[caption id="attachment_6274" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Ignore the camera, notice the box of Cheez-Its in the top left corner."]
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Hello world! I have returned from my vacation. I had an amazing time in Louisville, Nashville, and Atlanta. The eats down south are absolutely food-coma inducing. If you are a fan of BBQ, music, and friendly people, add these cities (and others I missed out on) to your travel/bucket list. So while I have a bunch of cool pictures and videos to share with you from my journey, I previously promised to explain why I decided to forgo the use of a DSLR on this road trip. Based on everything I have written for the Unique Photo blog, you may be surprised by this. While I am certainly not the most technical writer or reviewer out there, I try to keep myself up to date on how the latest DSLRs work and what their pros/cons are. The ability of DSLR cameras to be used quickly in any variety of lighting situations is unrivaled by older analog film cameras. So the choice I made was not a technical one, there is much more to photography than raw numbers. In fact I find people who obsess over these things to be flaccid mathematicians, not photographers. It gets to the point where you are obsessing over differences that you will never seen in any printed image. I could easily turn a post like this into a long-winded diatribe on the technical aspects of analog vs digital photography. At first I considered doing this and claiming it to be the "Last Great Hurrah" for analog/film photography. However after considering the amount of information already out there, I have decided that isn't the best route to take. There are plenty of other film vs. digital write-ups online with extensive charts, comparisons, and data. Honestly it gets to the point where a rational photographer will just concede that digital is a exponentially more versatile for different shooting scenarios and provides for instant photographic images. Deciding to stick with analog photography is far more than a technical decision.
[caption id="attachment_6398" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="If you only knew the power of the Darkslide... (image: Dan Gottesman)"]
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If you want to see someone laugh really hard or perhaps just give you a blank stare of confusion, ask any professional photographer if they still use film. Heck ask any professional photographer if they still do any "personal work" or "shoot for themselves." That's probably a better question because more likely than not, the answer is going to be "NO" with a wishy washy explanation of how they don't have time and/or aren't motivated to anymore. I have noticed this trend from when I first started out in photography. As a student, I visited many commercial photographers and innocently asked them these questions only to leave discouraged about my potential future as a working photographer. I made a promise to myself years ago that I would never stop photographing for myself because after all, isn't that why all of us enjoy photography? If I didn't have a passion for creating my own images, I wouldn't have gotten into photography in the first place. I suppose everyone has their own intentions and goals, but mine have always been personal. Well, if the past year or so is an indicator to how good I am at keeping promises, then I'm just plain awful. Without pause I can affirm that I am the only one to blame for this. It isn't the death of film in the commercial market and the massive drop in the availability of films/papers, it is truly my own plain laziness. So for this trip I decided that it was time to buck the trend of using a DSLR and bring only a film camera with me. I considered all formats from a small Nikon FG 35mm camera up through a big folding 8x10" camera. Medium format film makes sense to me because of the balance between portability and quality. I did bring a large format 4x5" camera with me, seen here in this previous post, but that was the only time I used the camera over the course of my entire trip. While the quality of a 4x5" negative trumps any other camera I own, it just wasn't right for the type of photography I was doing.
[caption id="" align="alignright" width="183" caption="Hipster Dinosaur is another name for medium format film camera"][/caption]
I certainly didn't feel like bringing a heavy DSLR with a ton of lenses to lug around and worry about. I've done this before and I've ended up taking very few photographs. The jacket I wore for 99% of my trip was able to hold an extra film back, a light meter, an extra lens, and some additional rolls of film. Combined with a nice comfy strap for the camera, I was able to easily carry all of my gear with me and not have to worry about leaving anything in my car. There is also something more unassuming about an old Hasselblad compared to a big heavy DSLR/lens combo. I felt like less of a tourist and people even approached me to ask about the camera. Ok so beyond the slick hipster look, why did I bother bringing this dinosaur with me?
There is a certain mentality that comes to shooting film, and yes I am willing to seriously consider the theory that all seven of us left are insane. It may be the darkroom chemicals that I have inhaled over the years speaking here, but there really is a different experience when working with a medium format film camera. I happen to pay a lot more attention to what I am photographing as I obviously can't check the back of my camera to see how the photograph I just took came out. Honestly this is a small barrier to overcome. I simply used a Sekonic L-358 light meter and the knowledge in my head. Color negative film is very forgiving, meaning I didn't have to worry as much about over/under exposure. I honestly do not worry one bit about how my exposures have turned out because I trust my ability as a photographer. Don't think I am tooting my own horn here, people used to learn photography this way and took amazing photographs for decades without having the ability to see their photographs instantly. I have only used film for jobs on a few occasions, so the cost of film never really occurred to me as a factor, but screwing up a few rolls of film is frustrating for both your morale and your wallet. For some I suppose this could be considered a motivation to learn faster.
Manually focusing is another big, mean, and scary topic. Many who have never used a manual focus only camera before are probably a little turned off by the mere proposal of having to manually set focus on a camera all of the time. Just like setting your exposure, manually focusing on a medium format camera is fairly easy once you get the hang of it. There is a tremendous difference between composing and focusing an image on a big bright medium format focusing screen and the tiny viewfinder on a DSLR. Depending on what kind of photography you are doing, you can often "Set it and forget it" when it comes to manually focusing. Old press photographers used to have a saying, "f/8 and be there!" Meaning they would set their cameras to f/8, pre-focus to a distance that made sense based on the subject(s) they were photographing. Combine this with the fact that you will likely be leaving your shutter speed the same unless lighting changes dramatically, and a medium format camera is suddenly faster and easier to use than a point and shoot digital camera.
[caption id="attachment_6394" align="alignright" width="240" caption="Manually focusing with a "split" prism is quite easy once you get the hang of it."]
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Some will argue that digital photography has an edge in versatility because you can change your ISO sensitivity almost instantly on a digital camera. Most people think that you are stuck with a single ISO speed when using a medium format camera. This may hold true depending on what model camera you are using, but modular systems like the Hasselblad 500 C/M have interchangeable backs. Meaning that you can carry an extra film back on you, loaded with a different ISO film. I typically walked around with a back loaded with Ektar 100 and another with Portra 400 in my pocket. At night I would load an empty back with 800 speed film and leave my additional back behind. Right now ISO 800 film is the fastest color film available in medium format rolls, but it can be pushed to 1600 and 3200 without losing too much quality. The same can be said about the new Kodak Portra 400 film, I have found that it holds up quite well being pushed to 800, 1250, and 1600 ISO. If you need even more sensitivity, Ilford makes Delta 3200, a black and white film that has a true ISO of around 1000, but can be pushed to 3200 ISO and beyond. Obviously there is a degradation of quality as you push the film, but the same can be said about digital photography. Additionally its no secret that analog grain looks much more natural compared to ugly digital noise. So while digital photography certainly has some advantages here, film gets a bum rap when it comes to the ISO argument.
So for me, shooting film is just something I enjoy. I like that I have a hard physical record of my photographs that I can store somewhere safe without having to worry about a hard drive crashing or not working 30 years down the line. Furthermore, working with a fully manually camera makes me pay attention to what I am doing. So far (4/15 rolls of film developed) none of my shots are improperly exposed or out of focus. Ok I'll throw one technical point in here. It is very to achieve shallow depth of field because of the larger image area of medium format film. Good film scans produce great results and there is plenty of exposure and color latitude to work with in post production. Yes it is true! You can adapt that weird strip of plastic into a digital workflow. Our old buddy Ken Rockwell has described shooting film as "Real RAW" and I tend to agree with him. I am not going to sit here and preach to everyone that learning to shoot on film is the only way to be a "Real Photographer" because that is simply ridiculous and an argument from 1999. Though I think everyone should try it at least once before its too late. Sadly I have come to accept the fact that medium format color film won't be around forever, but until I press down the film advance lever on my Hasselblad for the last time, I am going to make the most of it.
Do you still like shooting film? Send me an e-mail: [email protected] and we can talk about the possibility of doing a guest post on why YOU still use film.
-MZ