Film Photography is a type of photography which was invented in 1888 by George Eastman. Back then he used paper film, however nowadays we tend to use a roll of film which contains small silver halide crystals, which turn silver when exposed to light, therefore creating an image. The sizes, characteristics and distribution of the crystals determine the sensitivity, contrast and resolution of the photo.
The film camera I will be using is a 35mm camera, and 35mm film is very useful as it is much more compact, however the resolution is decreased as there is less grain in a smaller area. The photos I will take in this project will be black and white, as that is the film I am using, and I will continue to update this page as I create my photos, as well as documenting the method I take in developing my film.
My Camera
The camera I will be using for this project is the Olympus AM-100 which is a point and shoot camera. Which is fully automatic and compact and has a 35mm lens. It has auto exposure, which is ideal for my first time, as it is something I will have to worry less about. The exposure can range between 1/45 – 1/400s, and has a built in flash. This Camera also reels up the film automatically, after its all been used up.
Loading and Preparing to Shoot
Before loading I practiced putting together the developing tank with a spare reel without being able to see. I did this in a black out bag. The steps I needed to take are below:
- Open up the reel, and cut the film off, using scissors
- Using your fingers, find the notches on the developing tanks reel and feed the film slightly into it
- Wind up the reel by moving each wheel from side to side
- When wound up, put the center column through the middle of the reel and place the whole thing in the bottom of the tank
- On top place the light proof cover, which looks a bit like a funnel
- Finally, place the lid on top
This whole process is to be done in the dark, so it was fairly fiddly at first, but I got the hang of it. The tank was now ready for the chemicals, however I am yet to take any photos on the film.
Loading
Loading the camera was fairly simple, I unboxed the film and opened the back of the camera. I then just slotted it in.
Taking The Photos
For the shoot, I travelled to Bath in hopes to capture the different buildings, streets and architecture, taking photos of thing like Bath Abbey, and the busy roads. I tried to use good composition by splitting my photos into thirds, however I didn’t have any preview. I mainly used the further focus distance (by holding down the green button with the mountain on the front – as opposed to the one with the flower.) this was because most of my photos were of the whole scene in front of me instead of one single thing. I didn’t realise at first that I had to use all 24 photos on my film for it to roll back up, so because of this I didn’t use all of them. This meant I had to take some of the nature around my house, and I also played around with the other focusing modes by taking photos of my friends.
Developing The Film
This is the equipment I needed to use, and I did the same process that I practiced before. Once it was light proof I went into the light room and began using the chemicals to ‘develop’ and ‘fix’ my photos. First I put in the developing fluid into the ‘funnel’ part until i could see it in the bottom. I then put the lid on and began to agitate it slowly for 6 minutes and 30 seconds, this was so the developer got on all the film. The more time you leave the developer on for the more exposed it becomes, but the box for the film suggested 6 and a half minutes. I then ‘stopped’ it by putting water in then pouring it out. Finally I added ‘fix’ for three minutes before rinsing 1 more time.
Outcome of Negatives
After hanging my negatives to dry overnight I checked them out and half of them were very dark and hard to see. I do not fully know why this is, but assume some light must’ve exposed the first bits of the film. This was annoying but i still had a few negatives from near the end of the shoot.
Even tho I couldn’t use any of the photos I took in bath, I still tried to enlarge the ones at the end of the film.
Enlarging and Producing the Final Photos
I chose a photo from my negatives which I thought would look good. I then put it in the compartment on the enlarger, making sure they were upside down and shiny side up and set the contrast to 4. The contrast is a setting which when low can make your photo look grey and flat, but when higher create true black and whites – this is what we want. Contrast can be 1-5. I then clicked ‘focus’ which shone a light through the negatives displaying the photo on the base. I turned up the aperture, keeping in mind that I made sure to turn it down before I used photo paper. This brightened the image so that I could zoom the right amount and focus it. Once I had done this I turned off the focus, turned down the aperture and set the timer to 2 seconds, ready to do my test strip.
When doing the test strip, I got a box and moved it along the photo revealing section by section, this let different parts have different amounts of light going from 2-10s. I then developed the test strip for 1 min using the developer, agitating slowly. Then I washed it. At this point I went outside the dark room to identify the amount of seconds I should use by looking at the section which looked best the counting along.
I then set the enlarge to this amount of seconds and got some new paper, then exposed the whole photo to that amount of light. I then redid the developing and fixing process, which is very similar to the development of the negatives.
Outcomes
This was my third print. For this one I tried to use one of my really dark negatives meaning there wasnt much contrast, it also meant I had to have a really long exposure time of 30 seconds.
Conclusion
Although it can be quite tedious and slow at times, I enjoyed this project. I don’t think I am even close to refining film photography, however I would be happy to try again some time, maybe with coloured film. The main point I need to work on is not exposing my film to light, as this will enable me to get more contrast in my outcomes.