{"id":5137,"date":"2012-05-29T23:47:36","date_gmt":"2012-05-30T03:47:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.stayfocusedpress.com\/blog\/?p=5137"},"modified":"2021-02-05T18:07:04","modified_gmt":"2021-02-05T23:07:04","slug":"theres-film-in-my-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arnielee.com\/sfp\/?p=5137","title":{"rendered":"There’s film in my future"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
Relearning things from the past<\/b><\/p>\n

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Not long ago as part of spring house cleaning, my wife had me rummaging through one of our closets. I happened upon a relic from the past – a film camera.<\/p>\n

Upon seeing it, nostalgia completely overtook my mind and I quickly loaded a roll of film into the camera and was out of the house and ready to take a stab at it the “old way”.<\/td>\n

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After years of using digital equipment, I felt a strange sensation going retro and having to set things manually. I was no longer comfortable shooting without the help of today’s “take in for granted” modern features: zoom lens, auto exposure, and autofocus.<\/p>\n

Instead I felt compelled to plan each shot by positioning myself at the desired distance from my subject, picking a specific pair of shutter speed and aperture settings and carefully focusing before pressing an almost silent shutter button. Afterwards, I instinctively peeked at the back of the camera and felt slightly silly – there isn’t an LCD on the back of a camera from the 1950s.<\/p>\n

I shot only one roll that day. Then I dropped off at the photofinisher and had to wait an entire day before I could see the results. Of course, the film is returned in an envelope with the proofs. But I find it hard to judge a photo from a 4″ x 6″ print so I scanned the negatives to see the results up close on a computer monitor.<\/p>\n

Here’s a few of the shots.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/a>
\nFor this photo, I first estimated the exposure and then I asked her to remain still for a few moments while I slowly focused the lens. I like the result.<\/td>\n		<\/a>
\nHaving scanned the negative, I used Lightroom to turn the color image into a greyscale. I prefer this photo which removes the somewhat distracting green color.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

It’s been a few days since I’ve reviewed the 4″ x 6″ proofs. I am now able to deconstruct the process that I experienced that day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Knowing that I was limited to 24 exposures, I carefully selected, posed and composed my subjects. Rather than snapping off six or eight shots of a single subject, I settled for one or two.<\/p>\n

Since I was shooting without the convenient features of late model cameras, I found myself checking and double checking the focus and exposure.<\/p>\n

I’m able to report that there’s a slightly liberating feeling of not having to (or being able to) instantly review each shot. I didn’t feel hurried to snap away. Instead, I took a few extra seconds so I could try to get things right in the camera.<\/td>\n

<\/a>
\nI was able to catch the family dog resting so I didn’t have to rush my shot.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

\u2248<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/a>
\nI was so pleased shooting film after such a long respite that I retrieved these other cameras from storage. I bought a few more rolls of film and so I’m ready to go at it again the “old way”.<\/td>\n		<\/a>
\nCaution: I quickly rediscovered that I need to brush the dust from the negatives before scanning. This is what happens to poorly scanned negatives. Don’t let this spoil your day.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Armed with a couple of these older cameras, I’m planning to go out and shoot more film.<\/p>\n

I’m hoping to adopt this method of working more deliberately when I’m shooting with digital equipment. I’d like to improve my goal of getting it right in the camera<\/em>. I think we can all learn a few things from shooting with film. Why not grab your trusty film camera and shoot a few rolls? It may do you some good.<\/p>\n

Written by Arnie Lee<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Relearning things from the past   Not long ago as part of spring house cleaning, my wife had me rummaging through one of our closets. I happened upon a relic from the past – a film camera. Upon seeing it, nostalgia completely overtook my mind and I quickly loaded a roll of film into the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[238,181,8,101],"tags":[98,369,368],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arnielee.com\/sfp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5137"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arnielee.com\/sfp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arnielee.com\/sfp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arnielee.com\/sfp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arnielee.com\/sfp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5137"}],"version-history":[{"count":84,"href":"https:\/\/arnielee.com\/sfp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5137\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10386,"href":"https:\/\/arnielee.com\/sfp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5137\/revisions\/10386"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arnielee.com\/sfp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arnielee.com\/sfp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arnielee.com\/sfp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}