Still worth a shot? A modern look at film photography.
The era of film photography dominance lasted a long time — from its inception in 1888 with the Kodak, stretching over a century to the late 90s and early 2000s. Digital media swept film aside, and absolutely revolutionised the technology behind creating images.
Luckily though, the slate wasn’t wiped entirely clean. With 100 years of film cameras lying around, people were bound to make use of them, and companies were bound to (with a heavy heart) comply, keeping a small but reliable subsection of the photography market making use of old formats. In the UK, the high street is keeping film photography alive — small companies either develop in-house, or send rolls off to large developing labs. Fujifilm, Kodak, and a group of smaller companies produce the film.
The cameras themselves, however, remain firmly in the past. The few film cameras you can buy new are echoes of the past, the more retro the better. No envelopes pushed, no new breakthrough technology. This gives film photography an appeal that digital can never truly grasp.
Digital photography can be plagued with a feeling of technological inferiority — it happens to the best of us. To take better photos I need: faster autofocus, a bigger sensor, better low-light capability, etc. We all know that “the best camera is the one you have with you” — but it doesn’t always feel that way when you can’t afford better equipment.
This is a problem you seriously don’t face with film. Whatever you do, there will be imperfections — the size of your film grain could vary, you might have some extra bloom in a few shots, whatever — it doesn’t really matter. Whether you’re shooting on a simple point and shoot or something as advanced as the Nikon F6, the principles are the same, and unlike digital, so is your image size. For most photography, there’s not much I can do with a newer SLR that I can’t do with my first generation Nikon F. Film photography doesn’t rely on the speed of the camera’s processor or the technical ability of its sensor — it’s pure physics. How much light is hitting your film, and for how long. And to someone accustomed to trying to analyse and reduce digital noise in photographs, sometimes even taking dozens of test shots to get settings correct, the feeling of pure control I felt simply adjusting my aperture, shutter speed, and focus, was invigorating. Any mistakes were my fault, not the camera’s, and likewise any successes felt truly like my own; not a technical quirk or luck of the draw.
Film photography isn’t all sunshine and rainbows however — there are some problems. For a start, film photography isn’t cheap. Sure, you might not get that overwhelming drive for expensive new equipment that digital can lend you, but there’s still the urge to experiment with new equipment or film types. Crucially though, the cost of the film itself is high — whilst you can find a cheap 35mm camera setup pretty much anywhere and with any budget, the film prices can rack up fast.
Let’s do some simple number wrangling. Searching “35mm film” into Amazon nets a lot of results, but their recommendation is a 5 pack of Fuji C200, for £28.79. That makes it about £5.76 per roll of film. To send a roll of film off to be developed, scanned, and put onto a CD, was £6.00 where I got my film developed — getting it on a USB stick put that total up to £10.00.
Add it up and it’s £15.76 per 36 exposures of film, or 44 pence per photograph. You’re looking at about £44 for 100 photos (or more likely, £47.52 for 3 rolls of 36 exposures). And if you’re used to digital photography, 100 photos probably feels like nothing — I sometimes take upward of 100 photos on a single day out with my digital cameras. This doesn’t even take into account that this film was quite cheap and bought in bulk — experiment with other films, and your prices may yet rise higher. Try some black and white, and processing expenses double. Plus, you’re trusting other people with your photos — although unusual, mistakes do happen in the development process. My first roll had dotted lines running along the top of some of the photos — to a perfectionist, that might have been a complete deal-breaker.
This… different financial situation leads to some very different practices once taking photographs. For a start, you’re much more careful. My first 36 exposures took me months to get through. Framing, timing, and camera settings became much more important to me, to the point where there are only two or three photos from that roll that I would discard. I didn’t have to search for gems like I do with my digital cameras — I’d just tried to make sure my photos were as good as I could possibly make them, and as such they not only are of a better quality than my digital photos, but they’re much more emotionally valuable to me as well. Also, I made sure to make each photo different enough from the last to stand out — taking 20 pictures of a flower just to get that perfect result isn’t a practice you can realistically employ with film, unless you’re willing to spend a lot more money, and switch rolls on the fly. Essentially, by implanting a cost onto each individual photograph, film made me a better photographer — not a great or even good one, by many standards, but better than I was before.
So, with all that said, do I think film photography is headed for a renaissance à la vinyl? I’m afraid not. For most people, the convenience of digital completely overwhelms the more subjective advantages of film — “you can take more photos” is definitely a better selling point than “you will probably take fewer photos”. The versatility of modern digital cameras is truly remarkable, with compact mirrorless cameras dominating the current market, with large high resolution sensors and even filmmaker-grade video capabilities, a featureset unique to digital sensors. That’s all somewhat irrelevant here though. I’m not arguing that everyone should switch their entire photography workflow back to film — I’m certainly sticking to digital for most projects — but I am saying that everyone should try it, and preferably with a manual control camera.
The sprawling era of film as a mainstream imaging technology may truly be over — but when shooting on film, the tactility you experience, and the experience you gain, is more than worth the time, effort, and funds. If you have an old film camera lying around, I implore you to try it out again. More crucially, if you’ve never tried it, I recommend you buy a cheap film photography setup, and give it a shot. You might just find yourself with a new, somewhat addicting, hobby.
