pressure to get the photo right the first time.

The Lazy Photographer

With digital photography, it was easy to rely on taking as many images as possible and then taking the best one or two from bunch. And while this will always be the way for most photographers, I got a little lazy and reliant on this. Too much so. A little photographer’s “secret” is that we may take a 1000 photos to get one image. OK, 1:1000 usable:unusable ratio isn’t great, I might be exaggerating to make a point, but you get what I mean. I noticed I became reliant on shooting by numbers and knowing I’m bound to hit on something usable. This was absolutely lazy of me.

Somewhere down the line I got corrupted by this. So I decided to begin again. I returned to my first roots in photography. Although digital was in full swing when I began photography, I still got a 35mm camera as my first camera. I still have childhood memories of collecting holiday photos from the pharmacy. But I returned to 35mm photography.  

A New Beginning

I picked up a relatively inexpensive Canon AE-1 Program. The first couple of rolls I burned through because I didn’t load the film correctly. It was about 12 years since I last loaded a fully manual film camera. What I learned is to be more patient. Wait for the moment. Pause to look. Pause to take in the air. Check settings. Re-check settings. Did, I mention check settings? Snap.

Knowing I spend nearly €5 on that roll of film, and that it may cost me another €9 or thereabouts to get prints, I realised that spending about €15 for every 36 frames of photos was going to be comparatively expensive, given that I can take 36 images on my digital camera in about 8 seconds for free. But there’s value in that €15 and I will make it cheaper as I’ll begin to process and then my own film which will bring the cost down to just the price of the roll of film. (more of that in February’s blog)

The Disciplined Photographer

Why I returned to film photography was the idea of slowing down and and returning to photography in a more manual, analogous way. Take the moment to observe, calculate and pre-plan. Yes, I still take “snaps” with the 35mm but overall, I’ve been more conscious of film speed, film types and manually focusing. Having to manually focus means that when I’m with my AE-1, I’m shooting more static objects and portraits. With the 300X, I’m able to take wider, quick images. But with not being able to see the images instantly, I’m making sure I’m giving more time to checking settings. I now take both cameras with me all the time. I find they really influenced and helped me with my digital photography.

I’m more aware of settings. Not that I wasn’t conscious before but my ability to resolve settings-related challenges is now speedier. In essence, I’m preparing quicker. I’m doing the calculations faster. I’ll still shoot 30gb or 50gb worth of images to pick only a handful of images but I find getting more usable images. I still have many images from one shoot, but now I have more quality images to choose from.

In February’s blog, I’ll showcase some of my film photography as well as how I save on scanning my own negatives as well as the advantages of digitising your film negatives.