I shot a couple of rolls of 35mm film over the past weekend for the first time in about 8 years. I had a few thoughts of shooting film in this digital era that were quite contradictory, so I thought I'd try and break these thoughts down.
Pros:
- slows you down and makes you think about the composition, lighting and exposure of each image you take
- colours look a lot more vibrant and contrasty than a normal RAW file
- the wait of waiting for the film to arrive back from the developers (in this case Metro Imaging in London) removes the modern day instant gratification needed when shooting digitally and checking the LCD screen after every photo
Cons:
- not being able to motordrive through 4-5 images meant that sometimes I might have missed the so called "decisive moment" on a few occasions
- having the options of shooting RAW allows me to choose the amount of contrast, saturation etc I want in the image after the fact, rather than at the point of choosing which film to use
- not being able to post to Instagram within two minutes of taking a picture is a bit annoying 😉
So, as you can see, the pros and the cons pretty much cancel each other out. What I take from this then, is that, like I said in a previous blog, it really doesn't make a difference what you're shooting with, as long as it gets the job done.
What are your experiences and thoughts on shooting film?? Does it still have a place in modern photography?? Let us know what you think!