Film results to date

I finally finished off the second roll of film. Those just joining the party need to know that I've been wanting to try shooting film for a while. Sean generously loaned me a couple 35mm film cameras and several lenses. I've been using an FM2 with a 50 mm lens, and the colour film is Ecktar 100. There are several shots I'm quite pleased with here. (Let's not talk about the first roll, but then, I didn't have high expectations.)

This chunk of driftwood was in Carburn park, shot 2021-10-21 with both film and digital. I shot the digital version first, then the film, trying to get similar shots, with the intent of seeing what the overall differences might be. I was hoping to see the 'look' of film. Now, I wasn't trying to be scientific or anything. There are too many variables to have any hope of a rigorous comparison. Besides, that ship has sailed long ago.

We know that current digital cameras easily match or surpass 35mm film in resolution and ease of use. People shoot film now because they enjoy the process, or they can get that film 'look', whatever it is. Maybe it's like runner's high. Even after a decade of running I never had it. Swimming, maybe.

Here's the film, scanned by the lab (which can introduce a multitude of sins), imported into Lightroom, then exported with no further processing. The original file size is 1.7MB, should anyone want to know. My notes say ISO 100, f1.8, 1/250 second, about noon on a sunny day.

Here is that same file, processed in Lightroom exactly as if I was editing a digital file, not trying to make it look like the digital. Exported exactly the same way I export digital files. As I look at it more, I'm thinking there is a slight green cast to the image.

Here's the original digital file. Normally I don't fuss about settings, but ISO 200, f5.6, 1/125 second

Here is the digital file as I edited it then.

I also got prints done because they were cheap and I was curious. Not gonna take a photo of a print and show you that. I think their process is to develop the negative, scan it, then print from the scan. To my eye the scans look very similar to the photos. I think next time I'll just do the scans. If there's something I like so much that I want to print it, I'll just get it rescanned at a higher resolution, up to whatever the max is for that film, and print that.

The digital file appears that the temperature has been shifted slightly more yellow, which is a typical thing for me to do. But otherwise, if you were to show the two edited photos to someone, I don't think they'd obviously be able to tell which was film and which was digital. At least I can't at this photo size, which is 2048 px wide . Given that the digital file is 6240 x 4160 px, and the film as scanned is 3024 x 2005, I think the film version would start to pixilate much sooner than the digital version if I tried to display or print it big.  

Then again, I could find a drum scanner, pay through the nose, and scan the negative at a similar resolution to digital. But if you start going down that road you have to start thinking about the quality of the camera lens and exactly how good your technique is, and lots of other things, and you're well down a rabbit hole. Then think about what the point is. Who is going to look at a photo that closely?

I had another pair of shots, done in the basement of the Hoosier school. However, I screwed up the focus on the film shot, so it's useless for comparison. Focus is the thing I struggled with the most while shooting film, missing 4 out of 36, and that was taking my time. A couple of them might have been because the shutter speed was too slow, but that's still my fault. 

There are several other shots that are similar, but are not even as close a match as this pair is. I don't think I'll do any more of the comparison shots, since it doesn't really tell me anything. If there's a particular 'look' to the film shot, as opposed to the digital shot, I'm missing it. 

The cost of film was about $17 to buy the film roll, and about $30 to get the negative developed, scanned, and 4x6 prints done. So about $1.50 per photo. It took a week because the machine at the Heritage London Drugs is broken. If I'd known that in advance I'd have gone to the one near Signal Hill, which is probably a bit closer, but I'm not used to thinking of it that way.

Once I'm done the 2 more rolls of colour, and 2 rolls of B&W, while I continue? Good question. Stay tuned.

Of the Day

Driftwood

Peony

For anyone that is interested in why the red tinges toward magenta, here's a link for you. Short answer for me is, under expose the red more, and boost the shadows in everything else.

Lily

Film

A new feature with scans from 35 mm film. I'm still thinking about what editing such photos should have in Lightroom. This is the photo as scanned, of a barn in the middle of nowhere on the way to Oyen.

Same photo, with Lightroom editing.