Going Old School In My Photography
Why I want to shoot both film and digital in 2024
Earlier this month, my son and I took a 7 day cruise and added 4 days in Anchorage. For the vacation I took a Fuji X-S20, a Fuji X-H1, a 13mm 1.4, a 27mm 1.2, a 50mm 1.7 and a 100–400mm zoom lens. Over the course of that vacation I took more than 2,400 photos, along with a couple of hours of video. After returning home and parsing through my files, I processed and kept about 250 files. To be sure, there were a lot of pictures I snapped trying to capture eagles, bears and other wildlife. Take the following photo of a brown bear in the Yukon:
During the span of 10 minutes I shot 128 pictures of this bear. In the end I kept 21 of those 128 pictures. The ability to take so many pictures in such a short period of time is one of the great things about digital. I’m hoping this encounter will not be a once in a lifetime event, but it could be. I managed to grab some incredibly sharp and awesome pictures of that bear. Had I been using film, I may not have had one keeper.
However, the ability to take a crazy number of pictures does lead to some really sloppy photography. I told Jennie that I used the spray and pray method when trying to capture that moment. You know, 8 frames per second of continuous autofocus photography. Composition, lighting and such went out the window. For example, look at the next picture I captured of another bear in the Yukon:
In my hurry to try and get the shot, I managed a very sharp picture of some wild grass. And that road that looks to be on a downslope? Actually, that portion of the road was perfectly flat.
I took a photography class in high school nearly 40 years ago. The class required access to a film SLR camera with at least one lens. My parents bought me a Minolta X-570 with a 50mm 1.7 lens. While I have no idea what the cost was, looking back on prices during the 1980’s, it probably cost $200 or so, which equates to almost $600 in 2024 dollars. We shot black and white film, developed that film and made 8x10 prints for class.
I remember distinctly hearing the instructor tell us, “there will be no boudoir photos taken in this class.” Me being the innocent kid I was, I had no idea what a boudoir photo was in 1985, but I knew I wasn’t going to take one. As the song says, “I wish that I knew what I know now, when I was younger.”
After returning from Alaska, I decided that I wanted to add a film camera to my collection. I really wanted to go down the medium format road, but the popularity of using film again has pushed the prices to some crazy levels. I found a nice Mamiya 645 with a couple of lenses for the great price of $750, on Ebay. That was a little more than I wanted to spend to start dabbling in film again. Searching on Craigslist I found a place selling a Minolta X-700 with a 50mm 1.7. I drove over to look at the camera and it was in excellent condition. All of the the things you would expect to be wrong with a 40 year old camera, weren’t. The light seals looked brand new, there was very little brassing or dings, and the viewfinder was clean as can be. I was able to take that beauty off the guys hands for only $50.
I knew that I wanted a wide-angle lens too, so I searched online for one. The best price I could find at KEH was $90 in a bargain condition and $114 in excellent condition. I decided to check Craigslist again and found a guy selling several lenses advertised as “the lot for $100”. I sent him a text to verify if that was $100 for all of them, or $100 for each lens. To my happiness he responded $100 for all of them. I drove over to his house today and picked them up. I now have a nice collection of manual focus lenses for my new to me X-700.
I am now the proud owner of these lenses: Minolta 40MM f2.8, Minolta 50mm f1.7, Minolta 28MM f2.8, Tokina 135MM f2.8, and Vivitar 28–90 f2.8–3.5. These lenses are in like new condition. There was no dust inside of the lenses, no fungus, no scratches. So for the whopping total of $150, I have a full film setup to experiment with.
To be sure, I will never be a photographer that walks away from digital photography. I love the ability to capture a crazy number of images in the quest for the perfect one. In moments where I may never get the chance to capture a moment again, I want to stack the odds in my favor. However, I also want to slow down, plan my shots better, focus on getting the best angle, light, and composition, and experiencing the anticipation of waiting to see what I captured. At the cost of almost $25 to develop and scan the negatives, 2,500 photos would set me back $1,700. I can’t afford to spray and pray with film.
I could never have imagined in 1985 taking photographs and instantly previewing them to see if they were usable. I would have thought that was photography nirvana. Now, nearly 40 years later, I am excited to eagerly await the return of my first film photos to see what beautiful things I have captured. Who says you can’t go home?
