I wasn’t sure how I should handle the situation with my friends, would they be okay with me using film to shoot their wedding?  Well if they want me to be the photographer they would have to be or they could hire a photographer (and at that price they could probably buy me a digital if they insisted on digital and still come out ahead).  I reminded the bride to be that I had sold my dSLR and would only be able to shoot the wedding if I could shoot it on film.  She asked me what does that mean?  I told her that meant she would be getting wedding photos just like everyone else has for the last 40 or so years before the proliferation of digital cameras.  She was okay with that.

Right now is actually a great time to shoot on film believe it or not.  With the new Portra 400 and Ektar 100 at my disposal I can get great quality photos and proof them with no financial expense.  Will it be time consuming, yes, more so then digital.  But I’m okay with that.  This is my wedding present to my friends so I am getting off cheap.

I met Justin on Flickr a few years back and we hit it off over a mutual interest in photography and punk rock from back in the day.  To say his photography has matured and evolved a lot since those days would be a huge understatement.  His commitment to photography has been an inspiration to me.

He was recently interviewed for Eric Kim’s blog/website so I’ll post the link here

http://erickimphotography.com/blog/2011/09/interview-with-justin-vogel-justinsdisgustin-from-hcsp/

Anyway, it’s nice to see such a cool guy with a genuine love of film photography featured on the BBC.  The interview is a cool read as well.  If you dig street photography check it out.

The following is a basic timeline for my photography hobby.  When looking back I can see trends and the ebb and flow of my interests. 

1995.  Girlfriend takes photography class, carries camera around with her where ever she goes, takes great pictures.

1996-7.  I decide to take photography classes, girlfriend gets mad, she does not want me to take photography possibly out of fear that I will be better at it than her.  Her fear is unfounded, she is much better then me.

1997.  Graduate highschool.  No longer have access to darkroom.  Attempt to set up darkroom in friends spare room.  He successfully makes some prints.  I do nothing but drink beer and hang out with said girlfriend.

1998.  Join Navy.  Still carrying around a bunch of photography equipment so that I can set up my own darkroom.  Stuff sits in storage for years.  Marry photographer girlfriend.  Move to San Diego.  Girlfriend discovers Polaroids and works in photo lab.  I don’t take very many pictures, don’t know why, just busy.  Using an Olympus clamshell camera (a nice one) that the wife bought for me.

2002ish.  Can’t afford film.  Wife left me a couple of years back.  Depressed most of the time and drinking too much.  Friend gives me Minolta digital camera.  Take some pictures with it of friends at parties and what have you.   

2003.  Realize all darkroom equipment lost, stolen, or thrown away from storage at dads house.  Remarry, have the first kid.  Wife buys a Kodak digital camera and uses that for most family photos.  Minolta SRT 102 stolen from garage.  Use Minolta digital camera for most photography needs.  Not very serious about it, just pictures of friends drinking or riding scooters.

2005-2006.  Buy dSLR.  Forgotten most of what I knew about photography.  Shoot mediocre pictures in the green box mode.  Miss film.  Blame equipment for crappy photos.  Learn enough to be dangerous and get passionate about photography again.  Start shooting Pin Up photography.  Score a bunch of darkroom equipment on Craigslist.  No enlarger but lots of peripheral equipment.

2007.  Move to Virginia.  Bored as hell no friends.  Family life is good but lots of down time with nothing to do.  Homesick. 

2008ish Discover toy cameras.  Buy Holga and start collecting film cameras.  Realized color photography was really expensive with film.  Find good deal on enlarger on craigslist.  Set up darkroom.  Shoot lots of black and white film and some color.  Color mostly sits in boxes undeveloped.

2010.  Buy digital scanner.  Stop using darkroom.  Gotten pretty good at dSLR and photoshop.  Still don’t really like it very much, but I can do it and make photos look.

2011.  Sell dSLR to buy a gun.  Start developing color film at the house and scanning negatives.  Realize that I am sick of shooting black and white for the most part and rediscover the joys of photography.  Can’t understand why I had no interest in shooting color on my dSLR but in love with the texture and color pallete of film.  Photography is fun again.  Look back at old color photos that I took when I first starting shooting film again.

So that’s where I am now.  When photography becomes work or a chore to me my photos tend to suck.  When I go out of my way to find a place to shoot the pictures are boring.  Sometimes you have to take a break from this stuff and recharge your batteries.  Right now I’m in a good period because I am looking at things with an interest of how they will look on color film (as opposed to black and white).  I have inspiration again.  This won’t last forever, but I enjoy it while it’s here.  Looking forward to fall.

ISO.  In regards to Film and digital, the ISO is a way of measuring the speed in which your film or sensor reacts to light.  The faster the film or the higher the ISO the less time is required to make an exposure.  What you give up for higher ISO is fine grain or low pixel noise.  In digital cameras high ISO results in higher noise levels.  Modern dSLR’s have greatly improved in this area making it possible to shoot 1600 or higher with little penalty on some cameras.  In regards to film ISO can get confusing because the actual speed on any given film may be lower the advertised box speed.  You can still get acceptable results using the box speed, but for optimum exposure you may have to stray between 1/3 and 1 stop to get the “true” exposure value of the film.  There are some simple but time-consuming tests you can do to find your actual film speed.  How you process your film and how you meter (or not meter) has an effect on your negatives as well so you can fine tune your results based on your technique.  If you care about this kind of stuff I can’t recommend Ansel Adam’s book The Negative enough.  However if you just want the nuts and bolts of manual photography read on.  You can always “push” or “pull film to change your ISO.  Again, you can refer to the above reference or find numerous other references that discuss this technique, when you should use it and why.

Aperture.  All you really need to know is that the smaller the number, the more light a lens lets in.  This is commonly known as an F stop.  They call it a stop because on many older lenses there’s an actual “click” between settings and it’s common in photography vernacular to refer to the distance between clicks as stops.  Some lenses have half stops in between the numbers.  Cameras that control aperture digitally may have 1/3 stops.  The common settings (i.e f2, f2.8, f4, f5.6, f8, f11, f16, f22) let in exactly twice as much light as the previous setting.  When you get at the bottom of the scale the stops may not be in whole increments as an example F1.7 is a little more than one stop below F2.8 and less then a whole stop from f2.  Don’t get too hung up on the numbers eventually they’ll either come to you or you can ignore them and go happily on your way.

Shutter Speed.  These are measured as fractions of a second.  500 is 1/500th of a second.  Beware:  Old Cameras lie, for modern camera users this is probably dead nuts accurate.  Your old film camera may not be exactly spot on especially if it sat in a box in the closet for 20 years.  Luckily film is forgiving stuff.  As in aperture each stop lets in twice as much (or half as much) light.  So 1000 is twice as fast as 500 so that’s one stop.  250 is 2 times as slow as 1000 so that’s two stops and so on.

All things being equal if you let in less light through the aperture you must keep the shutter open longer to achieve the same exposure.  If you let in more light you must reduce the amount of time the shutter stays open.  Shutter speed has an effect of motion.  The longer a shutter is open the more movement and camera shake is recorded.  Aperture affects Depth of Field, the sharpness and contrast of your lens.  In the useful range of things the larger the aperture the softer the image and contrast.  This is why top performing high-end lenses tend to cost more to make and cost more for you to buy.

I love the old time look of this one.  If it wasn’t for the modern cars this could have been taken anytime in the last 40 years.

Updated!  So as you see from the above photo, the experiment was a success.  It was really easy but a lot more involved then black and white.  Black and white is so forgiving, where color supposedly is not.  But as long as you follow directions the process is really quick and easy.  Scanning is great too, no more crappy magenta cast prints from the pimply teenager at the photo lab, no more 14 dollar CD’s from Costco…  Nope, I can screw up my own photos for almost free now!  Yay.  I’m excited.

Holga’s were first introduced in the 1980′s in China.  American artsy types caught on, the Lomo craze caught on and next think you know you can buy one at your local Urban Outfitters.  What started out as a cheap camera designed for mass production and distribution became something of a cult camera for people who were willing to shoot film.  Some purists cringed as people who had never shot a frame of film started asking silly questions (to dinosaurs anyway).  Some photographers have really taken to the Holga and produce striking, emotive photographs that have a strange effect on the viewer.  All of the things about a picture we’re not supposed to like come together and create something artful out of something sometimes extremely ordinary.  The surreal becomes even more so when shot with a Holga.

  Before you rush off to Amazon.com and order a Holga and some film there are a couple of things you should know.  Medium Format film aka 120 is not as cheap as 35mm.  It’s harder to load into a camera (takes a little practice, but it’s not too difficult) and not all of your shots will come out if you’re shooting in conditions unfavorable to a useful exposure.  It’s amazing at how much does come out though, and for some that’s the fun part.  You need to remember to remove the lens cap (or throw it away) and unless you want to try exposing more then one frame of film at a time you need to remember to advance the film between every shot.  Always load and unload film out of direct light (in the shadows is best when out in the world.  Roll film can leak light if not wound tightly.

Outside of the basics there’s not too much to the camera.  There are a dizzying amount of models available and tons of accessories now but you should start out with a basic camera first and worry about the rest of the stuff later.

Another camera that is very similar (and rumored to be the inspiration for the Holga) is a Diana.  Original Diana cameras from the 60′s and 70′s have gotten expensive, but LSI sells a reproduction of the Diana for a somewhat reasonable price.  It does even more fun stuff out of the box then the Holga but I’ve found it to be a little bit more temperamental as well.  They are “cuter” then the Holga but more delicate too.  They also come in a few different formats and configurations and have tons of accessories.

This camera uses the pre-AI, that is pre auto indexing lenses, the same ones that the Nikon F’s of the era used (Pre-77 I believe, I’m not a Nikon expert).  Of course it also can use any F mount lens with a set of rabbit ears on the aperture ring, so AI and AIS lens are also compatible.  To install a lens you set it at F5.6 and mount it.  You then clock the aperture ring from minimum to maximum aperture settings to “tell” the camera what the F stop range of the lens is.  It takes some getting used to but once you get the hang of it it’s pretty quick.  Pre-AI lenses tend to be cheaper then their AI and AIS cousins which is pretty nice.

The EL-W is basically the same camera with a couple of nice features added.  It has an on off switch so that you can either cock back the shutter to turn on the camera or flip a switch with your shutter finger.  The older EL has to have the shutter lever cocked slightly to turn on the camera.  The EL-W also takes an accessory winder (6 AA batteries and good for about 1 FPS).  Other then that they’re identical.  They both feature mirror lock up (that’s where the battery is located).

These cameras can normally be had on eBay for a bargain, especially in poor cosmetic condition.  They’re really well built, Nikon had a lot on the line and this technology was the precursor to many of their later models.  However like any vintage electronic camera they may break and probably are cost prohibitive to repair.

Below is a photo taken of the Country Band Gloriana performing on board the USS Harry S. Truman.  Shot using the Nikkormat EL with 50mm F1.4 lens.