It wasn’t really that bad. It didn’t take much practice to get reasonably good results. Built-in camera metering worked well, and you got a feel for aperture vs. depth of field (sometimes that’s even marked on the lens). If you were trying for a special effect you might have to do an experimental roll, but ordinary circumstances typically “just worked”.
Punch cards, on the other hand, really were that bad. :)
For B&W, it actually wasn't quite that bad with 35mm relative to today. For something like a football game, I might have shot 5 rolls (so 200 frames or so). Random assignments for a given day a roll or two. You made contact prints and printed up what was needed.
Definitely a bigger consideration than today but it's not all about quantity.
Hey, I did some of that too. Had my own little dark room and everything.
Working with film was, um, exciting? Not sure if that's the right word. Anyway, mistakes were final. I remember deliberating on the settings for a really long time before pushing the button.
I agree about the magic of an image appearing on the paper, but in other respects I was never keen on the darkroom itself - the smell of the fixer and the stop-bath, the darkness and the fact that the images I produced were never as good as I wanted them to be kind of put me off.
Still, it was fun, all in all. I've never found digital at all satisfying.
i remember making my own camera in the mid 1970s. the lens was one of those crappy macro things you could screw onto a proper slr lens, and the film was actually photographic printing paper. the body was cardboard and tape, and the shutter a bit of cloth.
after you had taken a pic, you had to rush into the darkroom, develop the paper and then reverse print it (cannot remember how, or even if i did).
all a bit weird, but it kept me amused back then. i haven't been involved in photography for nearly 40 years.
As an amateur and untalented photographer, my results have benefited a lot from being able to shoot hundreds of photos and maybe get a single composition I'm proud of. Exposure, contrast etc has always been flexible to a point.
However, I really miss my bedroom darkroom from when I was 16-19.
Sheets pegged over the window, rags taped roughly over the door edges. Good enough for B&W print with a red dull light, but still had to load my rolls inside a hot and sweaty duvet cover because otherwise the negatives would get clouded in my ghetto setup. A £20 used enlarger bought from the local classifieds, a rough bench built with planks and rough-cut legs, nails and glue.
Got some great prints. Not many. Miss those days. I still have my Olympus OM2SP, best Camera I have ever used.
There's something to be said for knowing you only have a limited number of shots, and using another roll will cost money and real effort to develop. Makes you stop and think, in my opinion.
On the flip side, my entire "career" with 35mm I got 4 prints that I still love uncritically. My digital career has given me about 50 that I am happy to pay to have printed and put on the wall.
I’d argue ‘the hard way’ is probably shooting large format slide film and developing it yourself ;), but seriously congrats on this foray into the exciting world of analog photography!
Just don’t get too attached to any Fuji film stocks…
So how hard is it to DIY development? It seems like every couple of years I read an article like this one that gets me curious, because if I'm going to use physical rolls of film, I'd might as well develop it myself without waiting/paying a lab and to get that sense of pride when you do finally get a good photo.
I'm not someone that takes pictures much on my phone or anything, but reading this makes me want a cheap film camera like this where pictures aren't just throw away, you have to go through a process to even find that the picture turned out crappy.
I couldn't understand having a nostalgia for a time when cameras sucked. At least go film. Hell, go for disposable film cameras or something. Cheap 35mm point and shoots rule.
Wow, that sounds really fun. A friend of mine got into medium format film photography and had a blast. Personally, while I love film, I don't know if I could go back to point and hope. I'm so used to instant feedback. How did you manage?
Reminds me of my high school photography class, where we made camera obscuras (pinhole cameras) out of an oatmeal container. Did it make the best-quality images? No. But it was still one of the more memorable projects I did in high school.
Interesting subject, for a change. Usually old camera stuff is just boring and bring up bad memories. We had color camera in 1950s, and the film was so expensive that using flash bulb everytime was good practice to ensure exposure was ok. Soviet-made bulbs were also cheap in Finland, but Agfa-film was developed only in West Germany and took a month.
I think it was a sacrifice of quality for the convenience of digital cameras. It was a great joy to be able to download and view photos immediately after taking them, rather than send the film to be developed. It was also extremely liberating when I realized I could buy a 1GB card and store photos taken over an entire trip. The freedom to not worry and keep clicking was a huge departure from the experience with standard 24 shot film rolls. I remember trips with my family where we'd spend lots of time just looking for shops selling film.
I managed a full-service film lab back in the early 90s. C-41 neg, E-6 chrome, enlargements, copy prints/negs/slides, everything (we didn't do K-14, but just about everything else). We processed several hundred rolls a day, and I personally shot 10-15 rolls a week (we got film at cost, and processing was free).
So, yeah, I have quite a lot of experience with the nature of film photography.
Once the first decent DSLRs appeared on the market, I switched and never looked back.
... reading this makes me want a cheap film camera like this where pictures aren't just throw away, you have to go through a process to even find that the picture turned out crappy.
I borrowed a friend's old Canon AE-1 35mm. Not quite the same as the Holga, as the Canon was a nice camera in it's day. Anyways, my biggest "problem" using it that I've become accustomed to instant feedback with digital cameras. I haven't developed anything yet - waiting until I have a few rolls, as the closest shop that still develops in-house is a 30+ minute drive into the city.
I think you’ve forgotten about the bit where you had to prepare acetate slides, carry a huge box around with you, clean all dirt off the top, get it into focus, etc. Digital brings costs and benefits.
Yeah, that was my take. Put a bunch of tiny 110 frames around in a wheel pattern and add a plastic lens (I'm guessing here) and what do you think you're going to get?
Even 35mm was marginal in quality (he says from his spoiled-by-modern-digital-photography future). I went back to film and tried a nice Nikon F3 with a great lens. Photos were okay.
Absolutely wowed though when I started experimenting with 120 (medium format) film cameras.
Punch cards, on the other hand, really were that bad. :)
reply