Time to Shoot & Process B&W Film
Friday, May 27th, 2011
I recently purchased an old Zenza Bronica ETRS medium format film camera with a prism finder, a standard 120/220 back and a 75mm f2.8 lens. As of this morning, the Bronica has a working battery and I’ve learned to load it with ISO 100 film (a 120 roll has 15 exposures).
Upskilling from Digital into Film Photography
This is my first foray into shooting film photography and I’ve been trying to upskill myself during Linden’s month-long absence. She’s shot and processed her 35mm black and white photographs but I’m really a digital guy. In 2008 I stepped-up from borrowing her Canon point-and-shoot to a Nikon D90 with a 50mm prime lens (the zoom gets no use from me anymore). However, I’m finding that digital lacks some soul and in certain respects film can be a far superior and more satisfying medium. Don’t underestimate the power of a medium format camera… it’s got some serious kick butt punch for detail with a frame size of 42.5mm x 55.1mm.
So far I’ve spent time learning about my film camera and loaded my first medium format film (through the education of a YouTube video using the same camera). My next step is to learn how to process my film negatives at home so it all becomes a part of my new film photography process to shoot the film, process the negatives and scan them into the computer (retaining the original negatives in an archive sleeve). This process seems far more sane than shooting hundreds of images on a modern DSLR and then being locked into days of post-processing and wading through the archival nightmare of my personal computer. This process also introduces a time and money cost to each photograph as opposed to the ‘free imaging’ available with a fully featured DSLR. The simple truth is that nowdays almost anybody can make pretty pictures… and I’m looking to make something with a little more heart and intrinsic value.
Migrating to ‘Slow Photography’
Just like I’ve migrated from fast booze at the bottle shop over to slow booze that I ferment in my office… I’m migrating, at least some of my attention, away from fast photography toward what I’d like to call ‘slow photography’. The making of select images by hand as a time-honoured craft. The craft of my maternal grandfather, Kittles Johannes Tronerud. A big part of my acquisition of a medium format camera is the project relating to Kittle’s 1900-1910 glass negatives housed in the King Island Museum.
