Shooting film on a budget

*disclaimer: film is just another photography medium, and doesn’t necessarily make you a better photographer. There are plenty of photographers out there who do not shoot with it and who are completely amazing just the same. This is for people interested in “trying” their hand at film.

When we talk with other photographers who are interested in shooting film but who haven’t yet taken the “leap” of trying it out yet, one thing that inevitably comes up is the cost of film.

It’s as if there’s an idea out there that to shoot film means you “have” to shoot medium format film with the magical unicorn of film cameras, the Contax 645.

Don’t get us wrong – we love our Contaxes. They’re the cameras we see ourselves shooting with for the rest of our lives, not only the rest of our careers.

But they are still, at the end of the day, just cameras..

Our romance is with film.

Film slows you down. Makes you think. It’s like going on a photoshoot with a few one-time-use, expensive memory cards that hold just a few images each.

The surprise of getting images back from the lab; the learning experience of trying a new scanner or a new film type.

The constraints and the abundance of creativity it yields.

And shooting film is more accessible than you think.

A few weeks ago, we bought a Canon Elan 7 off of Ebay for $75.00. There are tons of old cameras out there that are available for super affordable rates; Nikons, too. This one we were excited to try out because it actually works with all of our modern, professional Canon lenses (EF mount). That’s a $75.00 “full-frame,” 35mm camera. We ordered some 35mm film – Kodak Portra 400 and Fuji400h– but decided for our first experience with it, we were going to “rough it.”

We went to Walgreens. Yes, Walgreens. We went and bought a few of the old boxes of Fuji Superia 200 tucked away in their 1 hour photo.

Last week, we experimented with the camera. The lens we used was admittedly a Canon L lens, the 35mm 1.4, but we deliberately shot stopped down to f2 to imitate the constraints of the cheaper glass.

Even at Kim and Brian’s wedding rehearsal, where we were invited as guests (not as official photographers), one of us photographed on the Contax (the prettier one did, that is), and one of us photographed using the Elan 7. We metered using the in-camera meter for 64-100 (hint  – always err on the side of overexposing with film).

When we developed the drugstore Superia, we were tempted to send it into one of the best labs in the country… but opted to stay true to form and use Walgreens. Not that we would recommend it for professional work – it goes without saying that you get what you pay for and the scans from Walgreens are nothing compared to those from Richard Photo Lab – but for those of you who are new to film and just wanting to try it out, it’s definitely an affordable option! Wouldn’t you know it – our local Walgreens actually uses our favorite scanner – the fabled Frontier. Here are some of the results of our experiment!

All in all, it cost us around $110. The camera, the film (2 boxes), the processing – it only cost that much because we ordered two sets of prints from each roll. Walgreens prints… covered in scratches… not ideal. But using a better lab like Indie Film Lab, Film Box Lab, Photovision, or even Richard Photo Lab  would cost about the same as what we invested for processing, just without the prints. Definitely not something that’s un-achievable if you’re interested in film and want to push yourself creatively! After a while the cost does add up, but if you’re like us, it’s more than worth it for the satisfaction we get in our work (and of course you can factor it into your pricing too).

To all our friends who want to “dabble” in film, there’s no better time to start “dabbling..”

Keep shooting!

xoxo M & C

#buyfilmnotmegapixels

I went out to eat with my friend Justin, who balanced the Elan perfectly at 1/15th of a second at f2 to take this. The “white balance” of the artificial light of the restaurant is technically off, but not as bothersome or ugly as in a digital file. – M