How I Started Shooting Film
Recently I started shooting with 35mm Film. I would say the experience was rather “fun”.
There’s a old saying “Shooting with films makes you slow down and think”.
I grew up in a world of convenience where auto-focus and digital photos are a norm. You can just click away for all you desire.
But there is not skill to it.
Back to how I started shooting film! How I even have the thought of shooting film is because of my friend Isaac, he found this youtube channel called Negative Feedback (Which I highly recommend if you like shooting films or photos in general) and he introduce it to me. Back then I didn’t give much thought to it because I felt that shooting film was old fashion/boring but boy was I wrong. So one day I was at my Grandparents house and I found a old point and shoot that belong to my late Grandpa that still “works” and bought it home to find out how to use it. Like what kind of battery it uses and how to operate it.
The next day I went to a store that shall not be named (will explain later), so I went up to the store helper and asked if they have this battery and stuff, I got the battery and i choose my first roll to be a Fuji C200 “expired” and a Portra 400 and asked the dude to load it for me. Everything were working fine until the film wouldn’t advance, and the dude keep on opening and closing the back of the camera and a misstep broke a metal piece in my camera. I was devastated, I spent $30 hoping it will work. So I went home with a spoiled camera with 2 roll of film. So I told my dad about it. He kinda empathize with me and the next morning he blessed me with $30. (to cover my losses)
Then an idea came up to me, I CAN USE MY GRANDPA OLD NIKON FM2 MECHANICAL FILM CAMERA. So I picked it up and tried it, to my surprise it worked! So I loaded up the C200 and went for a photo outing with my friends. Paid $8 for a 4 base scan and processing and here were the results.
I was blown away by the results. I expected it to be really bad.
One of the best feelings in the world is receiving the photos you took and it turned out being really good.
Me being me, after shooting a few rolls later (Another Fuji pro 400H, Total roll shot at the moment counter: 2) think I am a pro at this, I went to research on what the best 35mm film camera and found the glorious M6. After watched countless review of it (like any man will do).
Friends don’t be like me. What I did was stupid. What was I thinking, M6 as a starter camera. you got to be insane.
Honestly you can get any camera body, the important part is the lens and film.
Roll shot: 3 ( 1 C200, 1 Pro 400H, 1 Colourplus)
My main point is, why would anyone shoot film now? In a digital age where you can take as many photos you want and not spend any money on film seem like a very impressive progress in technology. even though you can’t shoot during the night because you haven’t finish the ISO 200 roll (forces you to finish the 36 shots).
It’s the process that I really love. Slowing down, thinking if that shot is worth $0.70 or $1.
I just touch the surface of film photography. I can go on and on. But I have to sleep (Waking up later at 6.30am and its 3am now).
