Six Lessons I Learned From Returning To Film Photography After A Decade
Returning to film photography taught me important photography lessons that changed the way I think about photography, shoot, and edit my film and digital images.
I started taking photography more seriously in 2006. It was the period of mass migration from film to digital cameras, accelerated by revolutionary releases of prosumer or semi-professional DSLRs, like Nikon D70, Nikon D200, or Canon 5D. By 2010, only few purists among my many friends hadn't entirely moved to digital, swearing by their trusted analog equipment. By 2020, they all eventually gave in or completely abandoned their photographic journey.
In 2008, I went against the trend and purchased a 35mm film SLR, which then led me to buying several medium format film cameras. While I enjoyed this journey, I stopped photographing on film from 2012 onwards. The recent resurrection of analog photography made me try it again in 2022 - now with an entirely different mindset and in a completely different world.
In this article, I'm sharing six lessons I learned from immersing in film again, after a decade. These learnings have entirely changed my approach to photography and are applicable to both film and digital.
Lesson 1: Imperfections are welcome
In 2000s, film cameras often produced images with better image quality than digital cameras. Nowadays, digital cameras have surpassed almost any film camera in image quality, as measured by detail resolution.
Modern digital cameras, including smartphones, produce well-exposed, sharp, and clinical images. The instantenous preview or live-view functionality lets you easily identify mistakes or retake photos within seconds. Shooting in a burst mode doesn't cost anything and only increases the chances of capturing the perfect moment.
Film is different. You can't preview or fix incorrect exposures. You can't shoot 100 frames in 3 seconds. Grain is inherent to film, as opposed to perfectly smooth digital files. Lenses were designed before modern advances in computational techniques; they aren't perfectly sharp, they flare when shooting against light, and they produce vignette in the corners.
All these imperfections of film photography make analog shots stand out from the crowd of digital perfection. Imperfection feels more human and more relatable. Humans aren't perfect, nor our memories are. It's all about the feeling an image evokes, not the perfect technique.
Lesson 2: Shoot for shadows, not highlights
In 2000s, slide films were the only acceptable option among nature and landscape photographers. Nowadays, photographers more often reach for higher-latitude negative films to capture scenes with more subtlety and detail across highlights and shadows.
Slide films have a reduced capability to capture high-contrast scenes. The go-to slide films in the past, Fujichrome Velvia or Provia, could only capture around 5 stops of dynamic range. For comparison, negative films, like Kodak Portra, are estimated to have 12 stops of dynamic range, in line with most modern digital cameras. That difference of 7 stops is staggering. If you normalize the exposure for shadows, negative film could expose details in areas up to 128 times brighter (2 raised to the power of 7) than the areas, where a slide film would already stop recording details.
Slide films don't handle transitions in highlights well, unlike negative films. The old paradigm, stemming from the commonality of slide film, was to always expose for highlights and let shadows be dark. The new paradigm, thanks to the broader adoption of negative films, is to expose for shadows and let highlights roll nicely into whites.
Shooting for shadows with a medium capable of capturing a high dynamic range, be it a digital sensor or a negative, typically results in more details in the meaningful parts of an image. You end up with a perfect base and, if your creativity calls for it, you can still darken the shadows to reduce the level of details.
Lesson 3: Learn from decades of color science research
Kodak and Fuji have spent decades and millions, if not billions, of dollars researching the color science and perfecting their film emulsions. Fujichrome Velvia defined the color landscape genre as we still know it today. Kodak Portra or Fuji Pro film stocks, designed for portraits, taught us how to gracefully handle skin tones. Kodak Vision films have been the basis of the famed Hollywood-movie look.
Digital cameras, especially when shooting in the RAW mode, don't do any advanced color interpretation, with an assumption that those colors will be adjusted in the image processing workflow. In practice, most photographers, myself included, struggle with the infinite number of processing options, only to arrive at suboptimal results. Should my colors be greener in the shadows? Bluer in the midtones? Yellower in the highlights? 5% more saturated in the bright areas? 6.5% less saturated in the shadows? What about contrast? Are the skin tones correct? The possibilities are endless.
I've been extremely satisfied with the colors from many of my recent film photographs and have spent hours analyzing what makes them so special. I often treat film images as a reference point and direction for editing my digital captures. Their colors are a great foundation that can be further built upon, when pursuing a look tailored to a specific scene.
Lesson 4: Film isn't going to make a bad picture good
An important lesson I learned (don't ask how...) is that no matter the medium, film or digital, it won't make a bad picture good, let alone great. Ultimately, film or a sensor is only a means of recording a scene. If the scene isn't interesting or if it is poorly composed, the result will always be subpar.
Medium of choice can make only a good photograph better. Some scenes call for the "film look", others are more suited for the cleaner "digital look". Use the medium as a tool for artistic expression.
Lesson 5: Slowing down is fun
Shooting film forces the photographer to be more deliberate and intentional. Each frame is costly and there is a limited number of shots in a film roll. For example, my medium format camera takes only 6 frames per roll.
Being more intentional and selective in photography is for many a welcome escape from the fast-paced daily lives and never-ending distractions. It can even be a meditative experience. Each image matters more and it isn't as disposable or replaceable as every one of the fifty images of a single scene shot on digital.
In the 2000s, fully automated cameras, spiked with electronics, reigned the world. Nowadays, many gravitate to shooting in the manual mode, with manual cameras, or with manual-focus lenses to slow down the process, increase satisfaction, and create a more emotional bond with the experience and resulting photographs.
Lesson 6: Bigger isn't always better
There's a popular, cliche by now, saying that the best camera is the camera you have with you.
While medium or large format film cameras offer superior quality, they are way bulkier, heavier, and slower to set up than their 35mm counterparts. Don't fall into the trap of always optimizing for the quality. While I did say above that slowing down is fun, you aren't going to pull out and assemble a 10 lbs. large format camera in time to capture a fleeting moment, let alone always have it with you to record a unique scene from the daily life.
Cameras are tools. Different tools serve different purposes; different situations call for different tools. It's fine to own multiple complementary tools and even have them with you at the same time.
Conclusion
The return to film has taught me several valuable lessons that changed the way I approach photography, shoot, and edit my film and digital images. It also helped me find communities of like-minded people to share the experiences and ideas with. If you haven't tried film photography yet, now is the time to do it.
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