I bought a film camera in 2014 in order to hone my skills as a budding photographer. Youtube photographers promised me that the best way to learn the fundamentals of photography was to ditch my DSLR and buy a film camera. I didn’t really study why this would be the best way at the time but I do remember thinking “Fuck it, I’ll give it a go.”
So my Canon 50d (I know, such basic right?) was popped into the official Canon camera bag and that in turn was slid under my bed. Because for the foreseeable future I was a real photography student learning to take pictures by doing it the old fashioned way.
If I had researched anything about this quest I was about to embark on I would have pointed my study ship toward more YouTube videos and I would have sailed over to eBay and purchased something like a Canon Ae-1, a Minolta X-700 or the student friendly Pentax K-1000. But instead with my blind loyalty to the Canon EOS system I purchased a Canon EOS 500. Now this was financially the best choice as it was £5 and I could use my existing Canon lenses. Or so I thought. This is where I learned the actual meaning of ‘EF-S lenses will not fit on EF mounts’ and I was left with the 50mm f/1.8 being the only compatible lens.
So I imagine you’re already thinking something like “Bryan, wait. The Canon EOS 500 is basically a fully automatic camera and that will be terrible to learn on given that the manual controls are almost impossible to use meaning you’re more likely to use auto exposure mode. And the manual focus system is so terrible that you will probably just use autofocus out of rage.” Well if you were thinking that then you are correct. I basically used it as a point and shoot. Annoyingly the results were great and I really enjoyed using that camera. But I learned nothing except that film was expensive and that Boots can’t process black and white film in store and it’s a 14 day turn around.
Foolishly after getting a few decent pictures out if this set up I believed that I had mastered film photography and I quickly sold the camera and went back to my trusty digital Canon 50d.
Here are some of the photographs that I had taken using the ‘primitive’ set up of my Canon EOS 500 and the 50mm f/1.8 lens:
So after learning basically nothing and then continuing to shoot mediocre digital photographs for a few more years I decided that I was actually still quite pish as a photographer and really had to do something about it. So after some proper research this year I bought myself a Leica M6 in the hope that the fully manual controls and the sheer cost of it, would force me in to learning about photography. And boy did it teach me. Since owning the Leica M6 I have really slowed down and put proper thought into what I photograph. I can’t describe it with out sounding like one of the film wankers that I have been known to make fun of in the past but there really is something magical about using a manual camera and shooting film. Each picture means something to me.
Shooting film has become the new norm for me. I have a Leica Q that’s basically a paperweight now and the camera roll on my iPhone is how home to screen shots and pictures of things I need to remember for work. I rarely shoot any pictures that don’t come from my M6 and what ever roll of film I have carefully selected to put in it that day.
Now I could end this with a collection of photographs that compare some of my old photographs to my current photographs but I’m not going to do that for fear of someone saying that my photos are still pish. But I also know there has been a drastic improvement. So we will leave it at that.
Funny to think that I used to make fun of people who ranted on about how superior film photography was compared to any other type of making images.
Now I am one of them.
bryanleonardthompson.com 