Just shot a family vacation entirely on film

Scuzi · Wednesday at 15:03

I got the film hand checked on the way out. I’m hoping the Spanish airport security staff are just as understanding.

It has been one of those once in a lifetime opportunities. Not necessarily because the destination has been anything special, but because the kids are at that age where it’s the last vacation we’ll have with them as proper kids.

I’m not sure if it was a stupid idea or not. 8x rolls of 120, 12x rolls of 135. I guess I’ll find out in a couple of weeks…

I have arranged to release equity from the house to cover development and scanning.

I do intend to update this thread with my various film photography experiences.

Derek W · Wednesday at 17:03

I'll be interested to see what your comments are once you're there with Spanish Secruty. I'll be in Spain next month and I'm in two minds on whether or not to take the film cameras or just stick with the digital instead.

Scuzi · Wednesday at 19:24

Derek W said:
I'll be interested to see what your comments are once you're there with Spanish Secruty. I'll be in Spain next month and I'm in two minds on whether or not to take the film cameras or just stick with the digital instead.

I flew out of Bristol. I walked up to the lady at security with a ziploc bag full of film and said “this is photographic film, can you plea….”
She interrupted me and said “I know what it is and I’d be happy to swab it”. Wonderful!
I think they have CT scanners at Palma which can do a number on film, so I’m really hoping they don’t force it through. Either way I’m sure there will be some results out of the 550-odd frames. Or my experiment will go spectacularly wrong and I’ll have to make do with a handful of the wife’s iPhone photos.

Film stock used included:
Kodak Gold 200, 120 & 135.
Cinestill 50D 120
Portra 400 120
Lomo 800 120
Cinestill 800 135
Wolfen NC500 135
Kodak Ultramax 135
Harman Phoenix 135
Flic Film Elektra 100 (Re-spooled Kodak Aerocolor) 135.

Also bought a couple of these locally and gave them to the kids. Can’t wait to see what comes out!

Scuzi · Friday at 23:50

Coming back through Palma wasn’t as easy as the first leg of the journey. I asked the lady at security who was lovely and very understanding but said she needed her supervisor’s approval. After a minute, he waddled over with a face like thunder, bag of film in his hand, and said “I put this in X-ray or I put it in the bin”. . I asked him to explain and he motioned towards the bin so I reluctantly agreed to having it scanned. It’ll probably be okay with minimal to no impact as it wasn’t a CT scanner, and most of it was ISO 400 or lower.

Derek W · Saturday at 08:09

Hopefully not too much damage to the film when you get them processed.

Hodders · Sunday at 12:32

Lol and you'll have to digitise them to show us!

I like film, it really makes you think about each shot before you press the shutter.

Scuzi · Sunday at 14:20

Hodders said:
Lol and you'll have to digitise them to show us!

I like film, it really makes you think about each shot before you press the shutter.

I’ll show you all some of the less personal ones, but most of the shots are of my kids as I document their lives, and I choose not to share those. That’s something that is alien to a lot of photographers I speak to. They cannot understand the concept of putting so much effort into it only to not share most of it. I used to be crushed if I took photos that the internet didn’t like, and was always confused by the dissonance of really loving a photo that everyone else thought was rubbish. But I guess I’ve grown out of that over time.

I’ve just reread that paragraph and realised it comes off a bit cocky and pretentious but I assure you that wasn’t my intention! Just sharing my own personal journey.

Regarding film making you think - absolutely. My success rate per shot was always better with film when compared to digital. I did fall into a “spray and pray” method of operating on digital with the various automatic bracketing and continuous shooting modes, and would find that whilst I would end up with hundreds of frames, quite a few of which were technically good, they rarely evoked any sort of feeling or emotion for me. With film, I get that evocative effect with a much higher percentage of the photos, despite many of them not being as technically accurate or as sharp as the digital versions. I attribute this to a greater degree of thought being put into each shot through necessity (and cost sensitivity!) which by some inexplicable means, seems to add value. And somehow, that effect does transfer when the negatives are digitised with a decent lab scanner. It must be in the realms of possibility to produce a sensor which replicates this.

Looking at cost, the 20 rolls of film came to around £250-300. Processing with high-res scans was £210. So probably around £500 before I hand pick a select few to have printed from the negatives in a darkroom. At around £1 a shot, that’s obscene (certainly from my wife’s perspective), but if end up with as little as say 20 shots out of the 500+ taken that are truly excellent (at least in my eyes) and capture those given moments in a way that I just couldn’t with digital, and we have those to look back upon for the rest of our lives, then for me it’s £500 well spent.

I’ll go through some of my film photos to see if there are any I can share here to try to exemplify what I’m not articulating very well.

Hodders · Sunday at 14:25

@Scuzi understand completely.

I still reckon shooting, developing and printing BW should be something everybody interested in photography makes sure they do.

On the privacy front, social media makes sharing everything the norm. There is no reason it should be. We've got a family rule that nothing gets shared without the permission of everyone in the photo.

Columbo · Sunday at 18:34

Scuzi said:
I’ll show you all some of the less personal ones, but most of the shots are of my kids as I document their lives, and I choose not to share those. That’s something that is alien to a lot of photographers I speak to. They cannot understand the concept of putting so much effort into it only to not share most of it. I used to be crushed if I took photos that the internet didn’t like, and was always confused by the dissonance of really loving a photo that everyone else thought was rubbish. But I guess I’ve grown out of that over time.

Totally with this 100%. I share very little of the shots I take these days, haven't posted one anywhere for months and I'm out and about most weeks shooting something.
In fact just looked at my LR catalog and apparently I've taken 8942 shots in 2024, I've printed about 40 but haven't posted single one as far as I remember.

Not that I think posting stuff online is wrong btw, I love looking at other peoples work. It's just not my thing of late.

mid_gen · 2024-08-19T07:42:08+0100

It's really not that big a real running film through scanners, not hand luggage ones anyway. Used to do it all the time, although I rarely shoot film now.

£500 seems pretty insane, in reality you aren't going to capture anything digital wouldn't, so don't try and justify it that way

It's just an interesting project, which is cool!

I still shoot a roll through my hand-me-down Nikon EM from time to time, as I have a draw full of film that is years out of date to get through.

Scuzi · 2024-08-19T13:53:58+0100

mid_gen said:
It's really not that big a real running film through scanners, not hand luggage ones anyway. Used to do it all the time, although I rarely shoot film now.

£500 seems pretty insane, in reality you aren't going to capture anything digital wouldn't, so don't try and justify it that way It's just an interesting project, which is cool!

I still shoot a roll through my hand-me-down Nikon EM from time to time, as I have a draw full of film that is years out of date to get through.

Yeah, if I had a load of Ilford Delta 3200 I think I might be properly worried, but I’m fairly relaxed about one pass through a scanner. Just thought it was worth avoiding if at all possible given the financial sink.

I disagree slightly about not capturing anything digital wouldn’t. I find a much higher hit rate for technically good shots with digital, but a much lower hit rate of shots I genuinely love and connect with. Perhaps it’s a load of old romantic nonsense, but I’ll happily take that if the shots move me!

One thing I cannot replicate on digital, even with a Fuji XTrans, and with a lot of processing, is the subtle roll off from mid tones into highlights that many film stocks offer. With the power of software nowadays it surely must be possible to replicate, but I have yet to find a convincing method.

Then there is the medium format “look”, especially on the 6x7 negatives. I don’t know if this translates to the MF class digital sensors, although I haven’t seen it all that prevalent in GFX shots. It’s a moot point though because I cannot afford a medium format digital camera. Well, I can, but I’d have to make other sacrifices.