Questions & Answers
If you have a question I haven’t answered below, feel free to submit it for answering!
What Cameras do you use?
If I truly wanted to keep this section up to date I would have to change it every week. Like most gear hogs, I cycle through different camera sets fairly often, but within this sea of change a few notably recurrent standouts can be found. My current go-to “everyday carry” is the 35mm Voigtländer Bessa R2, though I call it my “poor man’s Leica”. It is a rangefinder camera that takes Leica M-mount lenses and I have swiftly fallen in love with it. The lenses I most often have attached to it are the Voigtländer 35mm f/2.5 Skopar & the TTartisans 50mm f/1.4. For on-location shoots or more serious trip work, I turn to the 35mm Nikon F5 as my weapon of choice, most commonly paired with a 24-85mm Nikkor F/2.8-4 variable zoom lens. That lens is actually something of a departure for me, having historically favored prime lenses, but the work it produces and its flexibility in the field is undeniable. The F5 is, at the risk of sounding crude, an absolute fucking tank of a camera. It was one of the last film shooters Nikon ever made — debuting in 1996 — and it has nearly all the same features that my modern Z6 has. Lightning-fast multi-point autofocus, dead accurate 3d color-matrix metering, automated exposure bracketing, a self-diagnosing and correcting shutter assembly, and a high-speed motor drive that can churn out [this is not a typo] 8-frames a second in high-speed continuous mode! All of this in a rugged body that was purpose-designed to be used and abused by serious professional photojournalists. This camera is so balls-to-the-wall well-built that NASA used it for a few years both aboard the ISS and in space (on space walks) with the only modification being a thermal blanket covering so the film didn’t melt. The best part? These F5’s are unbelievably cheap for the value they offer, I picked up both this body and lens on eBay for around $450 total and it can easily outshoot anything else in my collection. The last camera I use for medium format work is actually a large format 4x5 Crown Royal Graphic, fit with a 6cm x 9cm medium format back for 120 film. It’s comparatively small and light for a large format camera and offers me the kinds of bellows adjustments that you just can’t get on other camera types. It also has the benefit of allowing me to shoot 4x5 large format and Fuji wide instant film on the same body/lens by simply swapping the back.
What are some of your favorite films?
I am constantly experimenting with different film stocks and switching things up, so the films which could be rightly crowned my favorites are constantly in flux. It used to be the case that you would never catch me out of my house without a roll of Kodak Portra 400, but this has changed as I have begun to favor Kodak Gold 200 more. Don’t get me wrong, Portra is — in my opinion — arguably one of the best film stocks ever made. It is remarkably versatile, has a vanishingly fine grain, a forgiving exposure latitude, and gorgeous accurate color rendition. It overexposes like a champ, works in nearly every situation you can imagine, and in all my experience shooting film it has been tough to find something that performs at the same level of versitiliy. The reason I have gravitated towards Gold 200 is that Portra has become such a standard in the film world, that I have actually found myself growing a bit tired of its look. Not that it is in any way bad, but it just doesn’t feel particularly expressive to me anymore. Gold, on the other hand, has a familiar warm glow that feels to me like memories from my childhood. Shot at sunrise or sunset, it is the only film stock I have tried that really captures the feeling of warmth that sunlight brings. It is also far cheaper than portra and recently was released in 120 format as well. If you haven’t I highly recommend you give it a try, and as a pro tip I offer this: if you can find some rolls of Fuji 200 in your local film shop then buy them. While not officially official confirmed, if you compare the datasheets it seems Fuji 200 is actually just a white-label respooled Kodak Gold!
If it happens to be nighttime, I am also quite fond of Cinestill 800T. This is actually Kodak Vision3 5219 motion picture film that has had its RemJet layer removed and has been re-cut for use in 35mm and 120 formats. A neat effect of removing the RemJet layer is that artificial lights sources directly visible in frame will develop this ghostly red aura known as a halation. These halations combined with the strong green/blue cast of Cinestill’s tungsten white balance means that nighttime shots of the city look straight out of a blade runner. Lastly, for black & white work, I look to film stocks that give me a strong punchy contrast. That used to boil down to either Ilford HP5+ pushed 2 stops, or Kodak’s TMAX 400, both of which are still good options, but I have come to regard Fuji Neopan Acros 100II as the best black and white film on the planet. It has phenomenal exposure latitude surpassing even the likes HP5+, yet still manages to remain punchy and crisp at box speed. It is also (when drum scanned) the sharpest film I have ever shot in 35mm. This is the one film that hasn’t fallen out of regular usage of mine over the years.
Why do you shoot film?
The question, my friend, is not why do I shoot film; it’s why don’t you? In all seriousness, there are many reasons I shoot film, but in essence, it boils down to three benefits.
It slows me down. In the age of digital cameras, there is no cost to taking an image. This leads to most of us snapping thousands of photos in the hopes that a couple dozen of them will be good, and the ones that aren’t just get deleted. The cost of this convenience is that we rarely ask ourselves, “is this a picture worth taking?” There is no risk in digital photography, and exposure to risk is how we improve at anything. This removal of risk, in turn, makes us worse photographers. With film, a shot squandered is money, time, and chemicals wasted. This means every shot I take on film is not a thoughtless snapshot, but a carefully considered decision. When I hit that shutter release it means I am confident this is an image worth taking. I have thought through the exposure and I know what zone those shadows are going to fall into. I chose f/8 because I know that is where my lens is the sharpest and I don’t need the bokeh of a shallow depth of field. I have worked out how long I need to keep the shutter open to account for the reciprocity failure of the film. Suffice it to say, you feel a lot more connected to the art when you really have to work to get a shot you are proud of, and can take the time to focus fully on the act of making an image.
Delayed Gratification. There is something really exciting about there being a delay between when you take the photo and when you actually get to see it. Many film photographers I know call this the “Christmas Effect”; a reference to the fact that Christmas presents are more satisfying to open than other gifts because you have been staring at the box on the floor for weeks wondering what it could be. This is even backed up by science! A group of scientists from Stanford University wanted to understand how dopamine release in the brain worked, so they designed a study where they taught a group of monkeys that when a red light turned on, the monkeys could push a button 10 times then a bit of food would fall through a tube that they could access. Once they had trained the monkeys to become familiar with this process they started to measure when the monkeys’ brains released dopamine and what they found was surprisingly different than what they expected. Dopamine was known as the reward chemical and the typical thinking was that dopamine was released in the brain after the reception of some positive stimuli like getting food (or a gift); But the researchers found that the monkeys didn’t release dopamine after they got the food, rather they released it when they saw the light come on. It was here in this experiment that it was first discovered that dopamine is released not in response to a reward but in the anticipation of it. In other words, it is the anticipation of what that image you worked so hard for is going to look like, that makes it all the more satisfying when it finally comes out of the darkroom.
It’s More “Real”. Data in digital technology consists of invisible ones and zeros, and with digital photography this is no different. The photos are beautiful, but they are also non-tangible. The shot you see is in reality nothing more than a computer’s impression of the light that hit the sensor embeded as the particular arrangment of electrons on a silicon wafer. For all of the power and convienence that this provides it is decidedly less “real” feeling. With film, the end product is something physical. A real negative, whose structure was altered directly by the photons that came from your subject. From start to finish the process is one of physical interactions. The connection between image and suject is not artifically mediated by color science algorithms and mathmatical abstractions. Perhaps this difference isn’t a practical one, maybe its all a matter of psychology and philosophy. Nonetheless I believe that connectedness makes the whole process of film feel more real.
Do you develop the film yourself?
I do indeed! I am no stranger to getting my film developed in a lab. In fact, I quite love the fine folks over at Fotoexpress in San Jose so when I build up a particularly large backlog I will give rolls to them, but for smaller batches, I prefer to develop, scan, and edit the film myself. My development is done using a Jobo CPA2 film and print processor as well as a Paterson 2-reel tank for additional capacity. Scanning is performed with my Nikon Z6 and a negative scanning adapter. Files from the Nikon are then processed in Adobe Lightroom using Negative Lab Pro. Prints are made using a couple of Beseler enlargers graciously donated to me by Van Nguyen. Shout out to my best friend and fellow film photographer Jeremy Garrett who develops with me and makes my life a lot easier in the dark room.
Do you ever shoot digital?
Of course I do, but it’s not as much fun. Besides the cameras on my phone, I also have a Nikon Z6 mirrorless. That being said, if I am going somewhere with the intention of making photos, there is like a 99% they are going to be on film.
I want to shoot film! How do I get into it?
Wonderful! If you would like to get into shooting film there are a million ways to do it, but in essence, all you need is a camera, a lens, and some film. I would be remissed if I didn’t remind you of Chase Jarvis’ famous refrain; “the best camera is the one that's with you.” Don’t get too hung up on what camera to buy and which filmstock to choose. The goal here is to go out, see nature, and take some beautiful images. You can do that with just about any film camera so long as it’s functional, so start by asking around to your parents and older relatives to see if anyone has an old film camera kicking around in the attic. You would be shocked how often you can find one lying around. If you can’t find one, then I recommend picking up a 35mm Single Lens Reflex (SLR) camera with both manual and automatic exposure control on a second hand site like Facebook Marketplace, Craigslist, or eBay. I can easily recommend the Canon AE-1 as a starter camera. These are THE classic 35mm SLR and the best part is that they sold like hotcakes, so finding them is easy and if you look around they can be almost always be found with a lens for well under $150.
Next, you will need some film and when you are first learning, you are of course going to make some mistakes so I recommend not using a high-end film like Portra 400 until you have a few rolls under your belt. Start by going to your local Walgreens, Rite Aid, or CVS. A lot of drugstores will still carry some cheaper consumer films like Fuji c200. Films like that are perfect for learning. Lastly, spend an hour or two doing some online research until you feel that you understand the exposure triangle (shutter speed, aperture, & ISO) and some of the basics of composition (rule of thirds, leading lines, frame-in-frame, etc). After that, the only thing left is to go out and shoot! I also highly recommend going on photo walks around your neighborhood. You don’t always need to go out of your way to find big flashy subjects, sometimes if you just walk around a place you are already familiar with, thinking about interesting compositions you will notice things that have been there a long time and only now catch your eye.
The best advice I can give to get you started on your first few photowalks is this. Generally speaking during the middle portion of the day, the sun is high in the sky and shadows are harsh and fall at an unflattering angle. Because of this, the best time to shoot is during what we call “Golden Hour” which is roughly the hour after sunrise or the hour before sunset, during which the sun is lower in the sky so it’s light is warm and soft, with the shadows falling at longer angles. If you go out for a walk during golden hour, you will find many more oppurtunities for good shots. Furthermore, when you go out, follow the light. Nine times out of ten, a mediocre subject in great light will look better than a great subject in mediocore light. One of the biggest thing that seperates amateur photographers from the pros is that amateurs are looking for interesting subjects, but the pros are looking for interesting light.
Lastly, if you are looking for some inspiration to get into the right mindset I have linked some of my favorite film channels below for you to enjoy.