Like most photographers that started with film, there is this graveyard of film cameras sitting there collecting dust. Recently, I had a chance to explore using film again just for the fun of it. The colors were surprisingly vivid with the film I used (Fuji 400), and the expectation of getting the prints back was a familiar anticipation that I felt when I was in school in the 90's. 

My camera of choice was my trusty old Pentax K1000. A garage sale find from several years ago and completely manual. I knew that I could get some images from the rustic mechanical camera that it was. It was always a starter camera for the journalism and photography students and was also popular novice starter Single Lens Reflex of it's lifetime.

The subject was Oregon water. First on the list was to travel back to Multnomah Falls with my daughter and her brother to capture a picture of the falls. The first picture below represents an earlier photo taken with an APS-C sensor digital camera. The colors are fine and it represented everything well. Average metering and slow enough shutter to show some movement in the water. The second photo is from my retake with film. The scan quality is not ideal but it has very good color and the ease of the manual camera fit my needs very well.

A couple of things about using this old camera that were potential obstacles.

1.) The availability of film is difficult. To get different speeds, one has to order film from an online dealer or seek out a specialty store. You can just head to the local five and dime in order to get a particular film speed. In the world of film, the lower the ISO/ASA the better and sharper the image. Standard film was used for my project at ISO 400.

2.) The camera it's self. I have kept the camera fairly clean but cleaned it before I went out. The light meter did not work so I used basic skills I learned years ago for sunny 16 at the shutter speed closest to the ISO of the film. So for this project f16 at 500 was used and bracketing shots up to 2 half steps on each side. The film I used had enough latitude to be able to come out.

3.) When using film in today's world you need to also be ready to figure out how to transfer it to something that you can use. Labs to develop film and return your negatives are rare and costly. Mailers available from specialty labs can be found at most national photographer wholesalers. For this project I went to a local drug store like I did in the old days. I didn't get my negatives back but I did get a CD that fits nicely into my laptop. Another option may be to develop it yourself. Once again, investing in chemicals and trial and error. I will leave my developing experience to another blog post on Lomography and my new interest in cheap 2 1/4 inch square format black and white.

4.) When you shoot film, you have to think about what you shoot. I will be honest, digital has made me a lazy photographer. I was forced to focus manually, do the math for exposure, select my filters ahead of time etc.. Much different from how I shoot today with all the post editing work.

All in all, shooting film was just as fun for me, however it's not instant. Digital offers portability but I like the feels of a metal lens and camera body in my hand, the click of a manual shutter and wind of the film. Not something I would want to use everyday but for the hobbyist, a welcome retreat to yester year of when frames of film were expensive and precious. I would suggest if you shoot film on a fully manual camera that you download to your phone an app for calculation of exposure. This is has helped greatly in making sure that I am not wasting precious film.

Picture one taken with digital SLR camera

Picture two taken with film SLR camera 

Multonomah FallsMagestic falls in Oregon visited by many a traveler. This picture was shot with a Pentax K1000 on Fuji film 400