No matter how much digital might improve, no matter how many technological advancements it undergoes, film photography will have its niche. Serious photographers have always preferred analog over digital photography.
In fact, film has seen a surge in popularity among professionals and amateurs alike, with even gadget-obsessed millennials abandoning smartphones and digital cameras in favour of old-school film cameras.
Working on film can be a tough cookie to bite on, you don’t wanna waste your film so you get way more methodical in your approach to clicking a photo. You don’t take as many photos as such and start being more selective about what you want to portray.
The entire process of converting your film into an actual photograph is time-consuming, effort driven and passion filled.
Also Read: The Ultimate Hacks For Food Photography
How Does Film Photography Work?
It isn’t nearly as straightforward as digital photography. Now, digital can have its own learning curve, but shooting with film is a never ending, ever learning process. There’s always something to get to know about and practically implement. If all of this is going over your head, you should de-stress yourself with Delta 8 flower strains that have many subtle changes of taste in them.
Film needs a gelatin emulsion layer with minute light sensitive silver halide crystals. These crystals are exposed to light, the more light you add, the more it exposes, the brighter and less detailed the photo gets.
- When a film camera takes a photograph, the lens briefly exposes the film strip to an image magnified by the lens.
- This exposure burns an imprint into the emulsion, resulting in a latent image.
- When a latent image is captured, it can be developed into a negative.
- Thisnegative, can then be projected onto light-sensitive photo paper to create a photograph.
Single-Lens Reflex (SLR) Cameras
These are the analogue equivalents of DSLR cameras. It uses the same internal mirror mechanism as the DSLR, rathert the DSLR uses its mirror mechanism. This allows you to look straight through the lens and see a near-exact representation of what the image will look like once captured. SLR cameras also allow you to swap lenses, which gives you so much more control of how you want your image to look like.
Twin-Lens Reflex (TLR) Cameras
Twin-lens reflex (TLR) cameras, which have two objective lenses with identical focal lengths, can continuously display the scene you’re trying to photograph on the viewfinder screen. Unlike SLRs, they do not “black out” during exposure. One lens is used to view the film, while the other lens is used to expose it. You can examine the scene as the camera takes the shot thanks to these separate lenses, which can be helpful for certain applications that require longer shutter speeds.
Rangefinder Cameras
The most distinguishing feature of a rangefinder camera is that it calculates distance through triangulation for accurate focusing. It uses a somewhat similar mechanism as the SLR, except that this camera involves a compact revolving mirror and two windows for focusing and not for viewing the scene to be captured. Also, unlike the SLR, a rangefinder does not allow you to look through the lens, but through a small window on the upper right side
Stereo Cameras
Because of their multiple lenses and image sensors or film frames, stereo cameras can reproduce human binocular vision and shoot images with 3D effects. Stereo cameras can be used for a variety of purposes, including range imaging and the creation of stereoviews and 3D images for movies.
Common Film Sizes
- 135 or 35mm
135 or 35mm film is inexpensive and simple to acquire and process, as it is available in drugstores and can be developed in one-hour photo labs. 35mm film produces images that are typically 24x36mm in size.
- 120 or Medium Format
120 film is available in a variety of frame sizes, the most common of which is 6x6cm. It provides exposures of up to 15 or 16 depending on the frame size.
- Large Format
Large format film is typically 45 inches or 9x12cm in size, providing approximately 15 times the resolution of standard 35mm film. It is also available in less common sizes such as quarter-plate, 5x7in, and 8x10in.
Types of Photographic Film
- Color Negative Film
Because of its vibrant colours and contrast, this film is popular among portrait and wedding photographers. C-41 chemicals (which have color developer CD-4) discovered in colour negative film gets negatives and prints through regular image processing.
- Color Positive Film
Through regular image processing, colour positive film produces colourful images or slides. It contains E-6 chemicals, which can be combined with C-41 chemicals to produce photos with high contrast and vibrant colours, such as those seen in lomographic photographs. This is referred to as cross-processing.
- Black and White Film
Black and white film comes in two types: Regular B&W film and C-41 B&W film.
Traditional or Silver Gelatin B&W film uses gelatin which has small silver salt crystals dispersed in it, giving it the term “Silver Gelatin.”
C-41 B&W film has a number of layers which are all sensitive to light. It also involves a painstaking developing process that can be easy to mess up. Exposure to various colors of light can make them unstable, often producing inconsistent results with novicial developers.