Having fun with cameras

In a previous blogpost called “the story of old” I already talked about the passion I have for vintage and vintage lenses. Today I want to dive a bit more into getting more fun out of photography and in fact boost your confidence and level in your photography.
Now digital cameras are cool, I would not want to live without one, they always work (well as long as the batteries work and as long as they are defective) but in most cases they do what they need to do and perfect…. Well ok they almost always deliver an image. Our autofocus takes the guess work out of “sharp or not sharp”, our AUTOISO makes sure that we never have a blurry image anymore, our metering in the camera makes sure that we will always have an image that’s savable in Photoshop etc. etc. We would almost forget me would need light meter (heck most people do :D) or that images could actually be beyond rescue.

We don’t have to go back in time far to realize that photography is really a profession, I remember my granddad standing on the edge of a cliff with a meter that told him how to set his camera, I also remember my mom and dad developing their own film and telling me to watch the counter while the rolls were in the tank, and when they starting doing color it almost look like a lab in the build in closet in our house that was our dedicated dark room. Looking back to that time brings back a lot of memories but some of those memories were also from utter and I MEAN utter frustration when you came back from a holiday only to find out that some images were blurry because it was not possible to shoot on different ISO’s at the same roll of film so you sometimes just took a chance. This is also why my grandfather probably sometimes carried more than 1 camera (different ISO).
Now a days we are spoiled rotten with cameras that almost make the images themselves, we only have to point and shoot……
Now when I said in the previous post that I love vintage I really meant this, in our studio there is a big cabinet containing different kind of vintage cameras that actually belonged to my parents and grandparents including a Click and Clack which I think are way cool with their 120 film loading and almost impossible to predict outcomes, and you feel so proud when you get something that looks good.

Now on some shoots I will take out these cameras and use them as props for the models, however I also sometimes loaded a roll of film and started shooting the cameras again, the outcome actually never disappoints me (unless I mess up myself), and don’t get me wrong I will not say that film beats digital, that’s just utter BS, film doesn’t come near to the modern digital cameras, but man does it kicks digitals ass when it comes to character. Just load a ISO3200 Illford  roll of film in a nice body and start shooting and I’m 100% sure (actually 3200%) that you will fall in love with the look.

But also the hunt for the cameras and lenses can be incredible fun, just visiting a flea market or something similar and “hunting” for that bag you can buy for next to nothing and “might” contain that camera/lens you will love is indescribably fun.

Recently during Queensday in the Netherlands I walked past a sales person and say from the corner of my eye and old reporters bag with some shiny silver camera, when I looked closely I saw it was  Pentax Super ME, not a spectacular camera but without a doubt a fun one, in the bag were also 4 lenses (Including the Petri 50mm 1.7 which I now use a lot as special effects lens), some rolls of film and a slide copy lens. The guy saw my interest and said “5 bucks”, because I was holding the Petri at that moment (checking the mount) I thought “5 bucks for that lens, yeah sure sold” so I pointed towards the lens and repeated “5 bucks?” a bit with surprise in my voice I guess because he immediately said “Yeah for the whole bag”……… imagine my surprise, and I don’t think it will come as a surprise I bought the whole bag 😀

At home we cleaned up the camera and I recently shot my first roll of B&W film with it which is now being developed by our friends at the FIFO lab. Results I will show in a future blog post.

Now the tip I want to give you guys today is to start hunting for some older cameras, they can be awesome display pieces of course, but just go one step further… start using the cameras, load some old film and start shooting. You will not only get a bigger understanding of the camera itself but you will also learn about choosing film wisely for the situations you are in, but you will also learn to shoot without seeing the “polaroid” on the back meaning you will be more careful, PLUS there are only 12-24-36 exposures to play with and then it’s done, new roll of film, that really makes you think about the shot you’re gonna take, and in the end (if all went well) you are being rewarded with cool very characteristic images what more do you want….

Oh by the way, the moment you switch back to digital it can be a bit of a letdown 😀 but I’m sure you’re images will be better.

 All images in this blog post were shot with the roll of film I also found in the bag, WAY past it’s time but I just love the images that still comes out of it. You can try to recreate it digitally but…. it’s still different.