A few shots from my first roll of film from London...

wire-screw · 29 Oct 2013 at 21:33

So I got to Uni at UCL and had a look at the societies - the photosoc was not on my list. One afternoon a new friend said he was going for a 'freshers' photo walk through Regents park. I had nothing to do so I thought why not even though the closest thing I had to a camera was my iPhone - I didn't dare get it out! While on the walk I got chatting to several great people and decided I wanted to join and began thinking of what camera I could buy on my meagre student budget. The majority have expensive DSLRs and a few digital Leicas as well as one Leica M3 which got me thinking about film. I came across one of the societies members selling a Ricoh 500 ME but read a few reviews and found that the Olympus 35RC was a much better made camera and for only a little more too. I ended up picking up one from ebay for ~£25. I went to the local camera shop on Tottenham Court road who charged me £5.50 for the 'cheapest' film to get me started. The first roll I noted all the settings of the camera so I could review later on. The camera was old and was sold as spares or repairs, I've never shot film before and so I surprised some of the pictures came out well at all! The film was only 200 ISO so my preferred night shots didn't really work with the slow shutter speeds I had to use.

So here we go!

Drummond street business park one. F2.8 1/15 200

Drummond street business park two. F2.8 1/15 200

Drummond street business park three. F2.8 1/15 200

Euston Sqr. Underground station. F2.8 1/125 200

Woburn street. F2.8 1/15 200

Overall I really enjoyed taking the shots and the anticipation while I got them developed. I like the contrast of the slow and inefficient film camera and London - it offers an island of peace. I love the build quality and it really got me thinking about the crap that is made these days. And most of all for some reason I love advancing film!

Thanks
Boscoe

Raymond Lin · 29 Oct 2013 at 21:47

i am not sure what you are trying the say. Without knowing the film and processing used it is hard to know your intent. The film looks like something 20 years out of date and the chemicals has developed a weird tint to them, some people actually like this look. Or it looks a little like crossed processed.

I think because they are grainy and film like, it is a little likeable. However, on a pure photographic merit, if had came out of a "normal" camera, I have to say they all belong to the bin pile. There is a little 70's horror movie feel to them but again, i am not sure if that was your intention to begin with.

p.s. There is a fault with the camera, it creates 3 distinct vertical (or horizontal) lines across all its images.

p.p.s. I have no doubt your iPhone can take better images than these!

wire-screw · 29 Oct 2013 at 21:52

Raymond Lin said:
i am not sure what you are trying the say. Without knowing the film and processing used it is hard to know your intent. The film looks like something 20 years out of date and the chemicals has developed a weird tint to them, some people actually like this look. Or it looks a little like crossed processed.

I think because they are grainy and film like, it is a little likeable. However, on a pure photographic merit, if had came out of a "normal" camera, I have to say they all belong to the bin pile. There is a little 70's horror movie feel to them but again, i am not sure if that was your intention to begin with.

p.s. There is a fault with the camera, it creates 3 distinct vertical (or horizontal) lines across all its images.

p.p.s. I have no doubt your iPhone can take better images than these!

No they aren't great! I think it's the camera. The lines are obvious, the film and development I'm confident in.

I had no intentions, I just took pictures of what I liked the look of. The pictures at the end aren't the objective.

And yeh my phone images are way better.

Jokester · 29 Oct 2013 at 21:54

Could be the scanner that's added the lines, or is it in the prints as well?

wire-screw · 29 Oct 2013 at 22:34

Jokester said:
Could be the scanner that's added the lines, or is it in the prints as well?

I didn't get prints - just digital from Jessops.

Raymond Lin · 29 Oct 2013 at 22:44

This is a nice film SLR, uses all canon modern lenses too.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/CANON-EOS...617110?pt=UK_Film_Cameras&hash=item3cd7be65d6

Genoma · 29 Oct 2013 at 22:46

That could explain some of the lack of quality. The last set of film I had transferred to CD by boots had a terrible resolution and compression (talking 400KB jpgs).

I remember the first time I had a photo CD created, the images came in different folders in varying sizes / compression, some were huge.

Andy90 · 29 Oct 2013 at 22:46

Are those lines on the negatives? If not then something in the process that Jessops have used to scan them has created them.

You do realise you can buy new film

You don't have to make do with stuff that is years past the sell by date?

An EOS 5 Raymond, Pfttt, get an EOS 3, the focus points are controlled by your eye

Raymond Lin · 29 Oct 2013 at 22:49

Andy90 said:
Are those lines on the negatives? If not then something in the process that Jessops have used to scan them has created them.

You do realise you can buy new film You don't have to make do with stuff that is years past the sell by date?

An EOS 5 Raymond, Pfttt, get an EOS 3, the focus points are controlled by your eye

I have eye control on my EOS 30...it's erm, a little too hit and miss.

wire-screw · 29 Oct 2013 at 22:56

Yes I did think getting 500Kb JPEGs was a bit crap and there are scratches on the negatives.

Is the grainyness and such due to the film?

Andy90 · 29 Oct 2013 at 23:00

Takes a while to train the eye control but after a while it is surprisingly accurate. Old technology as well now really - wonder what they could do today?

Raymond Lin · 29 Oct 2013 at 23:02

GSWAudio said:
Yes I did think getting 500Kb JPEGs was a bit crap and there are scratches on the negatives.

Is the grainyness and such due to the film?

Grain is as a result of 2 things.

1 - ISO

Being ISO 200, there shouldn't much grain.

2 - pushing the negative/film

This will add grain too, and both of these happens to digital files as well.

(thought you said "the film and development I'm confident in." ?)

wire-screw · 29 Oct 2013 at 23:08

Raymond Lin said:
Grain is as a result of 2 things.

1 - ISO

Being ISO 200, there shouldn't much grain.

2 - pushing the negative/film

This will add grain too, and both of these happens to digital files as well.

(thought you said "the film and development I'm confident in." ?)

I can't push the ISO on the camera unless the guys did it in Jessops?

I trust Jessops more than I trust the 45 year old camera!

Raymond Lin · 29 Oct 2013 at 23:11

GSWAudio said:
I can't push the ISO on the camera unless the guys did it in Jessops?

I trust Jessops more than I trust the 45 year old camera!

You can push in camera, at least some more modern SLRs. It's been a long time but i am sure you can.

http://shoottokyo.com/pushing-film/

You could also choose to push your film. Pushing film means you will change the ISO setting for your camera’s light meter to ASA 800 or 1600 to give you another 1 or two stops of light even though we loaded ASA 400 film. We will ‘tell’ our camera that the film is really ASA 400 or 800 even though we have only loaded ASA 400 film. We will also tell the lab that we pushed the film to 800 or 1600 when we drop it off for processing so they know to expose the negatives properly.

wire-screw · 29 Oct 2013 at 23:21

Raymond Lin said:
You can push in camera, at least some more modern SLRs. It's been a long time but i am sure you can.

http://shoottokyo.com/pushing-film/

Interesting, the auto function doesn't work but I could do it manually I guess.

Thaifood · 30 Oct 2013 at 00:56

The colour of it does make it kind of zombie kinda feel lol .. I do like it

Genoma · 30 Oct 2013 at 08:29

I like the colours in the first one, but If it was digital I would have straightened it.

The rest look out of focus to me or lacking detail. Also for this level of quality is it worth £5 + processing for a few shots? You are quickly going to be able to save up for a entry level 2nd hand DSLR if save on film instead

King Damager · 30 Oct 2013 at 08:46

I'm noticing a bit of blur. As Raymond says you're actually benefitting from the whole 'film' factor, as sometimes the issues you've had work on film. BUT on pure photographic merit you're missing out.

Part of the problem is you're shooting at 1/15. You may (although I doubt it), be able to hand hold at this, but I think it'd take a lot of practice. You need to be shooting at a faster rate than your focal length. I.e. if you have a 50mm lens, you ideally want to be shooting at 1/50 or faster...

kd

wire-screw · 30 Oct 2013 at 09:19

King Damager said:
I'm noticing a bit of blur. As Raymond says you're actually benefitting from the whole 'film' factor, as sometimes the issues you've had work on film. BUT on pure photographic merit you're missing out.

Part of the problem is you're shooting at 1/15. You may (although I doubt it), be able to hand hold at this, but I think it'd take a lot of practice. You need to be shooting at a faster rate than your focal length. I.e. if you have a 50mm lens, you ideally want to be shooting at 1/50 or faster...

kd

Yes it was hard hand holding it and a lot of other shots came out blurry. Will shooting faster than my focal length increase the quality of the images?

Raymond Lin · 30 Oct 2013 at 13:16

I would tackle night time shots with film using…

Iford Delta 3200, B&W. This should give you the shutter speed that you want.

What you are looking for on the street then when shooting is contrast for light and shadows (as opposed to facial expressions), look for composition that is interesting to give you that contrast. These kind of shots are usually more static so if you are using a manual camera, you can take your time to manual focus until you get it right.

The difficulty here is by doing that, you might end up shooting into the light a lot, this will full your metering, and without an instant feedback from the LCD, you are having to guess. This comes with experience but normally, over expose it by 1 stop, sometimes 2 stops. You can cover yourself with some bracketing (the term for taking multiple photos of the same scene with different settings).