My First Foray into Film (Part 2 of 2)
One of the original images from the Canon AE-1
Well this one was a long time coming. If you read part one then let me go ahead and answer your question. Yes, It really took this long to get my first few rolls of film developed.
So earlier I talked about the Canon AE-1, which I purchased off of Facebook Marketplace. I fumbled around with it for a few weeks and shot several rolls of film on it before getting anything developed. I used a local film lab here in Nashville, shout out to the guys at Southbound Film Lab (go check them out), but decided to forgo the scanning and digitizing of the film to save money. This, in retrospect, was a bad idea. I first tried using my run of the mill, all-in-one printer/scanner at the house and the results were absolutely horrid. I didn’t have the right software, the hardware wasn’t capable of the task either and I generally had no idea what I was doing. So I called up a buddy of mine to help out and he agreed to let me use his scanner and to show me some tips and tricks.
After getting the film scanned for real I noticed a major issue with the Canon AE-1. It seemed that the shutter curtain wouldn’t always open when pushing the shutter button, so I had a good number of missing frames which was no good at all. It became clear fairly early on that the cost of repairs would exceed what I paid for the camera so I started searching again for another camera. I had heard a lot of good things about the Nikon F series cameras and was lucky to find a good condition Nikon F3 at a good price in Atlanta, once again through Facebook Marketplace.
A couple weeks later I had the Nikon in hand, and man oh man is it a beast of a camera. The shear weight of it makes it a great makeshift weapon to knock out any would-be attackers while out taking photos. As I started playing around with the camera and learning how to use it I noticed that the aperture control ring on the body wasn’t working properly. Once again a faulty vintage camera was getting the better of me. I decided not to give up though and found a repair shop in Atlanta willing to take on the repair for a fair price. After not even shooting one full roll of film I boxed the camera back up and shipped it out.
The Nikon F3
The repair shop claimed about a two week wait time, but they were vastly mistaken. I’m not going to name any names, but it took several months to get the camera back. Often I would call to get a status and get no response. Once they finally started assessing the issue with the camera they then had to wait on parts which took several weeks long. Lo and behold I finally did receive the camera back, fully functional and a little cleaner than before!
I immediately threw a lens on and went out shooting, five rolls to be exact. My wife and I went for a walk around the park and had a great time taking pictures. She shot on the Fuji and me on the Nikon. After getting the rolls developed I noticed much better results. I still opted to skip the scanning because during my wait for the Nikon to get repaired I had purchased an Epson V600 film scanner, the exact model I used previously at my friend’s house. My results still aren’t perfect, but I’ve learned a lot in a very short amount of time.
I believe that shooting film is making me a better, more well-rounded photographer. It’s forcing me to slow down and think about what I’m doing, make sure my frame is composed and exposed properly. I’m being much more selective in the shots that I take and am careful to make sure all my camera settings are good before taking the shot. I can’t say that I’ll desert digital and move solely to film, but a nice balance of both should keep me focused and sharp, pun intended :)
Here are some of the images I took in the park that day. Let me know what you think in the comments! I’d also love to hear about your experiences shooting with film.
