Film Tricks & Techniques

A photography blog without photographs is just silly so here is a recent favorite for your viewing pleasure.

For the sake of those who have never done film photography or others like me, who have been away from it for a while, there are a couple tricks & techniques that I should share. I can only share these tips because I am slowly remembering them as I continue to shoot more film. Thirty years ago when I was shooting film on a regular basis with equipment I had been using for years these things were second nature.

I can remember walking through the French Market in New Orleans (or any other venue for that matter) and almost automatically adjusting the shutter speed on my 35mm SLR in response to the changing light conditions or situation as I moved from one “scene” to another. In those days, like now I had a fully manual 35mm SLR and tended to shoot “shutter priority” with it.

Shutter priority with a manual camera is not the same thing as it is with an automatic camera. In this case it simply meant that I would select the shutter speed first based on the situation and the desired results.

For instance, the need to “stop action” when shooting a fast moving subject, or the need to avoid blurry pictures resulting from shooting with a shutter speed that was too slow. I would adjust the shutter speed to keep the exposure settings in the acceptable range for the picture I thought I might want to take.

I would also routinely reset the aperture along with the shutter speed without consulting the camera’s onboard light meter but just using a “best guess” method that seemed to work very well at the time and kept my camera within a stop or two of the correct exposure setting most of the time. This was important because often when a “picture moment” presented itself there was only a fleeting opportunity to get the camera to my eye, compose the shot, focus, adjust the exposure setting and take the picture.

This takes more than a little skill to accomplish on a regular basis and is why fully automatic (or programmable) auto-focus cameras have pretty much taken over the market.

… and I admit that automatic cameras available today, even the inexpensive ones, generally do a creditable job for the average snapshot type picture that most people take most of the time.

In fact, in the “old days” when I was shooting film exclusively (along with everyone else) I also “packed” a Canon Shure Shot 35mm point & shoot with auto-everything for those average snap shot type pictures

So there is the first tip. If you are using a manual camera train yourself to “preselect” shutter and aperture settings so you are always ready – or nearly so. This is not as difficult as it may seem and after a while, if you do it often enough it will become second nature and you will get better and better at it.

The second tip is that every film is different. I have discovered that the two films I have been shooting the most have opposite characteristics. Kodak Portra 400 works best if I overexpose it slightly. Kodak BW400 works best if it is slightly underexposed.

This is a familiar enough principle for me to believe that it is perhaps universally true. That is to say generally, color negative films should be slightly overexposed and black & white films should be slightly underexposed for best results.

In any case, I would highly recommend that whatever film you choose to use, use enough of it and pay close attention to the results for you learn its individual characteristics.