What You Can Learn From Shooting Film in 2023

Image credit: Ant McLean

Have you ever pushed the boundaries of your photography skills and ventured into new territory? In today's digital age, I often encourage photographers to embrace the analogue world and experiment with film, even if just for a week (or two!). It's time to break free from the familiar and discover the unique benefits of shooting with film.

In today's era, we, as photographers, are incredibly fortunate. The market is flooded with top quality cameras and lenses that are reasonably priced, making high-quality photography accessible to many. Even phones do a grand job in producing fantastic images. However, this convenience of the digital world has led us to become complacent and take our blessings for granted—I am guilty of this myself.

If you find yourself needing a gentle reminder or suspect that your digital reliance has made you somewhat lackadaisical, I propose a challenge: immerse yourself in the world of film photography for a week. By embracing this process wholeheartedly and approaching it with dedication, you may be pleasantly surprised by the growth you witness in your craft. Join me as I shed light on the transformative potential of this unique experience.

Embracing a discipline and improving on composition

Many of today’s photographers, myself included, often pay mere lip service to the notion of "getting it right in camera," rather than consistently implementing this approach. As someone with an impatient disposition, I’m pretty guilty when it comes to this. I sometimes find it difficult to wait a few extra minutes for a distraction or two to vanish from the background. After all, why bother when I can easily crop or clone them out using Adobe Lightroom?

However, shooting with film presents an entirely different scenario. Suddenly, cropping becomes a more intricate process—a task that requires careful consideration in the darkroom or through digital scanning. It's not as effortless as it is with digital photography. Consequently, with a film camera in hand, you tend to compose your shots more thoughtfully, resulting in significant improvements to your framing. Henri Cartier-Bresson exemplifies this approach perfectly; he hardly ever cropped his images. Similarly, other contemporary documentary greats also avoid excessive cropping. While I believe an absolute prohibition on cropping is perhaps a bit too extreme, I must admit that when I look at my own images, where cropping is minimised or not at all, they tend to possess a stronger visual impact.

The value of limitation

When shooting with film, you're confronted with a finite number of exposures per roll. Casual overshooting, especially considering its overall cost, can serve as a powerful reminder to exercise utmost care when selecting what to include within the frame before pressing the shutter release. It can be a gratifying experience to process a modest number of film frames—perhaps only 36 for 35mm or 10 to 12 for medium format (120)—compared to the overwhelming task of sifting through thousands of digital images that tauntingly reside on your memory card. Even with the most efficient workflow, editing an extensive collection of raw files can become a time-consuming burden. I dare say that many digital photographers tend to overshoot simply because they can. I know that I have on commercial jobs especially.

In this digital age, we face the challenge of image overload, along with the potential risks of loss or accidental deletion. Film photography allows you to be more selective, thoughtful, and deliberate with each exposure, preserving the precious frames while avoiding a deluge of excess.

Break free from the chimping

A particular bad habit that has become prevalent among digital photographers is the compulsive act of chimping—where you constantly check those freshly captured images on the camera's rear display. Unfortunately, modern cameras only exacerbate this behavior. However, chimping often proves to be a futile exercise, as many individuals end up looking at what is essentially a low-resolution JPEG preview on the screen rather than assessing more critical elements like the histogram or exposure graph.

Many professional photographers and tutors consider the act of chimping to be a hazardous habit. It’s easy to see why! Portrait and travel photographers who succumb to the allure of chimping after every shot risk losing their connection with their subjects, while documentary and news photographers may miss crucial moments as they become engrossed in reviewing images on the camera's screen.

When you are using a film camera, chimping ceases to be an issue altogether since there is no immediate way to assess the outcome of an image until it undergoes development. This seamlessly leads us to the next focal point (excuse the pun) of this blog.

Become a master of exposure

As mentioned above, the inability to preview the shot immediately after capturing it with film, hinders the ability to assess exposure. While this drawback may seem daunting, it compels photographers to carefully consider their choices of aperture, shutter speed, film speed, and focus for the subject prior to pressing the shutter release.

Undeniably, this can be a challenging task, and once an exposure is made, there is no undoing it. Nevertheless, seasoned film photographers become adept at intuitively determining the necessary exposure settings based on the lighting conditions and the specific circumstances. They develop a keen sense of judgment without relying on the camera to provide guidance. Although it may feel intimidating to rely on guesswork, particularly when working without a light meter, erring on the side of slight overexposure tends to yield better results than underexposure. Achieving the perfect exposure with film carries a sense of triumph, and even when mistakes occur, they serve as valuable learning opportunities—ultimately enhancing one's technical proficiency when returning to a digital camera. Shooting film has definitely been something that’s helped me appreciate and understand exposure over the years.

Excellent dynamic range

Despite the significant advancements in digital SLR and mirrorless camera technology over the past decade, the dynamic range of these cameras can often fall short still when compared to film cameras. Put simply, film cameras excel in retaining intricate details in both highlights and shadows across a wider range of exposure stops. It becomes more challenging to overexpose highlights, making film a reliable choice in such situations. Especially when working with medium format, I often find myself overexposing by 4 to 5 stops to achieve a slightly airy/pastel look to my images, and highlights and shadows are nicely kept. Reverting to a digital camera after shooting film may lead to frustration over blown-out highlights, particularly on bright sunny days. This serves as a stark reminder that digital photography does not always deliver flawless results.

And the drawbacks?

Naturally, film photography is not without its drawbacks. The cost of film and processing, limited low-light performance, and the intricacies of working in the darkroom are all valid concerns. I choose to follow a hybrid workflow where I engage with analog photography but rely on a professional lab for development and scanning. The lab provides me with high-resolution TIFF files of my work, allowing me to then print or share online.

I firmly believe that every dedicated digital photographer can gain valuable insights by immersing themselves in the wonderful world of analogue photography for a week or so. Despite its shortcomings, film photography offers a unique perspective and a chance to learn and grow as an artist.