From: Timothy Buerger Photography

More as things develop…

You’ve probably figured out that I’m a proponent of film. Film is cool stuff. Especially black and white film.
Film or digital, honestly, is a choice that everyone has to make for themselves. But I think that every photographer starting out in the digital era would get a huge benefit out of going through a film phase. Because film is a royal pain in the butt.
Really. It is. But that’s exactly why it’s a fantastic teacher.
Digital cameras throw around a lot of words when they’re trying to convince you to buy them. Some of them refer to characteristics of the camera’s image sensor and it’s representation of the image: dynamic range, megapixels, noise at high ISO, and the most ambiguous one, colors. The problem with digital cameras is that you generally only get one, at least at the beginning. If you’re a studious first camera purchaser, you do your research, and you decide on a camera, without any real experience as to what those terms mean to you.
Film cameras are a pain in the butt. You only get a small number of pictures before you have to change the image sensor roll of film. And you can’t change the ISO from photo to photo.
When you start out shooting film, you go to the store and buy one of everything. You learn what you like and what you don’t, and in that process, you learn what those crazy digital camera marketing terms mean. You learn what a film with less dynamic range looks like compared to the films with more dynamic range. If you branch out from 35mm to a borrowed medium format camera, you have a very physical representation of the value of megapixels. And that hardest to explain one, “colors” – that happens when you shoot a few different films, and realize that all films do not represent color the same way.
I think that there are some very good arguments to be made for films. No colors look as beautiful as a slide in your hands. The dynamic range you can squeeze of of black and white films is amazing. But learning to see those things in film is what’s going to make you able to see them in your digital photos. If you’ve only ever had one hamburger from one fast food chain, you’d have a hard time describing it. But if you’ve had a lifetime of eating at all of the fast food chains, you can describe the differences in them very well(unless, of course, your diet-induced diabetes and obesity has done you in).
One thing about films is that the conditions you develop under, and the chemicals you use to develop them can make a world of difference. Here in Tokyo, I can’t develop film in the winter. The film dries to slowly, and it leaves bubbles on the film. In some of these shots you can see some bubbles – not bad, but perhaps I should have waited for it to be a little warmer. I use HC-110 to develop my film, because it pulls more dynamic range out of the shots, even if that comes at the cost of a bit of graininess. If I wanted to completely reduce grain, I’d be shooting digital.
I think that an appreciation for the developing process, and the printing process, will make you appreciate exactly how important that post-processing step is. “Straight-out-of-camera” is cool to say and all, but when you’re working with film, you realize how nothing is SooC. Nothing ever was. Nothing comes easy, especially not a great photograph. You always have to put your work in and make it something special. And if you really get into darkroom printing your film photos, you’ll discover
Dust is a major pain in the butt. I have to use my bathroom to hang film to dry because it’s relatively dust-free. I have an air filter that I run for hours before scanning film. With cleaning the surface of the scanner, I still end up with dust, more sometimes than others. With landscapes, I want to edit the dust out, but with other photos, it can feel like part of the aesthetic. Perhaps it’s silly, but I tend to like it.
With film, there’s so much that can go wrong. A lot of those things are cured by moving to digital(but other problems are introduced. It’s not a 100% miracle cure.) But these problems can be treated as features. They teach you to do things properly. You can’t chimp shots by looking at your LCD, so you learn to properly trust your metering skills. You can’t change your ISO, so you learn to plan ahead, and then adjust when life is less-than-ideal. You learn a lot, and then you can take that back to digital and be a more competent, more confident shooter.
I don’t shoot film commercially. Usually. But the things I learned from film bring me to where I am when I shoot digital photos. I really recommend that everyone lets themselves go through a film phase. It will teach you amazing things. The problem is, film is sexy. You might just end up loving it. That’s what happened to me.