The Quirks of Film Photography.

A personal journey & rough guide into film photography.

Beginnings

On a casual afternoon in December 2018, after a rather dull routine editing session on Lightroom, a sudden thought came to my mind, “Is there a more interesting workflow other than inserting an SD card into my laptop and slapping a preset onto images?.” It turns out there is such a thing. I decided to embark on a journey many might seem redundant today in order to negate my ever so linear-digital photography process.

Curiosity

Film Photography was something I’ve been quite intrigued by ever since I saw my brother’s negatives. “Why would someone go through all that time, effort, and money to develop and digitize images at the end of the day?! It sounded like such a surreal concept at the time, even before I got my first film camera. Still, I wanted to try it out since I was waiting for college to resume.

Introduction

For anyone new to the concept of film photography, here’s how it works. First, you would have to source the film you would like to shoot with; this will determine the number of factors of your final image ranging from exposure, specific strengths, weaknesses, and aesthetic look. After shooting, you would send the film to a lab or home-develop your film and digitise the negatives through scanning. Whampoa Colour Centre, as seen above, offers film processing and scanning. They’re known for being the few film processing labs currently existing here in Singapore that processes film at an affordable price with 16-bit scans compared to the 8-bit scans other labs do. Not to mention the Uncle and Aunty that are incredibly hospitable. A highly recommended place in my book for anyone needing to process their film!

Gear

Of course, you'll need a camera. I invested in a Nikon F3HP, a 35mm SLR (Single-Lens Reflex) camera since I already had interchangeable lenses. Whether you get an SLR or a Point & Shoot camera is up to you. An SLR would be highly advantageous if your sole purpose of shooting film is to learn about the technical aspects of film photography while a P&S would be ideal for casual shooting. Unlike digital cameras today, you're not subjected to popular brands such as Canon, Nikon, Sony and Fujifilm. Before the digital photography age, other camera manufacturers such as Pentax and Minolta were around. Due to the recent surge in film photography, SLRs and P&S' have been steadily increasing in price. Although not as expensive as digital cameras, they still warrant a hefty price tag due to demand, so finding one in the used market is recommended.

Preperations

This is an optional step, but before snapping shots, I tend to set my ISO on my camera to one stop under the film’s ISO rating; This tricks my camera into metering for a stop of exposure, which overexposes my shot by one stop of light. Unlike digital camera sensors, film generally has more latitude for the highlights and not the shadows. Therefore, overexposing by just a stop allows for more information in the shadows while maintaining highlight detail.

Shooting Wisely

My first hands-on experience in film was during a one-week trip to Malacca. Being the anxious person I am, I brought along four 24 exposure rolls of Fuji Xtra Superia 400 and a roll of Ilford HP5 Plus, a Black and White film. Yeah, this was back when Fujifilm stocks were relatively affordable before some of their films' ridiculous price hikes and discontinuation. Knowing jack all about film at the time, I shot off most of my frames without any clear objective due to my digital shooting nature.

Dev’ing

Sending film off for development is arguably the most anxious and excited any first-timer would be. It’s that feeling of suspense, not knowing whether images will even appear on the negatives while remaining confident that you’ve done every step right. Luckily for me, all my rolls turned out fine.

Colours

Some may see editing images from film after scanning as a sin. It's film after all, so why ruin the colours? This is where the act of editing film becomes subjective since everyone has their own opinions and style. One may use the HSL adjusters in Lightroom, but that destroys the whole point of using different film emulsions to achieve specific colours and tones. I tend to make small adjustments to correct the exposure along with the temperature and tint till my eyes say yes. As mentioned earlier, emulsions from Kodak tends to hover towards warmer tones that create a sunny feel, while Fuji lends itself to Greens and Blues. These are essential factors to note if you're looking for a specific "vibe" that you want your images to feel. Prosumer films such as Kodak Portra 400 and Fuji PRO 400H are often portrayed with pastel tones whilst keeping skin tones realistic.

Kodak Colourplus 200

Kodak Gold 200

Fuji Industrial 100

Fuji C200

Lomography 800

Time to get bigger

Entering the world of Medium Format

Medium Format

After familiarizing myself with the process and 135 film, I decided to try medium format film photography. As mentioned earlier, medium format uses 120 film, which captures substantially bigger negative sizes, creating something called the “Medium Format Look.” This distinctive look refers to the rather appealing aesthetical qualities in MF images, such as pronounced smoothness, more blurriness in shallow depth of field images, and more accurate colour rendering.

Formats

In medium format, the typical sizes of exposures you'll encounter range from 6x4.5, 6x6, 6x7 and 6x9cm. Bigger sizes grant you better resolution, with the tradeoff being that you get fewer frames. The aspect ratio of these sizes also changes depending on the negative size you're shooting. So if there's a camera described as "6x6", you'll know you’re getting square format images (1:1).