Analog photography

My first steps in analog photography since 2004

Years ago, back in the days when digital cameras did not yet exists or those were so expensive that those were not realistic purchase for average people like me there was a time when we took photos to the film with film cameras. I have owned maybe one film camera around 2003, 2004 or so and it was point and shoot camera. I have still those photos in my photo albums what I took on those years but not the negatives unless some miracle happen and I will find those. I guess those are already lost years ago.

On 2004 I purcased my first digital camera. It was some HP Photosmart digital camera and it was not only a joy and happiness with it since its battery life was so crappy that it sucked batteries like a thirsty hippo on a savanna in the middle of hot summer day. Anyway, that was the point when I went away from analog film photography and started my digital photography life. I have been on that road alomost 20 years, but last summer I purchased very cheap and crappy analog film camera on second hand store.

I wanted to experience analog film photography again and I didn't had any analog camera so I had to buy one. It turned out that the camera itself was working but quality surely was not very good - plastic lens with a F-rating maybe something between 8-10. It was not even written on the camera what is the F-value but normally on those cheap cameras F-value is something like that. Anyway it was not a disaster in any way even photos were bad since I had no sure information if the camera is working in the first place.

After I got those photos I asked from my sister if she still have the film camera what my father used back in the days and if she is using it. She was not using it so I got that camera for my own usage. Last autumn I bought a film for it, but for reason or another I was waiting that "some day" I will take photos with it. I don't know why I didn't took photos much with it on first months I had it even I had a film what I installed there. When I again watched some YouTube videos about analog photography I got inspired after one video and after that I started to take photos with my fathers camera, Chinon CA-4s.

When I decided to give this camera a proper try it didin't took a long until the roll was full. I was not sure how to unload the roll so I went with my camera to photography store called Foto Yks what is located in Itä-Keskus, Helsinki, Finland. They helped me and unloaded the roll on the dark and my film was ready to take to development. Less than a week later I went there again to pick up my photos and for my pleasure photos turned out to be good (in technical level at least). Surely there was photos where focus was totally missed, some photos were just too dark etc. etc. but in technical level those were still fine - there was nothing wrong in camera, just problems what was my own fault and that was a good thing. I now knew that the camera was working well and I can continue and purchase films and shoot more photos since it is me to blame if photos are crap, not the camera.

Second roll wasn't just smooth sailing

Since I had seen that the camera was working I purchased another film roll and it took about a week or so to make it full. This time I had a little bit challenges with my camera when I was unloading the film myself. Later I found out that the challenge was not about the camera, it was my own skills, but on that point I was not sure about it.

When the film was full I had to roll the film to beginning. It felt that the film was not rolling well until one point it started to feel that finally it is going well. Still I was quite unsure if that rolling was done properly so I went to dark toilet to open the camera back lid. It was a good thing since the film was still on the camera and it was not rolled correctly. I tried to roll it but without success and in the end I had to rip the roll out of camera. It was somehow a surprise for me how long that 35 mm film roll with 36 photos is and I heard how part of the roll was touching the toilet floor. When I got the roll totally out from the camera I started to roll film inside the film roll manually. It went fine and I was able to put that roll in plastic container in dark toilet.

One potential problem for that film was also that there was very very very minor light coming from the top of toilet window. It was so dim that I didn't noticed it when I was in the toilet since it was totally dark room for my eyes, but if I watched to that small window above toilet door I could barely see some light there. I have heard that there should be no any kind of light coming to the film so I was not sure if that would ruin the film if that would be otherwise ok even I had to rip it out from the camera.

After all these problems it was great to see that in the end everything went well! Most photos were quite good and there were not much tehcnical issues - only issues with photographer. On some photos in negative scans I saw small stripes what could be because of this film unloading issues, but cannot be sure. Also I had one technical issue, but it was not related to this. First photo was only half photo. I should have press the shutter button second time and roll to next photo before taking first "real photo" but it was not a catastrophe. You will learn most fast way by doing mistakes.

I am excited

I have now took four rolls of film in development in one year. First roll was maybe on last august, then almost a year without any rolls developed but now within a month I have taken two rolls to development and got photos and today I also took fourth roll to Foto Yks. Three of these rolls are shot with Chinon CA-4s, first roll was shot with some random point-and-shoot camera.

After I really started to shoot to film in the beginning of the june 2023 I haven't touched my digital cameras almost at all except for photos about CD's, DVD's, vinyls etc. what I use on this page. For photos about events and people I have probably used only the film since the 3rd of June. This says a lot about how excited I have been with this film photography. It really feels like a totally different world to me and there is some different emotion attached to those photos. Those feel more unique and more real than my digital camera photos in general and it gives me much more joy what is hard to explain. It just "feels right".

Time will show if I lose this excitement or if I would be in future also mostly the film shooter, but there is no need to stress about it now. At this moment most important thing is that it is fun, it feels good and it gives me joy.

All photos here are taken with Chinon CA-4s with 50 mm F/1.7 lens. Photos are scanned from negative using Epson Perfection V600 Photo -scanner. First photo is taken using Kodak Porta 800 film, others are taken with Kodak GC/UltraMax 400 film.

2023-06-18