Photography has slowly crept up as a huge part of my life. It allows me to express myself, share my passions and document life. Sure, I know that traveling and moving all over the country isn’t that big of a deal but, in my family, this is a big deal. So much of my family is still in Florida and many are not “worldly”. That’s not a bad thing but, for me to go to different countries and live in various parts of the world, I feel happy that I’m able to document it in photos.
One issue that I think is important is the art of photography pre-digital, back when shooting in film was an art. There was a process in choosing your film’s ISO and developing this film and only have 12 shots per roll. I found this explanation on a forum as to why digital photographers should learn how to shoot with film:
Obviously, there are huge differences in the media (film vs. sensor), but more experience shooting is always better. There are some important aspects of learning to shoot film. IMHO, i want to get the highest yield (more “good” pictures) from my picture-taking experience, so i want to think about film from the cost perspective and the opportunity perspective. It costs money to process film. There isn’t going to be an opportunity to review the shot. You have to make sure it’s good by doing the “preprosessing” with your eye, brain and camera.
So, choose and lock in the ISO – no “Auto-ISO” mumbo-jumbo. With film, because of differences in processing you really only get one ISO choice per roll (the standard ISO, or maybe push one or two stops), and you’ll shoot the entire roll at that ISO. Shooting digital, you can choose the ISO per shot – my point is don’t let the camera do this for you.
Choose the camera mode. Aperture priority? Shutter Priority? “full auto”? Manual? Ensure the exposure is right, either with a meter or using the camera’s built in meter. no more “HI” for the shutter speed in the display when you’re in aperture priority mode.
Slow down. Think. Compose carefully. Make it feel like taking this picture might be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity (even if it is the Eiffel Tower).
Focus carefully, or verify that AF did the “right thing”. Do you want to change the AF point? Maybe something on the left side of the picture should have the AF point? Preview your depth of field, if necessary – you might not have to preview the DOF if you have a good feel for the subject distance and your lens’s behavior.
I think this is a long explanation but it captures most of what I wanted to express.
There’s also this feeling I get from long time photographers that us “youngsters” who grew up digital and don’t understand the art of photography. I hear this a lot actually. A photographer sees me with a tiny point & shoot and after hearing me utter the words, “i’m a photographer” I first get a scoff and then they say that cameras these days make it too easy and you’re not a photographer. After looking at my Flickr albums and talking work-flow, I earn their respect but simply saying, “I spend most of my time shooting on a Canon AE-1” and you can bet that I’ll be getting their respect a lot quicker.
Of course, it’s not about respect or being accepted but I really think that these photogs are right! I think that there is a true value in getting behind a real view-finder, manually focusing my lens and setting the aperture and after clicking, figuring out days later if the shot even came out. My photos will become more conservative and I’ll spend far more time framing and patiently waiting for the photo instead of clicking insanely fast at 3.2 frames per second and filling up an SD card with 500 shots. I see a value here.
I found this blog post that illustrated something else in this Canon AE-1 Project. It’s the potential of using a fixed lens that doesn’t zoom:
The 50mm lens is called a “normal” or “standard” lens because the way it renders perspective closely matches that of the human eye. Consequently, images made with a 50mm lens have a natural and uncontrived look. This is the lens that likely would have come with your camera had you bought it 10-15 years ago. Before falling to its current level of disfavor, the 50mm lens had a long and distinguished pedigree. For many years the defining documentary instrument of the 20th century was the small format rangefinder camera (Leica, Contax, Nikon, Canon) with 50mm lens. Some of the world’s best-known photographers such as Henri Cartier-Bresson and Ralph Gibson made virtually their entire careers with this combination. With the advent of the “wide angle” Leica M2 and the rise of the SLR camera with its broad range of focal lengths, the 50mm lens began to fall out of favor among professionals users. (I hardly ever used a 50mm lens early in my career.) Today’s working pros mostly eschew prime lenses for the high speed f/2.8 “professional” zooms.
After a few days with a 20 mm fixed lens on my E-PL2 camera, I see what he’s saying so I’m thrilled that this Canon AE-1 came with a stock 50mm f/1.8 lens and San Francisco Photographer Travis Jensen(who shoots regularly with an AE-1) told me over email, “I actually use the same set up as you with the 50mm f/1.8 lens.”
That post I linked to about fixed lenses is certainly required reading.
In closing, I’m now stocking up on film and will invest in a 35mm negative scanner once I return from India. I have to say that you shouldn’t look for any film photos on Flickr any time soon as I need to take some time to increase my quality and begin honing my skills but I hope to share some of these shots with my film camera very soon.
Thanks for reading!
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