Why Film Won't Ever Go Away: Film Cameras are Simple to Use!

Think About It? How many settings and adjustments do you really have to make on a film camera: aperture, shutter speed, film speed, and focus (although you may have an auto focus film camera); also carry enough film for what you plan to do. And if you are good at applying or at least estimating the Zone System, 9 times out of 10 you KNOW what your result is going to look like, without the instant gratification of a digital camera. Bracketing will take care of case number 10 if you are unsure. Besides, sometimes that image on the back of your camera is so small, you really don't know what the image will look like, and good digital photographers still tend to bracket and make their final decisions on the computer screen later.

There are literally dozens of settings to take into account for your digital camera. So most people never take full advantage of the real advantages of digital, they simply shoot the default AUTO settings, and keep shooting until they have an image that they like. And if your battery dies you are done! I can shoot any of my manual cameras (even the ones with light meters) when the battery is dead. Experience tells me what the best guess is for my exposures under various conditions. And the decisions necessary for film photography all cause you to THINK and PLAN, two things that are a good idea anyway. That's why many school programs have their students start with plastic cameras, where there are no technical decisions to be make, just the planning and thinking about what you want the image to look like.

Lets face it, many of the best digital photographers today are great because they've been doing it for years (meaning that they probably started with film), and THEY could do it well with any equipment. We'll see if the totally digitally trained generation produces a great master, and/or if they do, will their materials survive the digital data rot? We won't know this for a few decades because everyone with film experience will need to die first, so their bad artistic genetics are not passed on. But just in case you want to support film user genetics, check out these guidelines for choosing your first film camera.

That's my thought for this Friday. Since this is a Photo Blog, I'll leave you with a photo for today:


Camera: Mamiya 645 (1000S)
Lens: f/2.8 80mm normal
Film: Ilford ISO 400
Location: Fern Canyon, Northern California

Experimental Methods: Whole Roll, Single Subject Part I

Just a quick note regarding a fun method that I was introduced to by Don Anderson, one of my instructors in Monterey. Whole Roll, Single Subject is a technique where you plan to shoot an entire roll of film to make a photo mosaic of a single subject. Now there are lots of ways of making photo mosaics, but in this case you create the mosaic in your camera by planning the sequence in which you will shoot parts of the subject. Here is my example from St Mary’s Catholic Cathedral in San Francisco:




Camera: Minolta SRT-201 with normal lens
Film: Ilford ISO 400
(Please excuse the resolution problem, a good image size would be too large to post. Remember, these are 35mm frames)


Steps in the process:
1. Select an appropriate subject (buildings are easier to start with).
2. Think about your camera format and plan the shooting sequence
3. Load the camera of choice
4. Set up your tripod (much easier with a tripod)
5. Shoot !
6. Mount the developed film on a glass plate, emulsion side up, because you will want to place the film emulsion in direct contact with the paper.
7. Test for exposure and print

In my example I had to dodge and burn to even out the final print. Of course if I had been more conscious of the zone system I could have mitigated this problem by ‘placing’ each exposure in the proper zone (i.e. re-meter each shot, which for some reason I did not do).

There are some other ways to consider the Whole Roll, Single Subject approach, as I will demonstrate shortly.

Rock Photography Part II: Photomicrographs and Lab Shots

Photomicrographs are a type of technical photography, which simply means taking a picture through a microscope. Geologists use Petrographic Microscopes, which are modified for optimal rock analysis by the addition of a rotating stage, polarizing light and other specialized features. The rock samples are thin sections, rock slices only microns thick and mounted on glass slides. I have taken photomicrographs with a variety of systems: Leica-Leitz (by far the best optical system), Nikon, and Olympus. Examples of each are shown below. Olympus proved to be the best of the affordable systems (Leitz microscopes cost twice as much as Nikon or Olympus). And when I find myself with a spare $20,000 to burn, I’ll have my own Olympus microscope-camera system.













Polarized (top) and non-polarized (bottom) images of the same thin section; taken with a Nikon system. Samples from Mt St Augustine, Alaska. Film: Kodachrome
















Polarized (top) and non-polarized (bottom) images of the same thin section; taken with an Olympus system. Andesite samples from Tisingal Volcano, Panama. Film: ENC-II

















Polarized (top) and non-polarized (bottom) images of the same thin section; taken with a Leitz system. Peridotite samples from Ichinomegata, Japan. Film: ENC-II








The lab shots simply show macro photography close-ups of rock slabs, highlighting the textures of the samples. Sometimes similar shots are taken in the field.



Garnet Lherzolite Xenolith from Kimberly, South Africa.



Camera: Minolta X-700
Lens: Rokunar f2.8 50 mm Macro
Film: ENC-II


Another interesting type of Lab Photography is making ‘maps’ for the electron microprobe. This consists of placing the thin section in a photo enlarger and exposing a projection onto a sheet of photographic paper. I will show an example in Part III where it will become more apparent why one might need to do this.

Update: What Type of Film Did NASA Select for the Apollo 11 Mission?

Ken Rockwell responded to my email regarding the Apollo 11 film choice. It was Ektachrome MS ASA 64 for Lunar terrain and general photography; and Ektachrome EF ASA 160 for low light conditions on the Lunar surface and interior photography exposed and push processed to ASA 1000. All technical information regarding the mission photography is available at this NASA Link.


(Although they were initally defined independantly, ASA and ISO can be regarded as approximately the same).

Test of the Brick!

I had previously introduced my maternal grandfather’s Argus Brick (July 13, 2009). Here are the results of my first roll of film run through the camera:

Remember that this is a totally manual camera, not even a light meter. I was too lazy to carry my also very vintage Minolta light meter (i.e. too large and cumbersome for a short stroll around the lake). So I had to guess at my exposures and bracket. I ended up a bit underexposed, even on this sunny day, but now I know. Next time I will try 1/50 second at f4.5 – f8, instead of 1/100.



I used an old roll of Kodak C-41 processed black and white film for this test. First I hate the stuff, so who cares if it didn’t turn out well. And, I had recently found this amongst a treasure of 35 mm film that had been ‘lost’ in the bottom of my freezer. As I have read, this seems to happen often.