How I got my first film camera
I have seen a lot of people complaining about YouTube’s machine learning algorithms being stupid and not really giving them anything they want to watch. I have a different experience — if I didn’t know any better, I would say YouTube has been having a dialogue with me. It went something like this:
Me: “Hey YouTube, what’s up?”
YT: “Not much, just hangin’. Wanna watch something?”
— “Sure, what have you got!”
— “Ah you know, the usual. New episodes for the vlogs you like, photography, film making, video games...”
— “Show me the photography stuff!”
— “Here you go… By the way, have you considered looking into film photography?”
— “I have… But nah, I am fine with digital…”
— “Ok, no problems. Enjoy your content!”
And I didn’t pay it much more attention to it until the next time I came back and YouTube told me: “Hey you! I know you said, you don’t really care about film photography, but I just found this really cool video about film photography! It is also helpful if you are into digital, trust me! Really good stuff! Wanna give it a go?” Of course I did, if they approached me like that.
As the time passed, my interest grew stronger and stronger. Until one day I admitted it: “You know YouTube… I think do care about looking into film photography!”
Of course YouTube was there to support me: “Oh man, I knew it from the first moment I laid my eyes on you! You are just the type for the film photography! So what do we next?! I have so many things I want to show you. What camera would you like? Which film? Would you want try developing your own films!? Oh my God, I am so excited!!!”
— “Calm down now,” I said: “let’s start slow! What do you think. What sort of camera should I start with?”
— “Ooh, there are so many! I can show you the most popular ones, and the cheapest ones, and the most practical ones… But…”
— “…But what?”
— “I don’t think you would be happy with any of them.”
— “Why would you think that?”
— “Knowing you as well as I do, I am quite certain you would not want the camera that everyone else has. You would want something that would really feel right to you. Am I right? I mean, something different, not too expensive, not too cheap, not too complex and not too simple, but able to take great pictures… Just right!”
— “…Okay… So what have you got?”
— “Oh boy, you are so gonna enjoy this!”
So YouTube showed me stuff and I liked what I saw. When I got worried about some aspects, YouTube assured me: “Don’t worry dude, I’ve go your back. I know everything there is to know about this stuff!”. And I trusted it. I gobbled up all the info it gave me, and eventually went for it.
I had decided what I wanted: Olympus OM-4Ti — latest and greatest film camera of the Olympus OM series… Which hasn’t been in stores for 15 years. Fortunately, there was ebay, which of course, had the camera in many different conditions and configurations. After spending many restless hours looking at the offers and comparing their qualities I decided to pull the trigger and order one.
They had top mint ones available still in the original box. But knowing how I normally treat my gear I decided buying one in collectors condition would be borderline criminal. I just want to take pictures and have fun doing it. So I grabbed one with minimal signs of wear that already came with a fairly decent lens — 50mm f1.4.
Of course I did order it on friday evening and as the seller was a business operating only on weekdays, they didn’t even consider the order until monday morning. That meant waiting three days before there was any progress on the order. Doesn’t sound too bad, right? But if you are a person like me who sometimes really obsesses about things, you know three days feels almost like four billion years, which I did manage to survive somehow with the support of my old friend YouTube.
On monday I got the tracking number for the package which did not make things better because I just kept looking at the tracking page hoping the package will arrive sooner, if I just refresh it really hard. Spoiler alert: it did not help. Instead it took exactly as many days as the tracking page claimed and on the next friday morning the tracking page showed the package is in estonia and on delivery truck. Saying I was excited would be a gross understatment. I had bought some film and spare batteries and all the things I might need the day earlier and I was impatiently waiting for the delivery guy to arrive. I refreshed the tracking page and then my heart dropped…
“Delivery rescheduled for monday,” was what the page read. There was no chance in hell I would wait another 4 billion years. I picked up the phone and called the delivery company. Not sure what was going on, but they promised to deliver the package by the end of the day to the office where I work, regardless of what the tracking page was saying. So I continued my day as normal.
Door bell rang in the office. I ran to answer it. It wasn’t the delivery guy. It was someone else who probably figured the rest of day why seeing her was reflected with such a dissapointment in my face.
Hours passed, nothing was happening. I was in a meeting, when I phone rang. I ran out of the office discarding everything. Answered the phone. It was a recruiter hoping to hire me to some Java company as a developer, very likely for a very good wage and all the benefits. I am not exactly excited by those calls normally, but I don’t think I have ever been that dissapointed to get a call from a recruiter in my life. I told them off and went back to the meeting.
So eventually the camera did arrive. I was struggling to hold back a smile while signing for the package that was relentlessly trying to conquer my face. Not sure why exactly. Maybe to avoid the delivery guy running away when a hairy guy with a manic smile on his face runs towards him.
I unpacked the package in a hurry. Loaded camera with fresh batteries and a film and took my first photo of a colleague sitting next to me.
As you can see, my excitement got the best of me. I hadn’t yet figured out all the settings. And of course I missed the focus — something I have still not yet gotten great at. But fortunately I managed to figure it quite quickly because the second picture was already considerably better.
So I continued taking pictures. Hoping to get the first roll developed before I went on a trip to London to know if the camera actually works, before wasting more film on it. I heard there was Pride Parade coming next day, and there was a great weather, I decided to check it out for some colourful pictures. I have to say, I was not left dissapointed.
So I took this and many other pictures that day and after finishing the film went straight to get it developed. There are surprisingly many companies in Tallinn which still develop film. Some even provide same day service, which sounded great for me for the first rolls. So I went looking for it. Wasn’t the best day I guess, because one company reported their machine as broken and “will be fixed by tuesday”. And others said they can’t do anything before Tuesday either because they process film in batches, and they haven’t gotten the batch full yet. I mean waiting for 4 billion years again was bad enough, but I was supposed to leave to London on Tuesday and I really wanted to see the pictures before that. This is when I learned a service that apparently all the labs here offer but never advertise for some reason. They can send the developed and scanned pictures to your email instead of writing them on CD or making prints. You can pick the negatives up any time later. So that’s exactly what I went for.
I didn’t even have to wait until tuesday. Monday evening I got the email with WeTransfer link, and there they were. My first pictures taken with my new camera. The zipfile contained a lot of excitement, some dissapointment, and some pictures that looked really much better than I had ever expected. But one thing was certain. The camera worked just fine, and I was ready for my London trip on next day.
