My friend Mike invited me to go do photography at an event again, this time at the Ohio Renaissance Festival. I was excited to get out and shoot of course knowing there would be plenty of fun mini events, costumes, and the environment they've created is just so great.
But when I got to his house, he met me with a surprise - the offer to go through a few rolls of film on his Canon A-1. I had never shot film before, so I was nervous to take on the proposition to use up rolls of precious film but he insisted because he wanted to see what I could do with it.
And I had a blast.
I get the desire now. I understand why people gravitate towards it - it's not just about the results, but the experience is something else. You have to take your time, set yourself up in ways you may not have had to think of when shooting digital. You have to be conscious of how much is left in the canister, which makes the decision to take each shot much more precious. Every shot is a true commitment to the moment.
And ugh, I'm such a sucker for old mechanical pieces of tech. Feeling that shutter, the tension of the advance lever, and all of those glorious sounds... it's definitely something else that just can't be replicated with digital.
It'll certainly challenge you as well - fortunately I had already been familiarizing myself with manual focus-only lenses, but when you know you have to nail the focus the first time it adds a different pressure. It makes you really sit with the subject longer, no longer taking quick shots and praying for the best. Personally, I don't think that my framing has ever been better, a natural result of slowing down and checking your angles.
And then there is the development process itself, of course. I ran through a roll of Ektar 100 and Portra 400 (again, thanks to Mike for allowing me to go through top-tier film!) and the results were pretty stunning to see for the first time - I actually enjoyed the process of developing the film in chemicals, and working "blind" while extracting the film into the canister was certainly something else. Trying to scan two rolls in one night was a bit of a slog that I probably wouldn't do again, but I found the variability of film to be interesting... there was a bit of a green cast and we couldn't figure out why (mostly with the Portra 400 shots), so I had to delve in heavily into learning color correction tools to get the results you're seeing now. Some of the photos definitely work better than others, but by and large I'm really happy with the "keeper" ratio from my first time 🙂
Here is a good example of a green cast that I couldn't quite fix - and it turned out to be one of my favorite photos of the day, which is somewhat disappointing that I haven't been able to "recover" it in the way that I want (it's mostly still visible in the deep shadows), but if I set aside perfectionism I think it still really works well! And a genuine thanks to the vendor in the background for adding a bit of joy to the composition 😁
Shooting the events was a blast as well - utilizing a manual lens with fast moving action is certainly a skill on its own, needing to be very aware of your focus and planning to set up the shot in advance. I really had to test this during the Equestrian Chaos event as well as watching the Cincinnati Barbarians, but I really love the results here as well (even though I admittedly missed focus with the Equestrian Chaos performers as you'll see).
Overall, I'm still largely on the fence about film in general - while there are ways to do it somewhat affordably, it's certainly not a "cheap" hobby, and you certainly don't get the same amount of flexibility as you would with a RAW file from a digital camera, that's for sure. It's a tradeoff - are you willing to risk losing a great shot to something that is largely out of your control? Or do you prefer to be able to guarantee you have the shot and the most flexibility possible?
It's certainly yet to be seen if I want to truly make the switch. I may need another round or two to see if this is a process I would truly want to commit my effort to - but the results do speak for themselves in a lot of ways that draw me in, and I'd be lying to deny that part of me wants to jump in wholeheartedly.
