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Hey everyone, it's Colin. How's it goin'?
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Pretty much everyone shoots pictures digitally these days, and it's been this way for quite a while.
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But shooting to film has had a bit of a resurgence lately, so,
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this time, we're gonna take a look at the way photography used to be...
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with a bit of a twist.
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[♪ Music - Intro ♪]
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It's been a while since I've used this setup, hasn't it?
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So, in 2016, I inherited a decent amount of camera equipment from my grandparents:
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camera bodies, lenses, accessories, that sort of thing.
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Hidden inside one of the camera bags was *this*:
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a brand new, unused, unopened roll of Kodak Plus-X black and white film.
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It's ISO 125 and 20 exposures,
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but what really caught my attention was the expiration date,
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listed as March of 1983.
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Considering that film is generally good for a few years after it's manufactured,
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that means that this roll of film, at the time I'm shooting this video,
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is over 35 years old.
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Now for fun, I took a picture of it and posted that up to Instagram, and it got a decent response.
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But I was really surprised by some of the comments.
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Lots of people were saying that I should go ahead and shoot the film anyway.
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Chances are, it was still good, and in some cases, I could even get really interesting results.
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So I figured, "Why not?"
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The next question though, was "Which camera to use?"
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My first choice was my Nikon N65. This is a fairly modern film SLR,
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with auto-focus and multi-area electronic metering.
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I have several lenses for it and I'm really familiar with its operation.
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The downside is that film speed is only set on this camera automatically by it reading the
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DX coding on the film canister. Now, considering DX
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wasn't invented until 1983, that means this old roll of film...
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doesn't have it.
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So, the N65 was out.
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My next choice was actually one of the cameras that I inherited: a Nikon FE.
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This is a really cool vintage camera and I've got a lot of accessories for it,
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including the motor drive and several lenses.
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Everything on it can be set manually and it does have a
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built-in single area electronic meter.
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The downside is that it hasn't been shot in probably a couple of decades
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and the shutter is somewhat sticky.
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I didn't really want to risk that with a one-off roll of film like this, so...
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the FE was out.
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The camera I ended up going with though was my old standby:
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an Olympus OM10.
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I'm very familiar with how it operates because it was my
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first film SLR and the camera that I learned photography on.
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I also know that it works great because it received service back in the late '90s
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and still operates flawlessly.
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There are a couple of small downsides to it though.
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First, in order to manually set the shutter speed, you need an optional adapter.
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...which I don't have.
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Otherwise, the camera just
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steps into what's effectively Aperture Priority Mode, like you would see on a modern camera - it just
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picks the shutter speed automatically, based on what the single point electronic metering decides.
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The other downside is that I have only one lens for it: a 50 millimeter f/1.8,
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which admittedly, if you only have one lens, is probably one of the better ones to have.
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But neither of these downsides were really deal-breakers. I could work around them easily enough, so
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I packed up all my camera gear and spent the weekend on Minnesota's North Shore, along Lake Superior.
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Here's what I came back with.
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[♪]
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You know, it was really fun shooting film again,
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especially since I haven't done it in about 15 years.
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Because there are limited number of frames on a roll,
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I found myself having to really focus on every picture that I took,
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and I think this is partially the appeal for why film is actually kind of coming back into fashion again.
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But it also reminded me of why digital took over to begin with.
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The ability to fire off multiple shots in a row, and review 'em even before you leave a location
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is really really convenient.
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Cost is also a factor too.
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With that particular roll of film, it cost me almost $30 US to get it developed and scanned, and the process took about a week.
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Whereas with digital, after you make the initial equipment investment,
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you can pretty much shoot for free and get the results instantly.
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I was also reminded why I wasn't the biggest fan of Kodak Plus-X when I was shooting film.
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I found these negatives to look fairly flat, and it took a bit of tweaking to the levels of these images
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in order to get 'em to look somewhat decent.
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As for this particular 35 year old roll of film, well obviously, it still worked.
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Though I did notice that for a 125 speed film, grain was a bit coarser than I was expecting.
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I have a feeling this is more due to the age of the film than anything else.
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But not because of how expired the film was,
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but rather that it's simply a chemistry from the late '70s or early '80s,
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and the quality of film in the decades since has gotten much better.
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You know, these days we pretty much carry around digital cameras with us everywhere,
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but the process of shooting film really helps one reconnect with the act of taking pictures,
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and goes to underscore just how trivial digital imaging has caused photography to become.
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So if you like the video, I would appreciate a thumbs-up. Be sure to subscribe if you haven't already.
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You can follow me on Twitter and Instagram at thisdoesnotcomp, and as always, thanks for watching.
