Patience is not one of my many virtues and I've always favored practice over theory. Instead of taking the time to learn the essentials before starting, I usually go head first into it, come what may! This rash behaviour has caused me disappointment, lost me time, and cost me money.
That's why I have decided to be more thoughtful and cautious in my approach to photography and things in general. From these bad experiences came the idea to gather the 3 biggest mistakes I made so that you can easily avoid them.
Each mistake here is based on my personal experiences. I'm sure some of you may encounter similar difficulties, so do yourself a favor and avoid some disillusion by taking a few minutes to read this.
Not Loading The Film Correctly
This is probably the most embarrassing of all the mistakes I made and the worst part is that it happened more than once! A couple of months ago when I started this project, loading a camera with a film was something completely unknown to me. My only experience with film in recent years was with a disposable camera, so we can easily agree that I had no idea how to deal with it.
Before buying my first camera, I wanted to get my hands on an SLR to see how it felt, so a friend lent me an Olympus OM10. It seemed pretty straightforward to me and I didn't bother asking him any explanations about loading the film.
I shot two rolls with it and enthusiastically brought them to the lab. When I came back to collect my pictures the following day, my enthusiasm quickly turned to great disappointment. Both rolls turned out blank, nothing, empty, adios! I was so excited by the idea to see those pictures but they were gone forever and there was nothing I could do about it.
My spontaneous reaction was to blame the camera because there was no way that I could have done something wrong with two rolls. I even considered that the lab could have messed-up but it never crossed my mind that I could have done something wrong. In any case, my faith in this camera was gone, so I gave it back to my friend thinking it was faulty.
After this bitter failure, I got myself a Leica M6 which, I was sure, was not likely to fail on me as that modest Olympus did. Everything was fine, rolls were flying through and it was giving me complete satisfaction. But like in every love story, there are ups and downs.
Our first down had to happen at some point and I think you already know what follows next: Yes, it happened again, another empty roll!
This time though, things were a bit different and I knew exactly what went wrong. When I rewound the film, I quickly noticed after a few spins that there was no resistance. Usually you feel tension when rewinding film back into the canister, here I felt tension for the first 4 or 5 spins then nothing. I was turning but nothing was moving anymore, which meant that the film never moved after loading it into the camera. I kept shooting over the same frame again and again.
/Vincent Moschetti
It's a mistake that you can avoid very easily and I'm going to show what you should to pay attention to when loading film :
1. Once you have inserted the tip of the film inside the spool, make sure the teeth are engaged between the sprocket holes.
This will ensure that the film travels correctly when you use the advancement mechanism to move on the next frame.
If there isn't enough tension, you can use the rewind knob to tighten the film's position.
/Vincent Moschetti
2. The film is now inserted in the camera and there is no way to open it to check what's going on inside. Don't worry, there is an easy way to determine if the film is moving forward or not.
When you use the film advance to wind the film, you simply have to check if the knob on the left (that you use to rewind the film) is turning.
If it turns? Good! It means that the film is properly engaged.
If the film is not moving, chances are that it's was not engaged; so you are good to open the camera and check what's wrong. This can also happen if the film breaks inside. That's never happened to me but I know that can an issue.
Not Exposing Correctly
If, like me, you are coming from digital, chances are that you are using exposure for the highlights and then recovering the shadows in post production. Digital sensors are well known for being able to recover a lot of details in dark areas but don't do so well at keeping information in highlights.
With film, it's slightly different so you have to rethink your approach when measuring the light of your scene. Unlike digital cameras, film is very good at keeping details in highlights even if overexposed. The counterpoint to that, is if it was underexposed, you won't be able to recover details in the shadows as a RAW file would allow you to.
Overexposed image straight out of the scanner /Vincent Moschetti
I lowered the exposure by 2 stops in Lightroom /Vincent Moschetti
Not all films are equal in terms of under-exposition. The most flexible are black and white and color film C-41. They allow you to underexpose by a few stops and still retain details in the shadows. There is one type of color film called "slide film" or sometimes referred to as E-6 that doesn't offer this flexibility. It requires much more precision when exposing. This is not the type of film you want to use if you're a beginner. It's also very difficult and expensive to get developed so I would suggest sticking with standard C-41 to start with.
Buying Expensive Film
If you've just opened the door of film photography, you must feel a bit lost by the amount of film to choose from and that's normal. I felt the same at the beginning and couldn't decide which film I should buy. So I started reading reviews, checking pictures on Flickr etcetera.
/Vincent Moschetti
After a while, you will notice the same names being repeated, such as Kodak Portra for color and Ilford HP5 or Kodak Tri-X for black and white film. These are the most popular types but they are also pricey. If budget is not an issue for you, feel free to stop reading here. However, if you are concerned about the cost of your photography, stay with me a bit longer.
On my quest for the perfect film, I ended up choosing Kodak Portra 400. The look of images shot with it really appealed to me and it didn't take long before a box 5 rolls got delivered in my mailbox. Of course, quality comes at a price but if I wanted to create these kind of images I had to pay that price.
I continued shooting and was sure that it would get fantastic images thanks to this professional film stock. Then proudly handed over my freshly shot roll to my local lab to get it developed. As soon as I got the negatives back, I ran home to scan those images. My enthusiasm quickly vanished when the first images appeared onscreen. It was a real cold shower. . . These images had nothing to do with what I was expecting from this film.
Looking back I figured that the problem was not the film itself but my lack of experience. At the time, my knowledge of film was so limited that we could consider it non-existent. To get the most of a film type, there are many factors that will impact the final result. We acknowledged earlier that exposure is a factor but the lens, quality of light, the developing process, and scanning will also play a major role in achieving this result.
Let's be honest, if you shoot with professional film but then play cheap, like I did, on development and scanning, you will never reach this quality. It's like driving a Ferrari with cheap tires, there is no way it will get the optimal performance of your horsepower!
As you are just starting, there is no point in buying the most expensive films on the market. Instead, you can use cheaper alternatives and get respectable results. I reviewed earlier the Afga 200 for color and Fomapan 200 for black and white. These guys are doing a great job while saving you some frustration and money. Below is an example of what you can get with a 4$ roll of Fomapan 200 :
/Vincent Moschetti
Once you're more experienced, if your budget allows you to do so, you should definitely use those more expensive films and try to send your work to pro labs. They have the equipment and the level expertise required to reveal the most out of your negatives.
Vincent Moschetti worked exclusively with digital equipement until he had a revelation and discovered the beauty of shooting with film cameras. If you would like to learn more about his work, you can visit his website, Facebook, and Instagram pages. This article was originally published here.
(Cover image: Vincent Moschetti)
Images Used With Permission
. digitalrev.com2017-2-1 03:00