If you read my first blog post you will know that I started my time in photography nearly 40 years by shooting and developing B&W film.
Today I have gone full circle and have gone back to shooting and developing film.
Perhaps you are asking why I would want to go back to shooting film with the advancement of digital. It is not because I am some film snob thinking I am a better photographer than one who has never shot film. The answer is because I truly enjoy the process. When shooting film one must be deliberate in order to capture a good and usable image. This means that I am very deliberate in framing/composing of the shot, metering across the scene, with a focus on the shadows and where within the Zone, yes, I use the Zone System, I want the shadows. I set my exposure, check the composition again and only after all these steps do I press the shutter to capture the image.
NB// I am referring specifically to shooting B&W film. The process to shooting colour is a little different.
I tend to shoot only one image of a scene as my goal is to make every shot count. I am using a Pentax 6x7 Medium Format camera, which means I only get 10 images per roll of 120 film. My goal is also not to have to sort through a whole slew of images to pick the best one.
With digital we tend to shoot a large number of shots while out shooting, which means that every shot does not need to count. I too am guilty of this at times and then I end up with hundreds of images to sort through to determine the best one(s) of very similar images.
Film has simply caused me to really slow my process down and to truly see the image before I take it, if I look through the view finder and the image really does not enthuse me I will not take the shot, with digital I would likely take the shot an edit it later.
I will readily admit that shooting film is also nostalgic and I again get excited about pulling the developed negatives out of the development tank and hanging them to dry and having that anticipation of the quality of images I have captured.
The reality is that I am not using a full analogue process as Ii am scanning the negatives instead of printing is a dark room, I would image that to be true of most who have gone back to shooting film or have forayed into shooting film. So the process is really a hybrid between analogue and digital. Doing some dark room printing is, however, on my agenda.
The other thing I really like about film is that in order to capture a properly exposed imaged one must fully understand and be able to apply the Exposure Triangle. With film your ISO is preset by the film speed or the ISO you use to push or pull the film (will post about pushing and pulling film at a later date), therefore, the variables are Shutter Speed and Aperture. Under the Exposure Triangle is of paramount importance in film because unlike digital you cannot review the image on a screen at the back of the camera and then make adjustments. Film also loves light and has a high propensity to retain highlight detail, thus why we expose for the shadows and not the highlights. The worst thing you can do with film is under-expose it.
Just quickly, as I mentioned, I use the Zone System for metering film, principally B&W film. What is the Zone System?
”The Zone System assigns numbers from 0 through 10 to different brightness values, with 0 representing black, 5 middle gray, and 10 pure white; these values are known as zones. To make zones easily distinguishable from other quantities, Adams and Archer used Roman rather than Arabic numerals.”
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_System
My process, I meter off the darkest spot in the image and determine where I want that to fall on the 0-10 scale. I typically like my shadows to be darker instead of mid-gray, which is where the meter places them. So if my meter tells me that the Exposure Value for the shadow is 8 for Zone 5 I will likely place the shadows in Zone 3. This will give me shadows with some detail. All of this is dependent on the overall scene and the difference in Exposure Value between the shadows and the highlights. Ultimately though, it is an artistic decision based on your own preferences.
I will write addition posts about my film photography work.
Thank you again for taking the time to read.
