As a kid I remember using a film camera here and there. I remember using my dads Contax T2 sometimes, an incredible fixed lens 35mm film camera. I also won this cheap point and shoot camera that I would use on vacation. But my interest in photography was almost non-existing until 2007. My parents had just bought me my first own digital camera. I was about to to leave for 10 weeks in Prague, Czech Republic, for an internship at a newspaper. Just in case you are interested, this was my first digital camera:
Why I started shooting decade old film cameras
Before I start raving about how awesome that thing was (10x zoom and that cool lens design that allowed shooting from the hip and difficult angles), let's go back to talking about film. I love the color of film. In fact, I started making my digital photos look like film pretty early in my career. Just take a look at the first 3 photos of this gallery, some of my favorite photos from Allison and Matt's wedding. They were shot on 35mm Kodak Porta Pro 160, still my favorite film so far.
At this wedding I actually used two full frame Sony cameras and still loved shooting my Canon F1. The feel of putting in new film, rewinding it and not really knowing what you got is such an amazing feeling until this day. Even in an age where I sometimes show some photos of the wedding day at the reception on my iPad.
Just buying the film with the same name of filters I have been playing around with for years was a lot of fun. Seeing the first results was even better. So I started using different film cameras at weddings as a third camera. I was mainly interested in seeing if and how it would change my approach of how I shoot. I knew film would slow me down and make me think longer before I press the shutter button. Digital cameras make it very easy to take multiple frames of the same situation. Perfect for shooting a couple or groups since face expressions change so quickly. But creating a photo on film is different. It can be more forgiving, for a slight focus error or any other imperfection. I mean, even the analog grain looks so much more pleasing than noisy digital photos.
And while I would only consider shooting an entire wedding on film as an experiment and as a second shooter, I love to bring a film camera as a third camera. To put in simple words, the feeling of using film just makes me very happy.
