I've gone back to using film cameras for about a year now, mostly compact point-and-shoots, but I have a couple fancier cameras as well. I missed having physical photos, and I never got around to dealing with all the digital shots I had building up on the computer. I still use a digital camera sometimes.
You know you can still get your digital photos printed!?!
But yes, I have the same problem of having far too many and not having time to pick the best ones for printing. What I did for my Mum was pick out my best ones and have them printed as a calendar. A printed book is another good way of doing your photos, rather than print them individually and then slot them into an album. Just make sure you're dealing with a place that can print to the edges of a sheet rather than adding hideous and superfluous borders to everything.
I had a waterproof film camera for holidays, a while after I started using a digital camera regularly.
When I took the film in for processing they scanned the negatives into the digital printing machine, and it must have been a terrible scanner as they then applied such a coarse median filter to the image that the pictures looked like a 4-year-old's finger-painted attempt at impressionism.
I expect for film nowadays you'd have to pay a specialist lab quite a bit more for prints to have them done well, though I'm sure there are still plenty around as there's no shortage of film enthusiasts.
I always intend to have my digital photos printed ... and then never get around to it. Then they build up to the point where dealing with them all is overwhelming. I was surprised to find out that having film developed was still only marginally more than having digital photos printed at my local lab. Plus it is more fun to mess about with film cameras.
Actually film is coming back really hard dont sell your cameras now im warning you. Film photography is now considered proper photography, you even have an app with which you take up to 24 photos, you cant see them or review them and must decide if you want to take another and then one week later you get them. This to simulate revealing and expense. Soon tjings will return heavily to analogic. :-) Well the supposed proper that is.
Its quite easy to develop and print your own B&W film but you have to make a bit of an investment. Set aside a small room or convert your bog into a light tight developing room with the necessary running water, drainage and a big shelf such as you might put on top of the bath to hold the trays for the chemicals to develop the prints. To make the prints you'll need an enlarger to project through the negative onto the print paper.
The worst part is getting the damn film out of its case into the developing tank spiral, it takes a bit of practice to get the hang of this and its fiddly using 35mm film. I prefer large format - like the film that goes in a Brownie 127 (if anyones old enough to remember them) or a Rollei or Yashica twin lens reflex which I prefer anyway as its easier to compose the shot and being large film you get finer detail as it doesnt have to be enlarged so much.
The real art comes into play with the printing paper, theres a large range of types with very interesting textures and properties so that even your basic 'selfie' can be made to look quite artistic, using litho paper for examplle tends to accent the black and white and reduce the grays. Then theres 'dodging' which basically means interfering with the projected negative by waving bits of cardboard in the light path to affect the image. Experiment its the only way to find out.
So for an iniitial fairly modest outlay you get the equipment that you'll use over and over again and the cost of hypo is low enough especially if you mix up your own. Loads of books out there on how to do all this, if you have the interest in learning more. Its a great hobby and can be an earner too.
I used to develop and print the long panoramic photographs and negatives that schools order so that they can fit a shedload of students in, they used to run behind and get in the print more than once ! As for the smell and effect of Hypo, well say no more...……...
Every time I read that the oldest person in the world has died, I have to do a quick check to see it isn't ME..........
Comments
But yes, I have the same problem of having far too many and not having time to pick the best ones for printing. What I did for my Mum was pick out my best ones and have them printed as a calendar. A printed book is another good way of doing your photos, rather than print them individually and then slot them into an album. Just make sure you're dealing with a place that can print to the edges of a sheet rather than adding hideous and superfluous borders to everything.
I had a waterproof film camera for holidays, a while after I started using a digital camera regularly.
When I took the film in for processing they scanned the negatives into the digital printing machine, and it must have been a terrible scanner as they then applied such a coarse median filter to the image that the pictures looked like a 4-year-old's finger-painted attempt at impressionism.
I expect for film nowadays you'd have to pay a specialist lab quite a bit more for prints to have them done well, though I'm sure there are still plenty around as there's no shortage of film enthusiasts.
- IONIAN-GAMES.com -
The worst part is getting the damn film out of its case into the developing tank spiral, it takes a bit of practice to get the hang of this and its fiddly using 35mm film. I prefer large format - like the film that goes in a Brownie 127 (if anyones old enough to remember them) or a Rollei or Yashica twin lens reflex which I prefer anyway as its easier to compose the shot and being large film you get finer detail as it doesnt have to be enlarged so much.
The real art comes into play with the printing paper, theres a large range of types with very interesting textures and properties so that even your basic 'selfie' can be made to look quite artistic, using litho paper for examplle tends to accent the black and white and reduce the grays. Then theres 'dodging' which basically means interfering with the projected negative by waving bits of cardboard in the light path to affect the image. Experiment its the only way to find out.
So for an iniitial fairly modest outlay you get the equipment that you'll use over and over again and the cost of hypo is low enough especially if you mix up your own. Loads of books out there on how to do all this, if you have the interest in learning more. Its a great hobby and can be an earner too.
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