Photography from the past
I’m old enough to remember analogue cameras, film rolls and negatives. My first ever memory was from a Canon 110ED pocket camera my grandfather used to own. I remember it vividly because of its “weird” looking film cartridge, but more specifically because it was one of the last vacations I remember taking with him.
We were in Kefalonia, the island where my family is from, and had taken an evening road trip to the nearby castle. The whole family was there and my grandfather wanted to capture our moments together. At one point he handed me the camera and I remember being fascinated by it. He let me take a couple of pictures, which ended up horrible, but I still have them somewhere.
Since then, I remember using those single-use, cheap, film cameras you could buy at a corner shop to commemorate family trips, but I never owned a camera of my own until they all went digital and things were a lot easier as you could see the shot before hitting the shutter, and you could take the same picture over and over again.
I wonder how people use to do things back then…
We’ve all asked this question before for one reason or another. “How on earth did people do business before emails were invented?”. “How could someone find their route without google maps?”.
About a year ago, I asked a similar question about analogue cameras. So I decided to buy my very first film camera to give it a try and get a first-person experience of what it used to be like. At least remind myself of what my experience was in my early years in life.
Welcome Canon EOS 650
I found an online shop specializing in old camera gear looking for an inexpensive film camera with interchangeable lenses, ideally from Canon so I could use my existing glass lineup. There is certainly a variety of options to accommodate different wallets, but since I had hardly any experience with film photography, I didn’t want something that would break my bank. So after a bot on research, I ended up buying a Canon EOS 650.
When it arrived, I was over the moon with it and wanted to start using it straight away. That was when I hit my first “digital-first” hurdle. How on earth do you power it up and where on earth do you find this weird-looking, never-seen-them-before batteries? The answer is eBay.
Nevertheless, I finally got my hands on a couple of these, picked a Kodac Portra 400 film and mounted my nifty-fifty 1.8/f lens on and hit the streets of Austin Texas.
That’s when I hit my second hurdle. How do you know what’s the right exposure? I was used to my digital camera indicating this on screen. If the bar is off, play around with your f-stop or shutter speed, depending on the look you want, or even adjust your ISO. But how do you know where are you at on an analogue camera?
The answer is practice. When you get the pictures back you can tell what went wrong and adjust your future setting accordingly. But that meant I burned through a few rolls to adjust to it and get my setting rights, and every roll means a hefty investment each time.
The magic of film photography
Knowing that every shutter click costs money, it helps you focus and take time to ensure you get the best out of the given circumstance. Taking time means thinking through the right exposure settings, your composition, better analysing your environment and shifts in light conditions, have a better perspective of the focal ranges and the look you’re going after. You have to do all this before you take a photo because you only have one chance and every click counts.
This process has actually helped me see photography in a completely different perspective and understand the different settings of my camera and the ways a small decision can influence the aesthetic outcome at an even more granular level.
I was falling in love with an old practice that made me use my head and best judgment rather than rely on technology to automate all these for me. So I decided to take the next step and start producing my own films and maybe even produce my pictures.
But it also meant that I started looking at other SLR cameras to play around with. And that’s when I came across the beauty of a camera that is the Minolta X370. When I opened the box, instead of taking it out for a spin, my first reaction was to place it on the table and admire it for a while. So I decided to make a short video about it and demonstrate the exciting process of loading up a film roll on your camera, mounting your favorite lens and hitting the streets to start making memories.
Making this video was one of the most enjoyable activities in recent months. I had thought through every single shot beforehand as I knew exactly the story I wanted to tell. The only irony in this story is that I used a digital camera to film the process of shooting analogue. But watching this video back, it makes me fall even deeper in love with film photography.
Let me know your memories or experiences with film photography.
Till next time…
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