I just watched a video by a photographer in which he said that because shooting film requires more attention to exposure, shutter speed, aperture, and metering, so the emotional investment makes the final outcome more meaningful..
He accepts that it’s a personal thing. A viewer doesn’t care to know how a image was made or what went into making it.
So here’s a question: Does any of what the photographer shooting film feels carry through to the quality of the final image?
I bought a Nikon F80 film camera on eBay ready for a photowalk with about twenty people. I shot a roll of film before the day and had it processed so that I would be sure that the camera actually worked.
I have had a `Nikon FE for a long while. The FE is manual focus and manual exposure. And because my brain scatters to the winds when I am ‘in the moment’, I wanted a camera that would focus automatically and expose automatically.
Hence the Nikon F80.
The camera has a lot of features, but so as not to overwhelm this article, I have put them in a footnote.
I should say that this scatter-brain effect is because I would not be familiar with the camera. If I decided to shoot film and only film (rather than occasionally) then I would know the camera ‘like the back of my hand;’ and I would know what to do and how to do it and when to do it.
By the way, all these twenty-five to thirty-five year old film cameras are going for a song on eBay.
So on the day I tested the camera walking around Cambridge, I was so relaxed about it that I failed to notice that I could lock the focus point in the. middle of the frame. And I failed at first to see the warning light that blinks orange when the light is so bright that the top shutter speed is not fast enough to match the aperture.
In a word – I continue to be amazed at how much energy it takes to pull one’s self together and concentrate on all the little bits of information that need processing and acting upon in the moment,
On the positive side, the mirror box is dampened much more on the F80 than on the FE. I had forgotten what the mirror slap on the FE sounded and felt like because it’s been a while since I shot it.
Well, to my ear and head unaccustomed to it, when I tripped the shutter it felt like someone had come along with a hammer and banged the camera. I have explained mirror slap in the second footnote here.
Success With The F80
I had the film developed the same day at Snappy Snaps, and the camera worked. So I was all set.
Update
I spoke too soon. I ignored the marks on a couple of frames that became worse the next time I used the camera. See this post for the continuation of the story that led to me sending the camera back.
Here is the beginning of the fault that developed and became worse. See the dark strip along the top of the frame? That is where the shutter was not completely open when I pressed the shutter.
Investment
To get back to the point the photographer made in the video, did I feel a greater investment than with digital photography?
Maybe. I ‘felt’ each frame as I shot it, knowing it was a one-off experience. I could argue that that is not true with digital photography because the image is not ‘baked in’ and so feels more transient.
I don’t give much house room to that idea. What is paramount and important is how invested I am in the scene. If I see a really good scene, then I consider it to be precious, and my energy is increased because of my involvement. That is a lot of the ‘high’ of photography.
What I really think about this photo is that I wish I had had my Canon R6 digital camera with me. It would conquer the highly contrasty light better, have better detail by far. and would have allowed me more time to compose before the scene changed.
Which begs the question of why I have been shooting film at all. And I think the big draw is the uncertainty with film. It’s fun.
Mirror Slap On A Single Lens Reflex Camera
The FE and the F80 are single lens reflex (SLR) cameras.
You put your eye to the viewfinder. The viewfinder is about half an inch or so above the lens. The light from the subject comes directly through the lens and is reflected up into the viewfinder via a series of little mirrors and prisms.
There are no parallax errors. You see what the camera lens sees.
Looking through the viewfinder of an SLR is like looking through a periscope in a submarine; it’s just that the periscope is only a half an inch tall and upside down.
SLRs are called ‘reflex’ cameras because the mirror that diverts the light that comes through the lens and sends it up to the viewfinder has to get out of the way when you take a shot.
The mirror has to flip up out of the way when you take a shot and then it flips back down again. It has to do it because in its rest position it covers the film. It has to flip out of the way to let light fall onto the film.
That’s the reflex. And that is the mirror slap – depending on how hard it hits the mirror box on the way down. The more expensive the camera the more is put into the dampening mechanism that slows the mirror and cushions the slap. And technology has got better as well, and modern SLRs – film and digital – are so well cushioned that you hardly hear or feel a thing.
One last point about what happens when the mirror flips out of the way – everything in the viewfinder goes black because light isn’t hitting the mirror, so no light comes through the viewfinder for that moment.
How long it goes black for depends on how fast the camera shutter fires. It could be one five hundredths of a second or it could be two seconds depending on the available light..
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