Why bother shooting on film these days?
Well, I’ll tell you the why.
Cause it’s fun.
Don’t get me wrong, I love digital cameras. They are convenient, you can upload the pictures right away, easy to integrate with Lightroom and Photoshop, you can change the ISO on the fly. They are great.
But film… There’s just something simple about film that I just enjoy. You get 36-ish shots per roll and having that limit makes you slow down and think about each shot (unlike digital where I find myself doing a lot of spray and pray). You also really only have two settings you can adjust on the fly – shutter speed and aperture (ISO can change, but it get locked in with your film selection).
Also, when was the last time you actually printed your work? Digital photo’s tend to live on your computer screen and die after a few hours or days, but shooting on film and getting back physical prints feels special. Not to mention that when the power goes out you can still view your photo’s. So I’ve got a couple older film cameras (an OM1 and a AE-1) and I’ve been trying to use those more so that I can make myself slow down and focus on composition, and I’ve been trying to print more of my digital photo’s as well. I just find that way more satisfying then photo’s living on a hard drive.
Downside is the price. When did it get so expensive to process film!?