COMMERCIAL PHOTOGRAPHERS - BUSINESS WRITERS

If you are my age – a little later on in life, you will have owned quite a few cell phones and different varieties of digital cameras, as these devices are continually upgraded.  Redundant, most no longer work, lying discarded and forgotten in a drawer or cupboard.

What a waste, but we are good at generating waste.  Advertising and influencers create demand for the latest version, with a better camera, more memory, sleeker design.  Not long ago, bought for several hundred dollars, the one we now have is outmoded, unwanted and worth very little.  We have replaced it with the new version. 

There are millions, if not billions of pictures cluttering up various storage servers, most of which will never be seen again.  Eventually, as our devices are continuously upgraded, pictures snapped with a phone or camera of maybe five years vintage, may not be retrievable by your upgraded device. ‘This file cannot be accessed’ is a message you don’t want to see.

Don’t worry – you can put all this behind you - the film camera has returned.  Fixed lens rangefinders, single lens reflex, twin lens reflex, 35mm, medium format and large format.  Famous brand lenses – Nikon, Canon, Minolta, Olympus, Voigtlander, Zeiss, Leica, Pentax.  Finding, owning and using some of these outstanding image making machines, crafted in a time when quality and durability were valued, can restore confidence in your photography gear.

Gear simplicity is a key to good photography.  With the three parameters of photography being focus, aperture and shutter speed.  If your chosen camera and lens combo has these controls you are good to go.

Canon, Pentax and Olympus SLRs from the 1970s fulfil this criteria. The Canon FTb, Pentax K1000 and Olympus OM-1 are three cameras from these manufacturers which are simple, affordable and durable.

Of course there are many others, with most cameras from the 1970s being well made, robust and if stored properly, in good condition and working as intended.  Japanese manufactured cameras and accessories especially, are precisely made and reasonably priced.

Most of the cameras from this era need batteries to run internal light meters, with non-mercury replacement batteries delivering the correct voltage, easily obtainable these days. Travel back in time to the 1950s and you can find folding medium format cameras from famous brands such as Voigtlander and Zeiss.  These have high quality lenses, need no batteries, with their manufacturing durability confirmed by their operational longevity to today.

The film you choose is important too from slow film ISO50-100 to fast film ISO 400 and up. These descriptions refer to the light conditions you are mainly shooting with.  Faster film being more light sensitive and grainier. Film specification is the second most important decision behind lens choice. That ‘the image is all about the lens’ is a well-known photography adage as well as appropriate film being loaded for the intended shoot. All the well-known brands are there – Ilford, Kodak, Fuji, Rollei and others - all available in 35mm, 120 and some brands even in sheet film for large format cameras. There are also some lesser known emerging brands like Cinestill, Lomo, Agfa and Kentmere, which are worth serious investigation to enjoy their potential for unique results. The benefits of shooting film continue with the proven longevity of unexposed film stored under refrigeration, on the one hand and on the other  offering  over 100 year life of appropriately stored transparencies.  Digital image storage cannot replicate this, with file corruption an inevitable development over time.

Develop your own exposed film?  Yes you can and it is an easy process with no need for a darkroom. Developing film is a process using reasonably safe eco-chemicals, only requiring access to clean water and the personal ability to measure precisely and follow instruction, just like a recipe.

Film cameras and film are most definitely becoming popular again. They are generally simple to master and most importantly, they are inherently durable.  Film photography imbues the necessity to understand the basic rules that govern creating good pictures. If you can be successful with a manual film camera then you too can be a great photographer with whatever gear you shoot with.

Help the planet awash with a never-ending availability of new ‘better’ gadgets and shoot a film camera you love to use, which will work creating memories for decades to come.