Film Photography / Part 1
Part 1: Choosing the film stock, the shooting process, and waiting for the lab
Following my experience with testing my very first own camera again after more than twenty years, I thought I had given up the thought of ever using a film camera again for good. That is, until my daughter snatched my Olympus Mju-II that sat dormant and unused for many years in a drawer of my desk. Together with the discovery of some younger photographers’ Youtube channels, I felt inspired enough to give it another try. Before you ask, I am talking about Teo Crawford, Jason Kummerfeldt of the channel grainydays, and Ivan Chow.
The big question for me was what camera I could use, after I ruled out the pocket style Agfamatic 2008. Among the various 35mm film cameras I had owned over the years, a few were remaining in my possession, others sold off. The Olympus Mju-II was in use. The Fujica SLR that my wife had entrusted me with was in good working condition, but I wasn’t sure about the exposure meter on it. My Canon EOS 30 SLR was broken (the film door), but my EOS 300 that I had bought second hand at some point was still working, it only needed a new battery. And then there was my Yashica T4, which I loved back in the early 1990s but I wasn’t sure if it was working (I seemed to remember some light leak). And then there were some “toy” cameras like the Russian Smena-M that I had never used and a Lomo Action (unused).
And what film stock should I use? There aren’t that many remaining these days. At least not compared with the heyday in the late 1980s and 1990s. After some research, mostly on the Fotoimpex website and some price comparison sites, I ruled out the more exotic film stocks like Lomo, Cinestill and the likes and went for the cheapest Kodak that I could find - the Kodak Gold 200. I bought some for my daughter’s planned holiday trip, and a couple of rolls for myself, just to try out which camera actually works. In addition, I also purchased two rolls of Kodak Ultramax 400 color negative film. Finding a cheap offer for even the Kodak Gold 200 wasn’t as easy as I had thought. My first impulse was Amazon, but there the films were overpriced or out of stock. So I went for one of the bigger photo retail chains first to buy one part, just to find out a couple of days later that one of the drugstore retail chains in Germany had a really good offer but only for pack of three and you could only order one of those packs.
Now, none of these films were my favourites when I was shooting films. I either used Fuji or Agfa color negative films, but mostly black & white films (first mostly Ilford HP5, but also Foma, Agfa, Fuji, Orwo, Kodak or whatever I could get hold of).
In the end, I decided to give a chance to both the Canon EOS 300 and the Yashica T4. It turned out that there was an old roll of Kodak T400CN black and white film in the Yashica. Both cameras needed a fresh battery, which are luckily still easy to find (and I believe a lot cheaper today).
Working flawlessly after being dusted off after 20 years in the drawer: my Yashica T4.
The Yashica had a couple of pictures left on the roll, so I started to snap them away around the house without much hope. Those newer pictures were indeed pretty crappy, but the older ones on the film turned out to be a pretty nice surprise, dating back to about 2002-2003, so over 20 years, mostly of my little daughter doing little daughter activities such as learning to ride a bike or learning to skate on an ice rink.
Then I loaded it with the Kodak Gold and instantly noted that the flash went off a lot more often than I would have liked, so I switched it off (aka switched into night mode), risking underexposed or blurred pictures. The handling of the Yashica was instantly familiar, but the creaky plastic housing of the camera felt really cheap.
When I got back the photos, I was happy to see that the camera did not have one of the dreaded light leaks. Some of the pictures were badly out of focus, though, others not as sharp as I remembered the lens to be. But this may be the lab’s fault, so I will report back when I have scanned the film negatives.
*****
Going back to film photography was a bit of an odd experience. No movable screen to check the framing, no review mode, but limit on the numbers of photos on a roll, being careful about the lighting etc. And then the wincing sound of the automatic film transport, the insecurity about the autofocus, and the use of manual lenses.
With the EOS 300, it actually started with a bit of a disappointment. The camera looked good, but part of the faux leather on the grip had become sticky with time, and it took quite some time to get back a pleasant feeling. I’ve tried cleaning alcohol, then a car plastic cleaner, and then cleaning alcohol again, and ultimately rubbing the sticky parts with a microfibre drained in cleaning alcohol did the job.
Smaller than I remembered and still working fine - the Canon EOS 300 with a Voigtländer 40mm / f2.0 Ultron lens attached.
When it was clean, the camera gave me a bit more fun as I could use some of lenses I would also use on a digital camera, like a 35mm, a Macro lens, or a tele. At the time of writing, I believe I did go out into the garden to shoot some flower macros and even a portrait of my daughter.
Now that I am writing about it, I find it interesting that now, after years of using almost exclusively digital cameras with their instant access to the results and the possibility to review the picture and publish them and so forth, I am not used to forgetting what I shot with a film anymore. But of course, looking back, it was common and always kind of a surprise when you were an amateur photographer like me and not a professional that you forgot what exactly you had taken pictures of. And were pleasantly or unpleasantly surprised once you got the developed films back from the lab.
At first glance, most of the images taken with the EOS 300 and various lenses look actually quite good; no light leaks, good exposure etc. The handling of the relatively small EOS 300 needed some adjustment after using clunky digital SLRs and mirrorless cameras for a while. The Canon EF 35mm / f2 IS almost felt too big for that camera. The Voigtländer 40mm Ultron, which I’ve used for a couple of shots and which is quite a bit smaller but not necessarily lighter than the 35mm, felt much better on this camera. Next time, I will certainly also stick on my Helios 44-2. For the macro shots I took in the garden, I noticed how much more convenient it actually is to use a swivel screen on a digital camera to get those low-angle shots for which you would otherwise have to lie on your belly to be able to peek through the viewfinder of an analog camera.
One of the decisions I had to make was where to have the films developed. Should I go down the cheapo route and bring the films to one of the German drugstore chains, Rossmann or DM? Or should I go to Fotoporto.de, which is a lab in Berlin that also does really good film scans? Or a new lab that I have found called Aperture Berlin? I decided to go for Rossmann, for convenience and also because I didn’t know how the two films from the Yashica T4 would turn out, and also because I thought it might be a good idea to do film shooting the right way. The old way, the way that I was not missing at all: the way of having to wait some odd amount of time before my film envelopes magically appear on the rack of the processed films and photos in a drugstore, waiting for me to be taken home.
So Rossmann fully delivered on that. Not only was the delay considerable. They have a website where you can track the process of your order (aka envelope). It took them a whole 10 days before my orders showed up on that tracking website for the first time, stating the order was placed on 20 July (it was placed on 10 July). When I picked up the orders, not all of them were ready; as expected, the B&W Kodak T400CN that I had in my Yashica T4 took longer to develop And of course, this only worked after I had already visited the local Rossmann store and asked for the order where they told me that it usually takes about a week, but also said that the pick-up service for the orders wasn’t reliably working.
I had ordered 13x18cm prints in a glossy premium quality. This means that Rossmann’s lab, Cewe, has printed the pictures on Fujicolor Crystal Archive Paper Supreme. Looking at the pictures, I can’t help but finding them to be cheap-looking, with the colors being oddly off, especially the greens and the skintones. Since I haven’t shot film in so many years, I have no way to tell if these color casts are due to film stock or the lab or the paper. That is one of the reasons why I wanted to scan my films myself.
A quick word on Cewe - named after the founder of one of the early labs in Germany, Carl Wöltje - this is, I believe, the biggest photo lab chain and near monopolist in Germany, also owing the Whitewall photo printing service that seems to position itself as a premium service. The company is still majority owned by Wöltje’s heirs, the Neumüller family. With their near monopoly in the photo lab market, wherever you bring your films for development theses days, especially in retail chains such as Rossmann, you will like have Cewe in the background. That doesn’t mean that there are no local alternatives, on the contrary, especially in the bigger cities.
Looking at those pictures, especially two of the better macro shots I managed to take with the EOS 300, my respect goes to the macro photographers who only shot (or still shoot) on film. Back when I was shooting film, I hardly shot any macros. When I go out in the garden today with a digital camera to take macro shots, I usually end up with a real large number of photos taken within a short period of time - for instance, one recent Sunday, I shot something in the range of 750-800 photos in the course of about 1.5 hours. Especially when it is slightly windy. Especially when I try to nail the focus point on insects. Especially when I use higher magnification ratios such as 1:1 or even 2:1. This is simply not an option when you shoot film. Nonetheless, I am looking forward to the versions of the two shots above based on scanned negatives.
The following two examples, also shot with the EOS 300, could be easily fixed if they were shot with a digital camera. The white balance seems to be bit off on the left photo and it could do with a slight crop, too. On the right side, the highlights are a bit blown out. Both are scan of the lab print at the highest resolution of my office scanner.
The following pictures are also scans from the lab prints, but the photos were taken with the Yashica T4 on the way to the Rossmann shop. The shopping mall where it is located is pretty run down and not well attended, which is why there is ample place in the garage to take pictures. With the smaller size of the pictures below, they actually look decently sharp, but the actual lab prints do not.
I like the left picture above, especially with the play of light on the reflective concrete floor in the garage and the green reflection on the ceiling / concrete beam. The photo on the right is moody, but it is slightly tilted and the highlights in the windows are a bit too blown out for my taste.
I am relatively happy about how those photos with the Yashica T4 turned out and I’m looking forward to versions of those photos properly scanned from the negatives at high resolution and then processed in Lightroom. One of the things I notice with the two pictures above is that they could do with a slightly wider angle, for instance 28mm rather than 35mm, but that’s not something that you can change when you have a fixed lens camera made for snapshots.
Although I like the composition of the above image a lot, there are a couple of points which make me wonder if the lab has cocked up the print or damaged the film negative. One thing I do know is that this strange stripe over the can is not present in the first photo I took of the same subject but mistakenly used a flash. So, it’s neither the camera’s nor the photographer’s fault. The other thing I don’t like is again that strange color cast, greenish-yellow in this case. And I can’t say if its the photographic paper it was printed on or the film or the lab.
*****
As a preliminary summary, I would say that I won’t go back to film photography. As things stand, I will leave this to a group of photographers who enjoy the long process, who enjoy taking chances and manage to get good results out of it. For me, the chemical process of developing negatives alone would be something I don’t want to go back into again. Too bad are the memories of my film photography days. The chemicals dried out my hands, triggered my asthma (especially the acetic acid stop bath in the lab). The dust issues I’ve always had in own darkroom (aka bathroom). The wageries of the external labs, the long waiting times and uncertain effects.
In other words, I feel a lot more in control with digital photography, and also feel safer about it.
You may notice that I haven’t mentioned costs yet. Yes, this is also a factor, but one that I potentially would be willing to take on (again) if I thought it would be worth it. But for me personally, I don’t think this will be the case. I have decided to use up the rest of my films and only will get back to shooting oldschool for special projects (which I don’t have at the moment).
*****
As a bit of a postscriptum - after I had finalized the text for this I have come across a good option to scan the lab prints without using an office scanner or any sophisticated equipment. It’s a free app by Google called Fotoscanner in German (and PhotoScan in English). The results so far are decent as they have come up with a way to avoid reflections on shiny print surfaces.
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In the next part on film photography in 2023, I will talk about the process of scanning film negatives.