After getting a bunch of film rolls developed I thought I would do a blog post on how some turned out. Overall, the outcomes were a bit hit and miss - partly my own fault for using old film from 2008 but other than that some aren't too bad for my first attempts. The film cameras I have used are my Canon EOS 5000 and my Canon AE-1 (which I will do a more detailed review of later when I have got better at using them).
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| Canon AE-1 |
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| Canon EOS 5000 |
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| London - Canon EOS 5000 |
Starting chronologically, these are some of the very first photos I took using the Canon. I took these on a trip to London and considering this was the first time I had used the camera, I am pleased with the outcomes. I had the camera on the automatic setting, just so I could get used to how it worked and it is definitely just as easy as using a digital camera. I think people are very cautious when taking film photographs - you have limited photos, fear of taking something wrong and wasting the film - but this is all part of the experiment. Eight out of ten times you are going to get a good shot so recently I have been taking more and more photos without fearing the worst.
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| Sunrise - Canon EOS 5000 |
Again using the Canon here and I really like these photos! The sunset ones have come out extraordinary with all the colours coming through very strong - not something I thought the camera would be able to pick up on. My only regret is that I didn't make the most of this sunset and take more! I had actually forgot I had taken the photo of the blinds - another benefit to film photography, there's always a surprise in the developed film - and surprisingly, I think it works very well. The photo is so sharp and focused and the light filters in perfectly through the blinds. I have no idea what I will ever use this photo for, but for some weird reason, I think I want to take some more similar to it.
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| Fashion Photography - Canon EOS 5000 |
And this is where it starts to go downhill... For some reason I decided that film was too expensive so I wanted to use up everything I had before I bought new film, so used a roll that expired in 2008. Now this was a bad idea as all my photos came out with an orange/brown vintage colouring on them. Thankfully I also took pictures on my digital camera that day or else this is all I would be left with. Although I am strangely drawn to this unnatural effect on the photos, and actually quite like how they have come out, sometimes its always nice to have a photo of what the real colours look like. Because these photos were nothing serious and not for a school project, I'm not fused that I wasted a roll of film but if this was something that was important to me, two important life lessons have been learnt. 1. Never rely solely on a film camera and 2. Don't use expired film.
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| London - Canon EOS 5000 |
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| London - Canon AE-1 |
Above are the same photos but taken on two different cameras. To the left are the ones I took on my Canon AE-1 and the others were taken on the Canon EOS 5000. Using the Canon AE-1 for the first time was a lot easier than I had thought. You simply look into the viewfinder, hold the shutter half way and see if the dial inside moves, if not you need to reduce or increase the shutter speed (I feel this would be better explained in a video or using images - which I could do later...maybe...maybe not). This is a lot simpler than it sounds and it's very easy to pick up. These photos I have taken didn't turn out over-exposed or under which I thought would happen, now I just wish the weather wasn't so miserable this day. The photos to the right were taken when I had the expired film in so again they came out with a yellow tinge to the photos but I wasn't too disappointed as I had the photos from the other camera.
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| Snow day - both the Canons |
I thought I would throw in these photos that I took in the morning when we had snow for about 5 hours. Sadly, I rushed these photos (as I was running late to school and - correctly - feared that all the snow would be gone when I get home that afternoon) so some turned out blurry and others weren't composed very well. Also this was the first time I was shooting film in the snow and often its hard enough to photograph white weather without over compensating for the white balance, let alone trying it with film. The majority of them were taken on my Canon EOS 5000 (only the two on the far right were taken on the AE-1 and one of them came out blurry) purely because it was easier. Not much to comment on these photos - apart from I need to get better at focusing the camera.
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| Landscapes - Canon AE-1 |
And lastly I present my most failed photographs so far. Not entirely sure what happened here but I promise the sky was blue and the fields were green in real life. I assume that because the sun was shining into the camera, the film was overexposed so I get a brown tinge on the photo. However these are still usable due to the powers of photoshop enabling me to add my own colours to bring them back to life, and I think this emphasises my point of not relying on film alone (or pointing a film camera into the sun).
Thank you for reading and hopefully expect more film (fails) to come soon!
P.S. I just wanted to include information about where I get my film developed and where I have bought it from.
Recently I bought from a film distributor (link is
here) and I purchased 36 EXP 400 and 200 ISO film in Black and White and colour for very good prices. The company sells a lot of different film from Kodak to Kenmore (which is the film that I purchased - purely because its the cheapest) and depending on how good the quality is/amount of photos available to take varies the price. So far so good with this film and can't wait to try out the Black and White film!
I get my film developed at my local Snappy Snaps store and for the quality the price isn't too bad. However, it is expensive, but then again developing film anywhere is expensive. At Snappy Snaps I pay around £10 to get a roll of film developed in 1 hour, £9 for 3 hours or £8 for 24 hours. Although the differences in price aren't that big, if you start developing a lot it adds up very fast but you do get a very good service.
I am yet to try out another developer that I quite like the sound of (especially as it comes at a cheaper price and you get more for it) called The Photo Hippo (link to website is
here). However to get the film developed, you have to send it off in the post to their developers which to me sounds a bit risky. You are putting your one and only roll of those particular photos (that will be impossible to recreate) in the post with a cheque paying for the service to a company far away. I am apprehensive to try this out until I find some stable and trustworthy reviews telling me it will all be ok or I become broke from spending all my money getting film developed at Snappy Snaps - I'll keep you updated as to what happens first.
