A Life In Film
Not everybody trusts paintings but people believe photographs.
— Ansel Adams.
This is the first post on my new blog. I’m just getting this new blog going, so stay tuned for more. I’m going to be writing about Film photography, mainly tips and reviews on work and different films from a photographers standpoint so stick around!
Today I am writing about the 5 cheapest ways somebody could enter the world of film photography without forking over thousands of pounds or dollars for a Hasselblad 500c/m or a Leica M3 because as much as everybody who loves photography would love one of these cameras, but not all of us can afford them including myself, the way I am looking at the pricing is immediate price and also continuous purchases, Enjoy!
Disposable photography while not being ideal for both your work and the environment is a great way to get started in film photography for a low cost, just a quick search on Amazon for “disposable cameras” I immediately found hundreds of results of disposable cameras ready to be used, I even found the first ever disposable camera I ever used (Kodak Single Use FunSaver) which was part of my PGA adventure holiday with my primary school in year 4 so when I was around 9 years old, what this means is that even somebody who knows nothing about photography and take photos.
Pros.
ISO 400 film which is a very versatile speed meaning you’ll be able to capture great photos in any light condition whether it’s in the hot mid-day sun or the perfect sunset.
The Kodak I’ve come across comes with 39 exposures (photos to be taken) which is amazing because usually the largest 35mm film length you can buy is 36 exposures at £5 a roll so 39 photos + plus a working point and shoot (fully automatic like your phone) camera all for £11.43 on Amazon is a steal.
Cons.
You have very little control of the outcome of your shots, they will be perfectly exposed however your lack of control over the speed of your shutter and the aperture (controls how blurry the non-focused parts are, to put it simply) means you are unable to take artistic licence with your photographs.
conclusion.
All in all disposable photography is a great way to get started even though it has it’s fair share of pros and cons you can’t really moan about it considering it’s low price point of between £10-£15.
a cheap camera doesn’t necessarily mean a bad camera, some of the most popular cameras are cheaper options, the one I’m going to be looking at today is the Canon AE-1 (programme) mainly because if you ask any photography that enjoys using 35mm film they will often tell you this camera is the perfect camera for a beginner and that you really need nothing else if you are just looking for quick snap shots. The Canon AE-1 is a electronic auto and manual exposure camera which is what makes it so great to work with because for people who know very little about photography won’t struggle with it due to it’s auto mode just like the disposable counter part, however unlike the disposable you get much more freedom in the film that you use. In contrast to this the AE-1 is a great option for those who already know a bit due to it’s full manual functionality as well.
Pros.
The AE-1 is a great little camera that you can pick up between £50-100 in a well used but still working condition, so pricing wise this camera is incredible for a great bang-for-buck situation if you find yourself on a low budget.
The camera also allows you to buy into Canons massive range of lenses which is amazing because my advice will always be, if you have a set budget always spend the most of your money on good lenses because when you come to upgrade the camera, as long as you stay with in the same lens mount all your expensive lenses will continue to work on your new expensive film SLR camera.
Cons.
The body is a part metal, part plastic which isn’t bad by any stretch of the imagination and is definitely not a reason to be deterred from the camera, the only reason I bring it up is due to the fact that just might not feel as “premium” as other cameras but at this price point you won’t get much better.
Conclusion.
If you have the budget the Canon AE-1 is the perfect camera to kickstart your journey in 35mm photography, and if you aren’t new to film photography it is a great camera to add to your collection without breaking the bank.
Bulk-buying film is simple instead of going into a shop and picking up a roll of Fujifilm Superia X-tra 400 in Boots (UK drug and health store) for £8.99, you can order a pack of 5 off of amazon for £34.99 instead of buying them single for £44.95 which means you save £9.96 which if you’re in a tight spot financially £10 could mean a lot. Obviously, if you only have the money for one roll, buy one roll but if you have the money for 5 rolls at £44.95, just bulk buy and save yourself a tenner.
Pros.
The singular pro on this one is rather simple, YOU SAVE MONEY!
Cons.The only con I can think of is that you can bulk buy cheaper off EBay however if you are going to go down that route, just be careful because a unbelievable deal can sometimes mean the film is out of date which isn’t the end of the world and a lot of people shoot on expired film it just isn’t for me, I could quite possibly write about the advantages and disadvantages of expired film in another post.
Conclusion.
Bulk-Buying film incredible.
Right now this is straying into more expensive territory but bare with me, a developing kit inside your own home is still expensive and I’m talking about a dark-bag rather than a dark-room all together once again you’re looking at £50-100 which is the same as the Canon earlier in the post however, there is still the running cost of resupplying your chemicals. However, no matter how you cut it, it is still a lot cheaper than paying someone else to do it, which usually costs £10 a roll or £15 for developing and digital scans.
Pros.
You have complete control over your film, which is good for two reasons if you don’t like leaving people or a company alone with your film as they could mess it up, I know I’ve had that problem before, but at the same time if you are shooting expired film it means that you can push it forwards or bring it back depending on your requirements.
Cons.
As I said before even though it’s cheaper than paying for someone else to develop your rolls over the long term, the immediate purchase of buying the equipment is still much more expensive than just £10 for development.
Honestly if money is very tight for you, buying a cheap DSLR or digital point and shoot and using that as your main camera while also simultaneously running a film camera on the side and running it once a month can save you a lot of money as film photography is expensive and when I first started I couldn’t use my 35mm every week due to money restrictions so this is exactly what I did.
Pros.
You still get to use your film camera, even if it isn’t as often as you like, at least you haven’t given up even if it means you hardly use it but can do one day.
Cons.
You don’t get to use the camera as much as you’d like.
Conclusion.
This option really sucks but it sometimes the only option we have, and using your 35mm camera once a month is definitely better than not using it at all.
Thank you for reading.
Film photography is a fantastic was to get into photography but also improve your photography skills due to it’s limitations, the most noticeable difference between digital and film is the switch from a memory card to film canisters, going from being able to shoot 100s of photos in a matter of minutes and delete the ones you don’t have which sounds fantastic, but limiting yourself to a 36 exposure can of film means you really have to think about your shot before you take it as theres no deleting it once it’s taken, the thought process is why I love it so much however there is a lot I have realised between starting and where I am today which I want to share with you now.
Expectation: So you’ve went on Ebay and decided you want to be an old 35mm film camera, maybe like me when I started you heard about film off of a friend or a relative (for me it was my uncle who is a photographer) and you want to try out and experience this new style of photography without colour rendering or any computer processing what so ever, just you and the camera. On the other hand there are lots of people who make the switch to film purely for the aesthetic of owning and being seen with a “retro” camera, clearly it’s old and rare so it must look good right?
Reality: Wrong, for the most part nobody even cares about the camera you own, if you’re taking portraits of them they don’t necessarily care what camera you have in-front of your face as long as you send them some instagram worthy photos of them later, and those who don’t know you and lets say you’re doing a street or architectural shoot, they will start to avoid you like the plague because nobody wants to be on someone else’s camera regardless of what make or model it is. In reality the only people who are going to notice are other people who are into film photography, so if you want a film camera just for the aesthetic, don’t buy a film camera just buy a camera from Fujifilm’s XT line which are digital cameras (good ones as well) with the Film appearance, that way you get the look you want while not putting up with the inconveniences you didn’t account for.
Expectations: A lot of people assume film photography is incredibly cheap down to the prices of the cameras themselves, for example I can pick up an old professional grade Canon, Nikon or Olympus film camera body for under £200 which is a bargain, even the more prestigious of 35mm film cameras such as the Leica M3 which used can set you back between £1000-£2000 which sounds like a lot, until you realise the Canon 5D mark IV (Canons flagship DSLR) is worth nearly £3000 with lens, and Nikons D5 is worth a minimum £5000 new, don’t get me wrong both of those cameras are incredible but anybody can see those prices are insane.
Reality: Film photography, unlike Digital is a pay as you shoot, what I mean like this is with digital photography you buy your DSLR or Mirrorless camera for anywhere between £300-£5000 and even more, but once you made that purchase you don’t HAVE to spend anymore money if you don’t want to and just stick with the standard kit lens, on the flip side, film photography, yeah you might of bought that Canon AE-1 for £100 but every time you go yo use it a 36 exposure roll of film is anywhere between £5-£10 which doesn’t sound like a lot but trust me it adds up, I tend to bulk buy which means I buy in packs of 10 or 5 instead of singular rolls, this way I keep down the cost per roll.
Expectation: So you bought your new (old) camera, and you’re over the moon with how it arrived on the surface there are no scratches and no dents in the metal body work, you’ve gone to Boots (or your local drug/Camera store) and picked up a roll of Fujifilm C200, loaded it up, and shot some of the best photos you’ve ever taken and they came back from development looking incredible.
Reality: Now this is a story of mine from last week, I bought an Olympus OM-2 off of Ebay (as you can probably tell from this and my last post I have a love for Olympus cameras) waited a week for it too arrive, I was really eager for it because I was able to haggle the seller down from £110 to £80 which in hindsight should of been my first clue, but I didn’t care I just got a bargain, I loaded up my Fuji C200 film, went to use it it was going well until about 3 photos in….it jammed, I thought “Okay it’s an old camera maybe the gears have seized I’ll leave it and check later” it still wasn’t working, I sent it back to the seller after retrieving my film and the seller wrote back to me telling me “the mechanism for the advance lever had sheared off” and that that he would send me a full refund which was nice of him. So I wasted a week and a roll of film, but now I can just order another one off someone else which is a plus.
In conclusion film photography has it’s ups and downs, it can get really bad and everything goes wrong, but in those moments when everything is running smoothly and nothing is going wrong, it is honestly a wicked experience that I would recomend to anyone interested in photography not just film photography. My goal here isn’t to scare people away from it, but to know what to plan for when they buy that first camera, so they’re not caught of guard like I was.
Thanks for reading!
The camera shown is my personal Olympus OM-10, this camera is very special to me due to it being my first ever film SLR, and I’ve had it for just over 2 years now and here’s my review of it.
The Olympus OM-10 was released in June 1979 as a hobbyist camera that anyone body can use, being released after the professional Olympus OM-1 which I have also owned but have now sold. The OM-10 was Olympus’ attempt at reaching a much larger audience creating a quality interchangeable lens system for anybody to use. They achieved this my initially leaving out manual capabilities, this way new users couldn’t get confused by being thrown into the deep end but instead only had aperture priority. Aperture priority for those who don’t know, means the camera uses the onboard metering system to choose the shutter speed but let’s the user choose the aperture and ISO, so let’s say I had F/1.8 the camera would work out the shutter speed for the perfect exposure, but if you then changed the aperture to F/16 the camera would change the shutter speed accordingly to get thr correct exposure. However if you wanted to use a manual mode you had a plug in manual adapter which I own but never use because it’s quite relaxing not having to worry about the exposure and only focus on the composition of the photograph.
Another amazing thing the OM-10 did was link in perfectly with the other OM lens systems such as the OM-1 and the OM-2 at the time which where two professional camera bodies. The reason why this was so spectacular was because if you were using the OM-10 all the lenses and accessories wouldn’t go to waste if you upgraded to the professional bodies because they all ran from the same OM camera system.
The only problem I’ve had with the OM-10 is that it has a electronic shutter, this isn’t a massive issue but the only problem with is, the only ready available batteries compatible are LR44 button batteries, now these are good but tend to become weaker as they loose power rather than just die, so even though the meter might work with a older set of LR44s the shutter might not which is an issue I have had.
All in all my experience with the OM-10 has been more than positive and I would recommend it too anyone who’s looking to start out with film photography given it’s very reliable and very forgiving aperture priority system.
Now I’m not a professional reviewer but that’s just my opinion of the camera with a couple of facts sprinkled in, thank you for reading! 🙂
Hello, my name is Sebastian Sammons and I am the owner of Casual 35mm and this is a bit about me.
I’m an 18 year old photographer who’s main photographic focus is based around film photography, I’ve been obsessed with the art of photography ever since I was 12 years old, starting just by using my mobile phone and then acquiring a very beaten Canon 400D as my first DSLR which I used up until June 2017 when I bought my first film SLR which was the Olympus OM-10 with a Zuiko 50mm F/1.8 which I still use due to the emotional attachment I have with the camera being my first 35mm SLR.
Why create a blog?
I don’t have anything against digital cameras, one of my main cameras I use alongside my OM-10 is a used Nikon D300 this is because I love the convenience and ease of being able to view and retrieve my photos immediately on use, but the reason I choose to use film is for exactly that, I don’t want that ease of use and knowledge of what my photos look like until developed, this is because challenging yourself allows you to grow as a photographer, not being able to see your image means you have to visualise the photo before you’ve even taken it (how much blur a certain F stop will give you) this is why I believe 36 shots is better than 1000s when it comes to image quality but definitely not convenience.
This is the beginning of my new blog, feel free to comment and help give me ideas and I’ll be sure to take them on board!
Casual 35mm