Try the Film For the First Time

The story starts from a disposable camera sent to me by Root in 2017.

The camera is loaded a color negative film in ISO800, and you can took 39 photos.

I can’t remember the exact time that I got the camera, but on December 25th, 2017. When my friend and I go to downtown Zhuhai for a Christmas day off, I took that film camera.

It is a whole new experience that you take a photo without an instant result. You have to wait for the film to develop in the lab. During that day, there is no screen or buttons to interrupt you when you took the picture. All you need to do is pointing to the subject and press that shutter button. (You will need to press an extra button to charge the capacitor for the flash if you need more light :-))

After I finished that roll, the film was put aside for a really long time. Until I borrowed a Nikon 135 film camera from Ziho because I fell like I want to shoot more film. I also purchased some films that looks interesting.

My very first roll of film was sent to the lab together with some films which I shoot with that Ziho’s camera. But I don’t think we can develop an image from that film at that time since the film sits aside a long time ago (more than one year) and without stored in a refrigerator.

But the result is out of my expectation. We do get photos. Vintage color and that unique film grain really build up the mood and bring back all my memory for that day. And there are two pictures I choose to show you.

I am deciding if I buy a film camera or not. To check whether I enjoy taking pictures with a film camera. I ask Ziho and want to borrow his film camera to try out.

It a nice condition Nikon FM2. It has a (almost) fully mechanical metal design with a build in light meter to help you get the correct exposure.It can figure the film ISO and current aperture and shutter speed setting on the camera body, then a little indicator inside your viewfinder can tell you if your setting is underexposure/overexposure/correct exposure

I bought 4 rolls of film

• FUJICOLOR C200
• Kodak Gold 200
• AGFAPHOTO APX 400 (B/W)
• FUJICOLOR Superia X-tra 400

Except for AGFAPHOTO APX 400, others are the color negative film.

The camera is an amazing machine to work with. And the result is worth my wait. It is fortunate for me that I didn’t ruin a whole roll of film as a first-time film camera operator (Even though I accidentally open up the loaded-film-mag once that I thought I didn’t load the film correctly, which is wrong). This old technology still exists for some good reasons.

Now, you can enjoy some of my work.

This story is a update from the old post 《初尝胶片》