About a year ago I decided to take a relook at film photography. After so many years taking digital photographs it seemed like an odd sort of move. My trip back to film began when I bought a Voigtländer 25mm lens for my Olympus MFT camera. It is completely manual, and at the moment I started focusing, I knew that I had been missing something with digital. Harking back to film seems a move that many amateur photographers have decided to make. Maybe it is a function of becoming a camera aficionado… the form and aesthetic appeal of vintage cameras brings something that modern digital cameras don’t – a sense of character. There is a reason some modern cameras are modelled on the appearance of vintage cameras. Here are some thoughts.

Digital has changed the way we photograph, and although we know we will never bungle a holiday snap, it does verge on clinical at times. I can take 1000 photographs on a 2-week trip, and I do enjoy having instant access to the photograph. Digital is convenient, no doubt about that, but there is some aesthetic appeal missing that algorithms just can not reproduce. Taking a digital image means that each pixel is basically created using an algorithm. Light in, pixel out. Giving an image a “film-look” means applying some form of algorithmic filter after the image is taken. Film on the other hand is more of an organic process, because of how the film is created. Film grains, i.e. silver crystals are not all created equal. Different films have different sized grains, and different colour profiles.

There are many elements of photography that are missing with digital. Yes, a digital camera can be used in manual mode, but it’s just not the same. For the average person, one thing missing with digital is an appreciation for the theory behind taking photographs – film speed (meaningless in digital), shutter speed, apertures. Some digital lenses allow a switch over to manual focusing, which opens the door to control over how much of a photograph is in focus – much more fun that auto-focus. Moving to pure analog means that you have to have an understanding of camera fundamentals, and film types.

What type of camera to experiment with? While digital cameras tend to have the same underpinning technology, film cameras can be quite different. A myriad of differing manufacturers, and film sizes. Do you want to use a box camera (aka Brownie), or a foldable one with bellows? A vintage German camera (East or West?), Japanese, or Russian? Full frame or half-frame? SLR or rangefinder? Zone focusing? Fully manual, or with light meter (assuming they work). So many choices.

Another part of the organic nature of film photography is the lenses. Unlike modern lenses which can be extremely complex, and exact, vintage lenses often contain a level of imperfections which means they provide a good amount of character. If you want good Bokeh, or differing colour renditions, then a vintage lens will provide that. They are manual, but that’s the point isn’t it? Lastly there is the film. Each film has it’s own character. Monochrome film to render cinematic ambiance, or colour film that desaturates colours. There are also films which have no (inexpensive) digital equivalent – like infrared film (from Rollei, and not really the same as using a filter).

Apart from pure analog, there is also the cross-over of analog to digital, the hybrid form of photography. This is achieved by using vintage analog lenses on digital cameras, providing the best of both worlds. It does mean that functions such as aperture control, and focusing have to be done manually (which isn’t a bad thing), but also allows for much more creative control. There are also effects such as Bokeh, which can not be reproduced algorithmically in any sort of organic manner.

There is some irony in film though. Many people of course end up digitizing the film. But the essence of the photograph is captured in the film and digitizing it does not take all of that away (it does loose something as the transferral from film to paper adds another layer of appeal). To display your work, digital is still the best way (hard to write a blog post with a paper photograph). My foray into film is partly a longing to relive the experiential side of photography, to play with apertures, to focus a lens – it doesn’t have to be exact, and that’s the point.

The downside is of course you will never get to see the photograph until after it is developed. However it’s best to look at this more from a more expressive point-of-view. The art may lie partially in the unveiling. Maybe film photography lends itself more to an art form.