Having Fun with Shooting Film


fengwei

New Member
Aug 25, 2004
14,462
12
0
Queenstown
www.pbase.com
Some guys have suggested me to start a dedicated film thread, but I haven't got chance to do this until now. Sorry for the delay.

Anyways, you guys know that I've been shooting both digital and film in the past year. I love both, but I seldom shot film ever since I went digital about 10 years ago. Well, things changed I guess. I started to shoot film again about a year ago, now I feel I'm having a lot more fun w/ film than digital.

I love to play different film cameras. I use them not just for taking photos, but also for the fun of holding them and looking through the viewfinder, making some click noise. And of course I also love the look and feel of the results on film. It's quite different from digital, but of course you can manipulate both to make them look similar.

I still shoot a lot more digital than film, but the fun w/ digital is different from film. When shooting digital, most time I shoot before I think (yeah, I know it's a bad habit, but can't help). But when I'm shooting film, I always think before I press the shutter button. W/ film, every click counts. The other fun is the anticipation of seeing the film results from the lab. You don't know what you've got until you got the film developed/printed or scanned. Some might think this is stupid, why not just shooting film and you can see the results right away. Well, to us film lovers, it's one of the fun part :)

Another good thing about shooting film is to help you learn photography, especially when you are shooting with a manual camera. With digital, it's kinda trial and error. But with film, it'd force you to learn more about your gear, about the basic theory of photography. Of course you can learn these w/ digital too, but most people would trust or rely more on their auto digital cameras instead of their own skills or knowledge.

Here I'm not gonna debating film vs digital which is better. I'm starting this thread so we film lovers can share our experiences and fun, and maybe the others can join us too ;)

Some readings you guys might be interested:

Is Film Going Away?

Why We Love Film

Shooting Film in a Digital World


There are many similar talks about film vs digital. But to me, it's not really big deal. If you are having fun w/ digital, just go ahead and shoot digital. But if you love film too, then please share your joys and results here.

Which camera to buy or use?

Well, there are so many film cameras available new or used. Since this is Pentax forum, I'd only talk about Pentax film cameras. Of course you are welcome to share your experiences w/ other brand film cameras too.

You can found some history about Pentax and Pentax cameras here:
Brief History of Pentax Cameras

And of course Bojidar Dimitrov's Pentax K-Mount Page:
http://www.bdimitrov.de/kmp/bodies/index.html

I've bought and tried quite some Pentax film cameras, from early M42 screw mount till the very recent MZ-S and MZ-6. My personal favorites are these:
Auto film cameras: MZ-3, MZ-S
Manual film cameras: LX, MX, ME Super and Super Program

When shooting film, cameras don't really matter. As long as you know your gear, you'd be able to take equally good (or bad) photos w/ a cheap full manual Spotmatic or a full-featured MZ-S.

So if you decide to give film a try, just buy whichever suits you the best (cost, look, features, and etc), and you are ready to have some film fun.
 

My film gear
Here are some of the film gear I ever had or still have :

PentaxCameraManuals.jpg


PentaxMX_FA43_2.jpg


PentaxLX_A50.jpg


LX_M28_1.jpg


PentaxSuperProgram_Grip_FA43.jpg
 

Thank fengwei,this is a great start for a newbie like me in film photography.
now is time for all Pentax film lover to contribute & share your experience cum photos here.
cheers.:D
 

Wow! That's amazing!
It's like our second childhood.
I will bring my 2 film slinger :cool:for Aug 22 outing. One for colour and other for b&w film.
 

upload some photos to support your thread...

45300003.jpg


45300018.jpg
 

Bro, it good to hear you said film were better than Digital, I still using manual camera rather than my Canon 40D.Well my flavour is B&W and i do processing and print at Safra when time permitted me. :thumbsup:.hoping to hear from you, Die Hard-Film User
 

Great idea to start this thread, FW. I think ya we do have a fair bit of film shooters and film 'explorers' ;)

Some contri from me.

a) From our Lor Buangkok outing
Pentax SuperProgram
3381810263_9f21a24e44.jpg


3381856995_32c09235c2.jpg


b) From a Pentax PC330, a 26mm FOV PnS
3008059580_ee360a374b.jpg
 

Heres my share!

Pentax ME/SE CZ Jena Biotar 58 Superia 200

F1000034-1.jpg


F1000033-2.jpg


F1000013-2.jpg


F1000024-2.jpg