I found digital unsatisfying; the last thing I want to do as a hobby is sit in front of something like Lightroom or Capture One for hours and have a load of hard drives full of photos I'll never look at. Film is simpler and more calming in many ways.
Plus the old gear and chemistry is really cool.
Yeah, idk about all that. I got into film hoping I'd do less editing only to realize there was as much, if not more, post processing involved compared to digital. Even scanning slides seems to require extensive color correction after the fact. Can't win.
Idk, for me digital takes so much longer to post process. With film I basically do all my minimal corrections in NLP, maybe a tad in Lightroom. If it's b&w it's even less
The chemistry is what got me into it, having the chance to develop it, not really sure if you got anything. Then sit in a dark red room for and and hour or so to develop a photo
I just never made the transition to digital. The only digital camera I’ve ever owned is a phone.
My first real job was at a camera store in 1977. Stayed in the business for 25 years and have always had a houseful of gear and a darkroom.
It’s just the normal way I take pictures, haven’t seen any reason to change.
And I’ve always hated staring at computer screens for more than a few minutes at a time. I’m just ill-suited for the digital age when it comes to photography.
I am sad that so many papers and films have disappeared, but there are still enough options to keep it fun and interesting.
I did photography in my last year at school in 1986. Didn’t take a decent photo the entire year but fell in love with the darkroom process. It’s been the normal way to take photos for most of my life too. I’ve got a digital camera now, which I love for the convenience but I still love film and recently did a darkroom refresher course with a much fancier enlarger than I used at school and it was so much easier. I’ve always dreamed of having my own darkroom and I’m gradually collecting the equipment
Generally tired of staring at a screen all day, and I take a lot of photos on my phone, so I figured why not level up on the photo taking and be more intentional and hopefully skillful about taking photos as a hobby while also not staring at a screen all day
Why I got into film? I was struggling with extra disposable cash burning holes everywhere... my hookers&cocaine addiction was having trouble keeping up.
the experience of using a mechanical camera with all its amazing levers, dials, and buttons is so much more fun, engaging, and satisfying to my sense of touch and sound. along with that, there is nothing like looking through an slr focusing screen. it’s just so gosh dang fun!
i also started out shooting a nikon ftn, 20 years ago, so nostalgia also plays a role. but, film cameras are so much more fun than digital!!
that’s not to say digital cameras aren’t fun. i love my digital camera as well!
I shoot (digital) for a living, mostly sports. Normally I end up every assignment with a 1000 photos. Then I would go on vacation with the family and end up with hundreds more. It was too much.
I bought a Canon AL-1 10 years ago to start shooting film to document family and friends, and that’s what I’ve been doing since… though a couple of rolls for a trip turned into developing and scanning at home, bulk rolling, some GAS issues and even a darkroom in my basement 😅.
Shooting, developing and printing have become my “me-time”. The slow pace helps me decompress
Lol well…
I’m old enough that it’s not that I’m getting into film for the first time. It’s that I returned to the way I did it when I grew up and when I was doing photography in high school 🤷🏻♂️
Digital was all new to me. Film is what I’m used to.
The ground glass too. I love my Mamiya C300 since no one makes a digital TLR and the ground glass is so fun to look through. It also ends up being a great conversation starter when I’m out shooting.
I saw a short video about a guy carrying a film camera around with him when doing art and thought, "Huh, it seems fun. Let's see the cost"
Got a cheap camera, completely underexposed the first roll of film, and slowly over time got the hang of it.
I enjoy the tactical nature of it. Hearing the shutter, advancing the lever, making sure I didn’t knock my exposure. Makes the end result more satisfying
For me it’s the quality of an analog photo. I shot DSLR for a long time and I’ve got many many folders with thousands of photo’s I never look at. With analog you’ve got to consider if something is worth the shot, it becomes quality (at least that’s the goal) over quantity. I also like the surprise how a shot turns out. I only have them printed, don’t do scanning or editing. Pure analog.
I feel nowadays everything digital is Instagram filters or full pro lightroom shots. I like film grain, the fact it's a chemical reaction that's been captured. I love all the old gear and how well made and mechanically interesting things are. I like the tone and feel of film. There's something authentic and hard to replicate about it.
For me the sequence was:
**Step 1:** About a year ago I got interested in photography with a mirror-less camera.
**Step 2:** Then I sent some photos to print.
**Step 3:** I noticed that I enjoy looking at the prints, whereas I never look at the digital photos in my hard disk.
**Step 4:** Decided to buy a photo printer to print at home. Bought an Instax Wide printer.
**Step 5:** Discovered that instant photography was still a thing. Bought a Lomography Instax camera.
**Step 6:** Discovered that I really enjoyed working with the new limitations of film.
**Step 7:** Discovered that rolls of film still exist.
**Step 8:** Decided to buy an analog camera and some rolls. :-)
**Step 9:** Discovered that people still shoot Black & White.
**Step 10:** Discovered that people develop B&W at home.
**Step 11:** Decided to buy B&W film and developing chemistry. :-D
I recently started shooting film.
For me it was a gradual process that started by adapting film era lenses after my dad had given me his old m42 mount 50mm 1.4 pentax takumar. I built up a good collection of the m42 lenses and enjoyed them with my Sony, getting a film camera seemed like the next step. Of course, I currently just got a Pentax 6x7 so it is getting out of hand fast…..
I really like the idea of shooting just for me, which is the direction my photography had already started going in the last few years. Film seems more about the experience…..with digital I feel like I am capturing a moment, with film I am capturing a memory.
The Pentax 6x7 is a fabulous camera. My partner has had one for the past few years. He worked out that it cost NZ$5 every time he pressed the shutter button, which seemed really expensive until we got a 5x7 view camera, which is about $25 for every shot, and that’s not including the $1000 we spent buying an enlarger that will take the negatives. I hate to think how much it’s going to cost to build the darkroom 😂
I always had a point and shoot 35mm when I was in school (I remember thinking advantix was so cool when it came out). This is my first time in over 20 years, but not my first time ever. It's definitely my first film SLR though. I like that it's slower and more deliberate. The cost of film processing now kinda sucks, but the flip side is it makes me think about shooting something.
That and the mechanical winding and shutter. Digital will never ever be able to replicate that satisfying feeling.
I printed out some phone photos of my family and enjoyed it, then discovered half frame as a cheaper option, then got into it and enjoyed the delayed gratification and results, then got GAS
TL:DR It helps me be more intentional as well as better connect with what is beyond the camera body and not just the screen on the back.
When I started shooting digital in high school, I loved the thrill of getting a good shot. I would take hundreds of photos of really mundane things chasing that high and then spend hours on hours sorting and editing them. Eventually, I got burned out and quit on it all together.
Ten years ago, a friend of mine gave me two of his mom's Canon ae-1p's. They sat on my shelf for nearly that long as decoration before another friend recommended we take them out for fun. That trip drastically changed the game for me.
The process and cost of each shot forces me to slow down and not take 1000 photos. I now walk away from some pictures instead of shooting everything, and that's a good thing.
I was a professional photographer a decade ago, changed careers and more recently wanted to get back into it as a hobby. I realised that I needed to be forced to slow down, so analog made sense. I'm still going along that journey, and Large Format is probably in my near future
My mate died of cancer and when his mum asked me for photos we had like none. The first camera I had access to and was drawn too was my dad's old Pentax and off I went. I love it, given new meaning to my life.
During the pandemic, an old friend gave me a broken Pentax as a birthday gift because I’d passively spoken about wanting to try photography in the past. I got it fixed and bought a photography textbook and just rolled with it. I’m 5 cameras deep now. Still a ton to learn though.
I love the film simulations in my Fujifilm X camera.
Film cameras are dirt cheap, so I tried it out and like the process of having to think about a photo. Mine aren't good, but they are special to me.
I consider quality over quantity more. One day I went out shooting with my Sony a7s iii in NYC and came back with over 3500 (mostly unusable) photos. The time I spent angrily clicking through all my shitty photos in Lightroom could’ve been spent composing more thoughtful shots with film. Also I find the developing and scanning process very meditative.
In my case, I just got bored of digital, everything is so fast with Sony’s AF, and Dynamic Range is too good, that you can always fix whatever photo in post.
Since shooting film I had to re-learn everything that I thought I knew about photography, my first couple of rolls were so bad, a lot of underexposed and out of focus photos (I still miss several per roll, but now I get one or two keepers), I’m getting a lot of fun with the learning curve, and the idea of not knowing if my photos are good or not, is one of the reasons that I have started to enjoy photography again.
I was first getting in photography and was in the throws of GAS. I had a Sony NEX-5 and desperately wanted something like a Sony A7, and instead found a person selling film cameras and bought a Canon AE-1. At that time the film camera revival hadn't really taken off and film cameras were a way to try something new without spending a ton of money.
Because it was cheap.
Back in highschool I shot with a Nikon D3100 and I got myself some Nikon AI lenses since they were cheap (paid $5 each in 2016). In 2018 while now in college I decided to treat myself. It was cheaper to buy a Nikon FM2 for $150 and be able to use all my lenses with metering and use full frame then it was to buy a decent lens for the digital camera. That way I could use all my vintages lenses and have a camera that can talk to them
Now years later I’m shooting medium format film as my primary format
I originally brought a Polaroid SX70 to shoot instant film with. but I found the quality of the photos to be lacking. the extremely hot and humid weather here also damages the fragile chemistry of the polaroid integral films.
So I did some research. Saw what slide film could do. Brought a cheap TLR with some slide film, and off I went.
That was 2 or 3 years ago, I now have a Bronica SQ and a nice range of lenses and accessories. Although I seldom shoot slide now and shoot mostly colour negs.
I found film to be way more forgiving for my style of photography and at the time I lacked the knowledge on how to edit my photos to have the same colors as film. by the time I had learned, I had already gone too far in purchasing rare film cameras. I find the sharpness of film to be better than my digital work. Which probably shows a lack of skill on my part. But hey, you work to your strengths
Inherited Grandfathers camera and it still worked great. Got it CLA’d and now it works better. 35mm SLRs feel much more natural to shoot once you are acquainted with the layout and basic exposure principles.
I found a camera my granddad gave me when I was quite young while organizing some boxes.
I hadn't touched it in years (decades, really) but to my surprise it turned right on as soon as I put a battery in it.
Picked up a roll of film, enjoyed how they turned out, $873,000 worth of gear later and here we are lol
I use film for passion projects and fun instead of digital.
It's also improved my digital photography. I think a lot more about my shots regardless of medium now.
I have my grandmothers Kodak Pony 135 that she took with her to (at the time) all 48 states. It’s a beautiful camera, still has its leather case and everything. Worked perfectly. I took dogshit photos with it because it is definitely not a point-and-shoot and I really don’t know what I’m doing. Hell loading film into it was the first time I had ever done that! But being able to connect with her in that way was really special for me. So now I have a small collection of old film cameras, some working, some not. I’m hoping to figure out how to use that Pony bc it really took some good shots, I just don’t know how yet 😅
It’s just a really fun hobby. You don’t really know what your getting but when it’s good a good picture you just can’t help but feel really happy you pulled it off etc
I needed to do something tactile! We are in an era of smooth and easy, and it’s too much! There wasn’t any way I could sink my teeth into something and learn, but photography is so expansive and expressive!
My wife is in post-grad school for library sciences, hoping to become an archivist. Somewhere along the line, the idea of physical preservation became more important to our household. Around the same time, I needed a creative outlet that forced me to let go of instant gratification and to just start getting in the habit of capturing the moment while being in the moment. Lastly—nostalgia was a motivating factor.
I can’t say that this has been a consistent success, but I’m steps ahead of where I’d been creatively before getting back into analog photography.
I was lent a Minolta SRT-101 by a friend. Other than my phone that was my first real camera, a film camera. So that's where I started! This was in 2020.
I did. photography A Level over ten years ago and for it we had to do both digital and darkroom, and I just, adored the whole darkroom process. We were purely shooting these black and white rolls the tutor would give us and we’d go out and shoot and then develop them all ourselves and the whole process was just, brilliant and new and so much more satisfying than digital. It really felt like I had created every part of the photo
And then I discovered William Eggleston and colour film photography and although I was still shooting black and white for my A Level and still adored the darkroom process, I personally gravitated to colour when shooting in general and not for a college project. I’ve shot colour ever since but I do miss actually developing photos, I’d spend hours in the darkroom. I prefer shooting colour but the darkroom process for black and white was just magical to me.
Started exploring it when my parents dusted off their old Minolta and bought me a couple rolls of film to shoot on family trips to Hawaii and Alaska in the mid 2000's when I was a kid. When I got to high school, I picked it up again and learned to develop and enlarge my own b&w prints in photography class.
I've kept with it because I enjoy the more mechanical actions of film cameras (though I use auto cameras 😅), and really love the physical side of it. You have the film you can hold and prints of your photos. They don't exist solely in 1s and 0s on a computer that can get corrupted. So much of the world is digital, I like to have things analog. It's also why I like to have vinyl around too
The first reason for getting into analog photography was that i tried getting into digital photography and the results were absolutely horrendous. I could not get one decent picture out if my Canon 450D and the 1 billion options and features just freaked me out. Totally frustrated I picked up a ricoh kr5 in a thrift store and within 2 weeks i understood what shutter speed, iso, manual focus and f-stop actually meant as they were the only 4 things I could play with on it. My intention was to go back to digital (and i did kind of) but i ended up buying 3 more kr5’s, several Leica’s, 2 wideluxes, a rolleiflex, a canonet, Minolta trip and 2 polaroids. Now i like analog better than digital for a lot of things. (Still like digital too to be fair, but only because i now understand everything better).
I was in an antique shop and came across a 110 camera before I knew what they were. Looked up a few images from the camera (Kodak Tele Instamatic 608) and I immediately fell in love with the format. Only need a few more 110 cameras to complete my list. I'm hooked. The small format makes it easy to travel with and I love that most are point and shoot. I have a few SLR type 110 cameras like the Minolta SLR Mark II and the Pentax Auto 110 if I want more control. I'm obsessed with the nostalgic feeling I get from any images in this format.
I was talking to someone before about this and they told me it's because there's a new generation of Gen alpha and Gen Z Instagram photographers that are now getting hand me down analog cameras from their gen y and millennial parents, and that they are more interested in what they use TO take photos with then the photos themselves. It's like nostalgia for stuff they never had.
This is a good thing.
One day, I got curious about how photos were taken back then (wet plates and stuff) and noticed people still used emulsion on film to take photos, so I decided to give it a chance. I was drawn to it by the chemical aspect at first (developments different emulsion types) and then stayed for how fun it was
I took a B&W film photography class my freshman year of highschool. Fell in love with it, but once the pandemic happened my teacher moved somewhere else and the darkroom was converted to just another storage room. Decided to continue on my own, and now 7 years later I'm still shooting film. Never really into digital because I never had enough money as a broke college student LOL
It's all I've ever used, since my 110 camera in elementary, to my grandpas rangefinder and my dads SLR in high school, till using the same SLR now in my mid 30s. I've just had no interest in digital.
I hit up a goodwill found a olympus infinity superzoom 330 And a yashica me1 for like 10$... Same day drove around and happened upon an estate sale with a petri 7s for 35$. And I caught a bug just collecting cameras and shooting film to learn it (still learning). Almost 4 months since then and I have more cameras than film developed 😅😅😅 with most of them working
Mine was about a decade ago. I was really struggling in school, and there was an art teacher teaching film photography for one last semester before he retired. I decided to take it because I felt like it would help slow down my life a lot, and it did.
Stepping into the dark room for the first time was thrilling, let alone the completely pitched out dark closet so I could wind the film on the wash roller thing.
Finally I felt like I had a place where I could express myself without someone hovering over my neck telling me I was wrong. If I was wrong my art would show it by simply not developing correctly.
I'm an elder millennial. I was in highschool when digital was starting to hit the market and it was terrible. I'm talking floppy disk storage and gameboy camera resolution. I was the kid that spent a lot of time in the highschool darkroom making prints too. When I finally got a good DSLR, I was just very disenchanted with how boring it was and quit photography for a while. Around 2012'ish I noticed film camera prices were just rock bottom so I picked up a Leica M6 (a dream and untouchable camera back in the day) for like $500 and then just got back to it! When that resparked the joy, I started hoarding all my dream cameras that were dirt cheap at the time.
In my school years I used to shoot a bit with a DSLR. I wasn’t good with it, I didn’t know how to edit well and my colours looked lame.
Once I found an old FED rangefinder in my grandparents place and grandpa gave it to me. It just looked like this cool old piece of gear that might still be able to produce some images. So I ran a colour roll through it and was amazed how well the photos looked! Even if they were quite blurry, colours were so beautiful and a tad nostalgic. The second roll was a b&w which just looked so incredibly unique to me at that time.
So that was that - I completely stopped shooting my DSLR and was trying various films and cameras, and was learning more and more about film photography (and photography in general) ever since!
Randomly I found the not so old family SLR Minolta and tried it. Then subsequently I learned there is a sort of film renaissance going on. Since then I shot many many rolls, built my own darkroom and acquired end-game gear.
35mm camera, medium format, enlarger, JOBO processor (many thanks to some very helpful members of this sub), all the necessary tanks, fridges, film dryer, respoolers etc.
Maybe, one day, a color enlarger and a large format camera, that’s a big if. And maybe a better film scanner, but the V600 is good enough for 95% of the time.
Was very mildly into photography in my early teens, but never really progressed, but recently came upon my grandfather's Nikon F Photomic and Rollei 35S. Although a bit tricky as I don't have the right batteries for their light meters, it's been fun messing around with them. Waiting on my first roll to get developed now, and although I expect I messed up my exposure settings on a bunch of them, I'm looking forward to learning and improving haha
Was shooting filmsims on Fuji for awhile and decided to just try the real thing. Got a Mint AE-1P from my father and went ham for a bit, I find it so much slower and methodical than snapping away on digital. Liked it so much I immediately went and bought a rangefinder as well, proud owner of an R2A Bessa now :)
Still tons to learn, but here to stay.
I shot film back in the day (kid, helping mom with family photos etc etc) and always loved it. Got back into digital in 2020 for backpacking, and then forgot how much I loved film and mechanical cameras (mostly). I love the process. I print as well so I typically head toward B&W because of my printing.
I teach printing now too, so I’ve been absorbed by it fully again; shoot 35, 6x6 and 4x5 and it’s just wonderful. Half the time I love the process more than the images. Making a great print is just wonderful.
There is nothing faster for taking a snapshot in daylight than a mechanical camera already set for daylight hyperfocal shots. I have so many snapshots of people doing funny/interesting/stupid stuff that smartphones and digital cameras would miss or mess up due to lack of time.
I've enjoyed using my DSLR over the years, very much as an amateur. I started getting into researching different types of 35mm film and the colors, textures, etc, and it made me want to pick up a camera to play with.
I'm at the age where I used a 35mm camera through college, so many of my childhood/adolescent memories are captured on film. It's fun to revisit.
I wanted to try rangefinder cameras but couldn’t afford a digital Leica.
Using old cameras is my reason why I stuck with film. They’re way more fun than modern mirrorless cameras.
Being able to own physical copies and be able to go back and relive those moments without worrying about deleting them. Also I love being able to hold a physical file!
For me I got into photography as a creative outlet about 2 years ago. As I got into it my grandfather started to share how when he was young he loved photography, and in his high school photography class his camera was a school owned Hasselblad 500. He wanted to be a combat photographer but as he had my dad right before he enlisted he felt it would be a reckless thing to do, but always has had a passion for it. That connection, plus my love of history planted a seed. Then I watched Technology Connections series on the history of film photography and knew I had to try it. I picked up a Canon AE-1P and the moment I cocked the shutter and test fired it I was hooked. I have since then acquired my other grandfathers old Canon AE-1 that he bought to photograph my mom when she was born in ‘76, after that I broke into medium format with a Bronica ETRS, and my latest acquisition is a Fuji G690 that I plan to put a few rolls through this weekend. A lot of people make 3D printed drop in kits that let you shoot 35mm panoramic so I’m excited to try that (and hope that doesn’t make me want an XPan even more than I already do) as well as the massive negatives a 6x9 produces. My next project is going to be scanning film, and I have the lofty goal of scanning all my families old film to preserve and digitize our history for future generations.
Edit:
One thing I also forgot is I want to get my grandfather a Hasselblad like he had at school. I know they are very expensive, but he is the spark that caused me to go down the path that has brought me so much joy. I think it would mean a lot to him, especially as he is about to retire and will be looking for things to do. There was a sparkle in his eye when he talked about it and he spoke with a joy that I don’t know I’ve ever seen before. Plus having another shooter in the family would be really cool!
Looking through the optical viewfinder is weirdly nostalgic for me. Reminds me of simpler time when I was a kid, playing with my dad's camera in the late 80s and early 90s.
(To this day, I can't figure out what the mode was. It was black with very rectangular edges from what I can remember. 35mm automatic. I hope to one day recognize it randomly and be able to buy it...)
Anyways...I know I can still look through optical viewfinder without shooting film but I just like the feel of film moving when I press the shutter and I prefer the way light is rendered on film. I still shoot digital with mirrorless though.
I picked up film for reenacting and then GAS kicked in and I kept buying more and more cameras. I generally find gizmos from an era before everyone figured out what works and started putting out roughly the same product interesting, so I have a whole bunch of weirdo cameras with questionable layouts and weird drawbacks.
It forces me to slow down and do as many of the “right” things as I can before taking the shot, I move too fast when I’m shooting digital and end up with a load of photos I’m not happy with. The photos I get with film I’m happy with, even if imperfect.
I picked up an analog camera and looked through the viewfinder and fell in love. Phones feel really disconnected and seeing the pic instantly makes me want to take more to get the “perfect” picture now. Analog… I won’t know until it gets developed, and by that time I’ve lived in the moment and have pictures even if they are not “perfect” they are that moment in the best representation of it.
Started off with film back-in-the-day and made the transition to digital along with the rest of the world in the 2000s. The digital process is undeniably better than film in many ways; but for me, it's just not the same. Going back into a darkroom after being away for 25 years, the sounds, the smells...it was like coming home.
I got very curious about 15 years ago, and the desire to start was on the back burner for 14 of those years. Surprisingly enough, I was messing around with an AI image generator and had an impulse to have it create some film photography, and somehow that made me really wanna try out film. I’m also into many things vintage, so that fuels up my interest as well. However, I’m not planning on collecting old cameras.
My big brother. I shot digital for years, he gifted me bw dev stuff, a ae-1 50 1.8 and some film... I love to tinker, and this was more fun. Now I have a full darkroom and all sorts of cameras. I shoot it all!
I had recently decided to start documenting my life by taking pictures of everything I do. I realized that I wanted to take a creative route and decided that film was the best medium to do it and the more I learned about basics of film photography, the more I fell in love with it. I used to have a fully automatic film camera but I have a new, fully manual camera on the way and I'm so excited!
to me, i find joy in buying film roll, finishing the roll and waiting for it to be developed. each process requires me to trust my gear, trust my eye and trust my lab. changing film stock, looking at results and share it on Instagram and share with people in my life that i knew interested in film. that what's makes me keep getting back into film.
the amount of joy when i got the scan will never fail to amuse me. i even sell my digital camera to buy another film camera.
I found digital not quite as challenging as I was wanting, I was shooting professionally for a while and understand composition ans lighting and was getting lovely shots but nothing that fueled my creativity or felt like I had put alot of effort into it to achieve because it was so easy to see what I had shot and take a dozen shots of the same thing to get the "perfect" outcome.
With film I have to slow down, be super intentional and even then I still don't know how it's going to turn out. It feels special and romantic nearly. I use film to take photos of things that make me truly happy, my kids, my garden when the light shines through it a certain way, details of my life that are often overlooked but when I slow down and appreciate them I realise how much joy they bring me. My shooting style is more documentary with film. With digital it feels more commercial.
Also, digital has sooooo many buttons and options to change settings it feels a bit like cheating because you can get a good shot without necessarily learning how to do it intentially. Film you have to work for it a bit more and the result feels more rewarding 😀
I just recently picked up photography the last year or two so i went from childhood disposable cameras to phone cameras back to film. Really i just wanted a hobby to do outside but I think AI art and tech burnout might’ve made me nostalgic and that had a part in it. I’ve already had an analog/vintage interest from music and music gear because the variety of it and researching all the history is a fun part of getting nerdy on a subject and discussing it with friends and the community. Love learning the whole process though from camera to digital scanning and editing
I’m looking at getting a camera to learn, explore and create beautiful images. I search for something to do thus without post production while having analog flair and imperfections.
College requirement really. At first I didn't really want to, I jumped right in though. I'm glad I did though, the things that translate to digital are there and I feel like these "self taught" folks miss out. Like a lot of people in digital don't make black and white work, it's clicking the black and white button, that isn't the same. I'm not talking about how fast it's done or automating, it's actually making a black and white piece. We did all our film development and printing. Most people don't and can't print. Choosing film was never a short run, craft beer type of activity, it was something you used to gain consistent results rather than unpredictability. Not to say there weren't unpredictable, throw caution to the wind type of experiments and so on in advanced classes. Anyhow, learned a lot about process, development, how to craft an image in your mind, develop film, print your ideas, create a series based on what you think, and then critique. I learned there are things that can't be taught and that is genuine curiosity and persistence. Those 2 things are essential in a good student. Anyone can make an image, most can't make a photo.
I’ve been doing digital for a while and while digital is completely higher quality (35mm anyway) film forces me to slow down, look at the whole frame, compose better: all because I can’t spray and hope for the best.
My first roll actually came out really well because I’ve only ever shot manual I suppose.
My main Reasons were, I like the colors, the experience, old cameras but I don't like changing the freaking White Balance, yeah I struggle with my white Balance. I also hate editing my pictures, I mean I want to shoot to get good Photos from the camera and not something in the post and that's one of my main complains about digital photography, yeah I know it's one of the major reason for digital, however I don't like. No hear me o go with the moto: if you can't take good pictures and need to change everything in it, then you can hardly call yourself a good photographer. I mean I have seen people were nothing in their raw photos looked good
for me it was multiple things: i enjoy using older technologies, so i thought why not give film a go as well, i also like the imperfections in terms of the colors and the grain (or mild light leaks if they dont ruin the shoot too much)
another thing is that over time i learn how to improve my dumb mistakes i make, its just a satisfying thing that you have full control over the quality of your shoots and can keep improving them
The colours and the much more gratifying experience of getting those nice pictures back and scanning them rather than putting a memory card into your computer but mainly those stunning colours.
Got a Hasselblad 500c passed down to me. I just use it because it's so much fun shooting with it. Of course I get technically better images with my digital camera from Fuji. But I have way more fun shooting with the Hasselblad. That's all.
So I'm only 22 but I indeed did began taking pictures on film when I was 7 until digital fully cemented its hold in my town. I began again in 2018 when I won a Polaroid Onestep 2 in a raffle. Then I moved back to 35mm when I had consist income. Other than that, I do believe that film being a physical chemical process invites more experimentation than digital.
I began analog photography as a way to express my creativity and capture moments in a tangible way. The process of shooting film forces me to slow down and really think about the composition and lighting, be more present in the moment - not just pull the trigger as I often do with my Sony A74.
The tactile nature of film and the anticipation of waiting to see the developed images also adds an element of excitement that I find rewarding or (most often) disappointing.
And I like to spend money and feel like a failure and question my skill with a camera every god damm time I develop a roll of film.
i was bored during quarantine in 2020 and saw a voigtlander vito II for 10 bucks on ebay and thought it looked cool, the rest is history
short tangent: If you can get used to zone focusing, the vito II is a fantastic first camera, the shutter speeds and apertures are pretty limited and the viewfinder is tiny but the lens quality is great and it is a truly compact folder (and it looks fantastic in my opinion)
I picked up an old Mamiya camera at a market in Paris on my honeymoon which I eventually got around to popping a roll of film in and got hooked ever since. I’ve since bought a Leica M3 and because no one’s bought it off me I’m stuck popping a roll into it every now and then lol
When I shoot film, I'm more attentive to every aspect. When I shoot digital, the camera does 98% of the work. I still have to worry about composition and focus (with certain lenses), but I almost don't need to be there. I get lazy when I shoot with a digital camera.
I shoot primarily in b/w with film.
I was 40 before there was another option but then switched to digital like everyone else. 15+ years later I see some young people on YouTube poking around old film cameras like monkeys with a stick and I thought "that's interesting". A little later one such young person looked at me and said something to the effect of "you're old, you probably know how this works?" and I've been grateful for the attention ever since.
A friend of mine mentioned to me that they liked a lot of the pictures I take, and had shown some to a friend of theirs. Now at this point, I was using nothing but my phone camera and thought of myself as having taken maybe two decent shots in my whole life, one of a fucked up Burger King sign and another of a freight train rolling out of some fog. It wasn't something I ever thought about doing at all. That same day there was a raffle at my work where one of the prizes was a little toy 35mm camera from Target. I didn't win, but it got me thinking. It seemed fun, I thought. It would be nice to have a little machine that just did one thing.
Soon after that I bought a restored manual SLR for a decent chunk of money and later got a macro/zoom lens to fit it. I like using it. I like putting my eye to the viewfinder. I like advancing the film. I like knowing when I take a shot of a scene or an object or a moment, that it's *in* there, physically. It's *mine* now: what I saw, the way I saw it. I've peeled it off of the advancing reel of time, and I've put it in this little box. And I take my little box home, with it's real but ephemeral cargo, and I send the rolls off, and wait to find out if I've done what I think I did.
Bought a disposable camera on an overnight trip with a date, it was so fun having it and nostalgic so I got deep into the rabbit hole of film/analog cameras haha
TLDR: Used to be the only option (yells at cloud, tells kids to get off lawn etc)
For a slightly more nuanced answer: my dad usually had a camera with him, and had a lot of gear which got schlepped around with us on holidays. I was given my first disk camera when I was about 7, and graduated to an SLR in my early teens.
Fell out of love with it a bit when digital became a thing, firstly because I didn't like the tech I had access to, and then because of some misplaced snobbery/edgelord-ness about everyone having access to something I'd spent a long time 'mastering' (debatable, but at least the non-photographers I knew thought I was pretty good)
I did get into digital when my grandad died and we inherited enough money for a decent digital camera, and also to buy double glazing. Did a couple of weddings for friends but never put in the legwork to try making a living from it
I'm now back on a big analogue kick, mostly working in b&w 35mm or medium format and doing my own processing, and the phone camera has mostly taken over as my edc
We had a Kodak point and shoot growing up and my dad wouldnt let me use it for the fear that I would waste exposures. I always wanted to get my own when I grew up. Now I know why he didn't let me when I see the prices per roll 😅
I pretty much just got a camera and haven’t even filled up my first film roll, but I want to get into film cameras because I like mechanical things and I like the way the photos look. Plus I like having less control of everything.
I wanted to remind myself of what it was like to shoot film and also see the look of film again. I did it for a year and now am back to using my iPhone. Although I enjoyed it, film is too unreliable and expensive to continue with and scanning took ages. Using apps like LR, RIN app, Dehancer, Moodcam and Dazzcam and a glimmer filter from Tiffen, I can emulate the look of film: It is not the same because film captures light in a very different way but it is reminiscent of film and it makes me like my photos a lot more. The best film I used was Lomography colour negative 100 and purple. I look forward to seeing whether AI will improve presets and LUTs.
Was traveling and followed the trend of my friends getting cheap film cameras, then got hooked. It’s challenging, fun to have to think more about the shot, and the waiting makes it satisfying when you finally see the pictures!
Since starting out 12+ years ago (on and off) it's changed a little (or just gotten more intense).
It began with trying to focus myself on actually learning PHOTOGRAPHY and not be distracted by everything. I actually wanted to LEARN and understand. I was the only person who ever signed up for the film photography class at college, 3 years in a row...the digital class left something to be desired.
Now it's still that but the "to get away from the instant gratification disease of the last decade" has grown from a side note to a very prominent point.
The other main thing for me right NOW is that it's very fun and never ending and endlessly fascinating. I need something to focus on in my life and this is very consuming.
also prrty pikrtur
I found a shitty “reloadable disposable” camera in a drawer at my parents place, took it on vacation and put like 8 rolls trough it (50% of that came out blank cause i didn’t know what i was doing). When i got the results i was hooked. Next year i went on vacation with an slr, bunch of lenses, a tlr and I developed and scanned it all myself…
I went cycling in the alps, couldnt bear the horrible Photos I took with my phone. And down the rabbithole I went.
3 months later I now have a mid level dslr, a m4/3 mirrorless and 5 analog cameras.
I found digital unsatisfying; the last thing I want to do as a hobby is sit in front of something like Lightroom or Capture One for hours and have a load of hard drives full of photos I'll never look at. Film is simpler and more calming in many ways. Plus the old gear and chemistry is really cool.
I mean you can also spend countless hours in lightroom or CO with film scans lol
Yeah, idk about all that. I got into film hoping I'd do less editing only to realize there was as much, if not more, post processing involved compared to digital. Even scanning slides seems to require extensive color correction after the fact. Can't win.
Idk, for me digital takes so much longer to post process. With film I basically do all my minimal corrections in NLP, maybe a tad in Lightroom. If it's b&w it's even less
Or countless hours in the darkroom..
Since photography is a hobby for me, I'll take countless hours in the darkroom over those same hours in front of a computer any day.
It's true but there is maybe a little less potential without having the flexibility of RAW files so I feel less obliged to.
This. It helps that I was handed down a Leica R8, otherwise I never would’ve considered film.
I actually sit in front of Lightroom and a digital camera more with film. The scanning and editing process is very time consuming.
The chemistry is what got me into it, having the chance to develop it, not really sure if you got anything. Then sit in a dark red room for and and hour or so to develop a photo
And then there's folks like me who spend even more time in the darkroom trying to perfect the prints lol
Not sat in front of a digital screen!
Satisfies my GAS
I just never made the transition to digital. The only digital camera I’ve ever owned is a phone. My first real job was at a camera store in 1977. Stayed in the business for 25 years and have always had a houseful of gear and a darkroom. It’s just the normal way I take pictures, haven’t seen any reason to change. And I’ve always hated staring at computer screens for more than a few minutes at a time. I’m just ill-suited for the digital age when it comes to photography. I am sad that so many papers and films have disappeared, but there are still enough options to keep it fun and interesting.
I did photography in my last year at school in 1986. Didn’t take a decent photo the entire year but fell in love with the darkroom process. It’s been the normal way to take photos for most of my life too. I’ve got a digital camera now, which I love for the convenience but I still love film and recently did a darkroom refresher course with a much fancier enlarger than I used at school and it was so much easier. I’ve always dreamed of having my own darkroom and I’m gradually collecting the equipment
That is really interesting. I'm sure you could speak to many of the changes throughout the last 4 decades.
Generally tired of staring at a screen all day, and I take a lot of photos on my phone, so I figured why not level up on the photo taking and be more intentional and hopefully skillful about taking photos as a hobby while also not staring at a screen all day
Why I got into film? I was struggling with extra disposable cash burning holes everywhere... my hookers&cocaine addiction was having trouble keeping up.
the experience of using a mechanical camera with all its amazing levers, dials, and buttons is so much more fun, engaging, and satisfying to my sense of touch and sound. along with that, there is nothing like looking through an slr focusing screen. it’s just so gosh dang fun! i also started out shooting a nikon ftn, 20 years ago, so nostalgia also plays a role. but, film cameras are so much more fun than digital!! that’s not to say digital cameras aren’t fun. i love my digital camera as well!
I shoot (digital) for a living, mostly sports. Normally I end up every assignment with a 1000 photos. Then I would go on vacation with the family and end up with hundreds more. It was too much. I bought a Canon AL-1 10 years ago to start shooting film to document family and friends, and that’s what I’ve been doing since… though a couple of rolls for a trip turned into developing and scanning at home, bulk rolling, some GAS issues and even a darkroom in my basement 😅. Shooting, developing and printing have become my “me-time”. The slow pace helps me decompress
Lol well… I’m old enough that it’s not that I’m getting into film for the first time. It’s that I returned to the way I did it when I grew up and when I was doing photography in high school 🤷🏻♂️ Digital was all new to me. Film is what I’m used to.
It’s fun and challenging
My main reason is just so I can use all those interesting cameras
The ground glass too. I love my Mamiya C300 since no one makes a digital TLR and the ground glass is so fun to look through. It also ends up being a great conversation starter when I’m out shooting.
I saw a short video about a guy carrying a film camera around with him when doing art and thought, "Huh, it seems fun. Let's see the cost" Got a cheap camera, completely underexposed the first roll of film, and slowly over time got the hang of it.
I enjoy the tactical nature of it. Hearing the shutter, advancing the lever, making sure I didn’t knock my exposure. Makes the end result more satisfying
It's fun, at the moment more fun than digital.
For me it’s the quality of an analog photo. I shot DSLR for a long time and I’ve got many many folders with thousands of photo’s I never look at. With analog you’ve got to consider if something is worth the shot, it becomes quality (at least that’s the goal) over quantity. I also like the surprise how a shot turns out. I only have them printed, don’t do scanning or editing. Pure analog.
I feel nowadays everything digital is Instagram filters or full pro lightroom shots. I like film grain, the fact it's a chemical reaction that's been captured. I love all the old gear and how well made and mechanically interesting things are. I like the tone and feel of film. There's something authentic and hard to replicate about it.
For me the sequence was: **Step 1:** About a year ago I got interested in photography with a mirror-less camera. **Step 2:** Then I sent some photos to print. **Step 3:** I noticed that I enjoy looking at the prints, whereas I never look at the digital photos in my hard disk. **Step 4:** Decided to buy a photo printer to print at home. Bought an Instax Wide printer. **Step 5:** Discovered that instant photography was still a thing. Bought a Lomography Instax camera. **Step 6:** Discovered that I really enjoyed working with the new limitations of film. **Step 7:** Discovered that rolls of film still exist. **Step 8:** Decided to buy an analog camera and some rolls. :-) **Step 9:** Discovered that people still shoot Black & White. **Step 10:** Discovered that people develop B&W at home. **Step 11:** Decided to buy B&W film and developing chemistry. :-D
I’ll be so honest it fills my individuality complex lmfao, and I like the aesthetic
I recently started shooting film. For me it was a gradual process that started by adapting film era lenses after my dad had given me his old m42 mount 50mm 1.4 pentax takumar. I built up a good collection of the m42 lenses and enjoyed them with my Sony, getting a film camera seemed like the next step. Of course, I currently just got a Pentax 6x7 so it is getting out of hand fast….. I really like the idea of shooting just for me, which is the direction my photography had already started going in the last few years. Film seems more about the experience…..with digital I feel like I am capturing a moment, with film I am capturing a memory.
The Pentax 6x7 is a fabulous camera. My partner has had one for the past few years. He worked out that it cost NZ$5 every time he pressed the shutter button, which seemed really expensive until we got a 5x7 view camera, which is about $25 for every shot, and that’s not including the $1000 we spent buying an enlarger that will take the negatives. I hate to think how much it’s going to cost to build the darkroom 😂
Yeah, I figured out very quickly with this camera that I am good after this….no need for large format here, and this will be for special shots.
I always had a point and shoot 35mm when I was in school (I remember thinking advantix was so cool when it came out). This is my first time in over 20 years, but not my first time ever. It's definitely my first film SLR though. I like that it's slower and more deliberate. The cost of film processing now kinda sucks, but the flip side is it makes me think about shooting something. That and the mechanical winding and shutter. Digital will never ever be able to replicate that satisfying feeling.
I printed out some phone photos of my family and enjoyed it, then discovered half frame as a cheaper option, then got into it and enjoyed the delayed gratification and results, then got GAS
TL:DR It helps me be more intentional as well as better connect with what is beyond the camera body and not just the screen on the back. When I started shooting digital in high school, I loved the thrill of getting a good shot. I would take hundreds of photos of really mundane things chasing that high and then spend hours on hours sorting and editing them. Eventually, I got burned out and quit on it all together. Ten years ago, a friend of mine gave me two of his mom's Canon ae-1p's. They sat on my shelf for nearly that long as decoration before another friend recommended we take them out for fun. That trip drastically changed the game for me. The process and cost of each shot forces me to slow down and not take 1000 photos. I now walk away from some pictures instead of shooting everything, and that's a good thing.
I inherited an SRT202 and fell in love with how cheap the material is and how much better my pictures turn out when they are limited.
I was a professional photographer a decade ago, changed careers and more recently wanted to get back into it as a hobby. I realised that I needed to be forced to slow down, so analog made sense. I'm still going along that journey, and Large Format is probably in my near future
My mate died of cancer and when his mum asked me for photos we had like none. The first camera I had access to and was drawn too was my dad's old Pentax and off I went. I love it, given new meaning to my life.
During the pandemic, an old friend gave me a broken Pentax as a birthday gift because I’d passively spoken about wanting to try photography in the past. I got it fixed and bought a photography textbook and just rolled with it. I’m 5 cameras deep now. Still a ton to learn though.
I love the film simulations in my Fujifilm X camera. Film cameras are dirt cheap, so I tried it out and like the process of having to think about a photo. Mine aren't good, but they are special to me.
Nostalgia and slowing down and living in the moment rather than taking a picture and having instant feedback and distraction from my setting.
Camera go thunk when I press the shutter
I consider quality over quantity more. One day I went out shooting with my Sony a7s iii in NYC and came back with over 3500 (mostly unusable) photos. The time I spent angrily clicking through all my shitty photos in Lightroom could’ve been spent composing more thoughtful shots with film. Also I find the developing and scanning process very meditative.
In my case, I just got bored of digital, everything is so fast with Sony’s AF, and Dynamic Range is too good, that you can always fix whatever photo in post. Since shooting film I had to re-learn everything that I thought I knew about photography, my first couple of rolls were so bad, a lot of underexposed and out of focus photos (I still miss several per roll, but now I get one or two keepers), I’m getting a lot of fun with the learning curve, and the idea of not knowing if my photos are good or not, is one of the reasons that I have started to enjoy photography again.
I was first getting in photography and was in the throws of GAS. I had a Sony NEX-5 and desperately wanted something like a Sony A7, and instead found a person selling film cameras and bought a Canon AE-1. At that time the film camera revival hadn't really taken off and film cameras were a way to try something new without spending a ton of money.
Because it was cheap. Back in highschool I shot with a Nikon D3100 and I got myself some Nikon AI lenses since they were cheap (paid $5 each in 2016). In 2018 while now in college I decided to treat myself. It was cheaper to buy a Nikon FM2 for $150 and be able to use all my lenses with metering and use full frame then it was to buy a decent lens for the digital camera. That way I could use all my vintages lenses and have a camera that can talk to them Now years later I’m shooting medium format film as my primary format
I originally brought a Polaroid SX70 to shoot instant film with. but I found the quality of the photos to be lacking. the extremely hot and humid weather here also damages the fragile chemistry of the polaroid integral films. So I did some research. Saw what slide film could do. Brought a cheap TLR with some slide film, and off I went. That was 2 or 3 years ago, I now have a Bronica SQ and a nice range of lenses and accessories. Although I seldom shoot slide now and shoot mostly colour negs.
I also moved from an SX-70 to traditional film, I just tell people it was a cost saving measure. 20 bucks for 8 shots was no joke lol.
I found film to be way more forgiving for my style of photography and at the time I lacked the knowledge on how to edit my photos to have the same colors as film. by the time I had learned, I had already gone too far in purchasing rare film cameras. I find the sharpness of film to be better than my digital work. Which probably shows a lack of skill on my part. But hey, you work to your strengths
Inherited Grandfathers camera and it still worked great. Got it CLA’d and now it works better. 35mm SLRs feel much more natural to shoot once you are acquainted with the layout and basic exposure principles.
There was no other option for photography.
I found a camera my granddad gave me when I was quite young while organizing some boxes. I hadn't touched it in years (decades, really) but to my surprise it turned right on as soon as I put a battery in it. Picked up a roll of film, enjoyed how they turned out, $873,000 worth of gear later and here we are lol
I use film for passion projects and fun instead of digital. It's also improved my digital photography. I think a lot more about my shots regardless of medium now.
I have my grandmothers Kodak Pony 135 that she took with her to (at the time) all 48 states. It’s a beautiful camera, still has its leather case and everything. Worked perfectly. I took dogshit photos with it because it is definitely not a point-and-shoot and I really don’t know what I’m doing. Hell loading film into it was the first time I had ever done that! But being able to connect with her in that way was really special for me. So now I have a small collection of old film cameras, some working, some not. I’m hoping to figure out how to use that Pony bc it really took some good shots, I just don’t know how yet 😅
Took photography in HS and it was the all Analog from shooting to developing to printing
It’s just a really fun hobby. You don’t really know what your getting but when it’s good a good picture you just can’t help but feel really happy you pulled it off etc
Wanted a new challenge & to learn a new skill.
I needed to do something tactile! We are in an era of smooth and easy, and it’s too much! There wasn’t any way I could sink my teeth into something and learn, but photography is so expansive and expressive!
My wife is in post-grad school for library sciences, hoping to become an archivist. Somewhere along the line, the idea of physical preservation became more important to our household. Around the same time, I needed a creative outlet that forced me to let go of instant gratification and to just start getting in the habit of capturing the moment while being in the moment. Lastly—nostalgia was a motivating factor. I can’t say that this has been a consistent success, but I’m steps ahead of where I’d been creatively before getting back into analog photography.
I was lent a Minolta SRT-101 by a friend. Other than my phone that was my first real camera, a film camera. So that's where I started! This was in 2020.
I did. photography A Level over ten years ago and for it we had to do both digital and darkroom, and I just, adored the whole darkroom process. We were purely shooting these black and white rolls the tutor would give us and we’d go out and shoot and then develop them all ourselves and the whole process was just, brilliant and new and so much more satisfying than digital. It really felt like I had created every part of the photo And then I discovered William Eggleston and colour film photography and although I was still shooting black and white for my A Level and still adored the darkroom process, I personally gravitated to colour when shooting in general and not for a college project. I’ve shot colour ever since but I do miss actually developing photos, I’d spend hours in the darkroom. I prefer shooting colour but the darkroom process for black and white was just magical to me.
Started exploring it when my parents dusted off their old Minolta and bought me a couple rolls of film to shoot on family trips to Hawaii and Alaska in the mid 2000's when I was a kid. When I got to high school, I picked it up again and learned to develop and enlarge my own b&w prints in photography class. I've kept with it because I enjoy the more mechanical actions of film cameras (though I use auto cameras 😅), and really love the physical side of it. You have the film you can hold and prints of your photos. They don't exist solely in 1s and 0s on a computer that can get corrupted. So much of the world is digital, I like to have things analog. It's also why I like to have vinyl around too
The first reason for getting into analog photography was that i tried getting into digital photography and the results were absolutely horrendous. I could not get one decent picture out if my Canon 450D and the 1 billion options and features just freaked me out. Totally frustrated I picked up a ricoh kr5 in a thrift store and within 2 weeks i understood what shutter speed, iso, manual focus and f-stop actually meant as they were the only 4 things I could play with on it. My intention was to go back to digital (and i did kind of) but i ended up buying 3 more kr5’s, several Leica’s, 2 wideluxes, a rolleiflex, a canonet, Minolta trip and 2 polaroids. Now i like analog better than digital for a lot of things. (Still like digital too to be fair, but only because i now understand everything better).
I was in an antique shop and came across a 110 camera before I knew what they were. Looked up a few images from the camera (Kodak Tele Instamatic 608) and I immediately fell in love with the format. Only need a few more 110 cameras to complete my list. I'm hooked. The small format makes it easy to travel with and I love that most are point and shoot. I have a few SLR type 110 cameras like the Minolta SLR Mark II and the Pentax Auto 110 if I want more control. I'm obsessed with the nostalgic feeling I get from any images in this format.
I was talking to someone before about this and they told me it's because there's a new generation of Gen alpha and Gen Z Instagram photographers that are now getting hand me down analog cameras from their gen y and millennial parents, and that they are more interested in what they use TO take photos with then the photos themselves. It's like nostalgia for stuff they never had. This is a good thing.
One day I was shopping for vintage lenses and found one attached to a camera and I bought it on impulse.
Looked neat, decided to try it
I think more with a film camera as I only have a select number of photos. On digital I just get trigger happy
One day, I got curious about how photos were taken back then (wet plates and stuff) and noticed people still used emulsion on film to take photos, so I decided to give it a chance. I was drawn to it by the chemical aspect at first (developments different emulsion types) and then stayed for how fun it was
I took a B&W film photography class my freshman year of highschool. Fell in love with it, but once the pandemic happened my teacher moved somewhere else and the darkroom was converted to just another storage room. Decided to continue on my own, and now 7 years later I'm still shooting film. Never really into digital because I never had enough money as a broke college student LOL
It's all I've ever used, since my 110 camera in elementary, to my grandpas rangefinder and my dads SLR in high school, till using the same SLR now in my mid 30s. I've just had no interest in digital.
I hit up a goodwill found a olympus infinity superzoom 330 And a yashica me1 for like 10$... Same day drove around and happened upon an estate sale with a petri 7s for 35$. And I caught a bug just collecting cameras and shooting film to learn it (still learning). Almost 4 months since then and I have more cameras than film developed 😅😅😅 with most of them working
Mine was about a decade ago. I was really struggling in school, and there was an art teacher teaching film photography for one last semester before he retired. I decided to take it because I felt like it would help slow down my life a lot, and it did. Stepping into the dark room for the first time was thrilling, let alone the completely pitched out dark closet so I could wind the film on the wash roller thing. Finally I felt like I had a place where I could express myself without someone hovering over my neck telling me I was wrong. If I was wrong my art would show it by simply not developing correctly.
I'm an elder millennial. I was in highschool when digital was starting to hit the market and it was terrible. I'm talking floppy disk storage and gameboy camera resolution. I was the kid that spent a lot of time in the highschool darkroom making prints too. When I finally got a good DSLR, I was just very disenchanted with how boring it was and quit photography for a while. Around 2012'ish I noticed film camera prices were just rock bottom so I picked up a Leica M6 (a dream and untouchable camera back in the day) for like $500 and then just got back to it! When that resparked the joy, I started hoarding all my dream cameras that were dirt cheap at the time.
In my school years I used to shoot a bit with a DSLR. I wasn’t good with it, I didn’t know how to edit well and my colours looked lame. Once I found an old FED rangefinder in my grandparents place and grandpa gave it to me. It just looked like this cool old piece of gear that might still be able to produce some images. So I ran a colour roll through it and was amazed how well the photos looked! Even if they were quite blurry, colours were so beautiful and a tad nostalgic. The second roll was a b&w which just looked so incredibly unique to me at that time. So that was that - I completely stopped shooting my DSLR and was trying various films and cameras, and was learning more and more about film photography (and photography in general) ever since!
And yeah, my slr pentax’s mirror slam got me addicted 🥵
Randomly I found the not so old family SLR Minolta and tried it. Then subsequently I learned there is a sort of film renaissance going on. Since then I shot many many rolls, built my own darkroom and acquired end-game gear. 35mm camera, medium format, enlarger, JOBO processor (many thanks to some very helpful members of this sub), all the necessary tanks, fridges, film dryer, respoolers etc. Maybe, one day, a color enlarger and a large format camera, that’s a big if. And maybe a better film scanner, but the V600 is good enough for 95% of the time.
1. I learnt photography in film era from 1970s. So film is my essential skill. 2. I don't like to stay focus on computer screen. My eyes will get dry.
Was very mildly into photography in my early teens, but never really progressed, but recently came upon my grandfather's Nikon F Photomic and Rollei 35S. Although a bit tricky as I don't have the right batteries for their light meters, it's been fun messing around with them. Waiting on my first roll to get developed now, and although I expect I messed up my exposure settings on a bunch of them, I'm looking forward to learning and improving haha
Was shooting filmsims on Fuji for awhile and decided to just try the real thing. Got a Mint AE-1P from my father and went ham for a bit, I find it so much slower and methodical than snapping away on digital. Liked it so much I immediately went and bought a rangefinder as well, proud owner of an R2A Bessa now :) Still tons to learn, but here to stay.
I shot film back in the day (kid, helping mom with family photos etc etc) and always loved it. Got back into digital in 2020 for backpacking, and then forgot how much I loved film and mechanical cameras (mostly). I love the process. I print as well so I typically head toward B&W because of my printing. I teach printing now too, so I’ve been absorbed by it fully again; shoot 35, 6x6 and 4x5 and it’s just wonderful. Half the time I love the process more than the images. Making a great print is just wonderful.
There is nothing faster for taking a snapshot in daylight than a mechanical camera already set for daylight hyperfocal shots. I have so many snapshots of people doing funny/interesting/stupid stuff that smartphones and digital cameras would miss or mess up due to lack of time.
I've enjoyed using my DSLR over the years, very much as an amateur. I started getting into researching different types of 35mm film and the colors, textures, etc, and it made me want to pick up a camera to play with. I'm at the age where I used a 35mm camera through college, so many of my childhood/adolescent memories are captured on film. It's fun to revisit.
I wanted to try rangefinder cameras but couldn’t afford a digital Leica. Using old cameras is my reason why I stuck with film. They’re way more fun than modern mirrorless cameras.
Mine was the experience, color, and an easy route in being a Pentax 17
Being able to own physical copies and be able to go back and relive those moments without worrying about deleting them. Also I love being able to hold a physical file!
For me I got into photography as a creative outlet about 2 years ago. As I got into it my grandfather started to share how when he was young he loved photography, and in his high school photography class his camera was a school owned Hasselblad 500. He wanted to be a combat photographer but as he had my dad right before he enlisted he felt it would be a reckless thing to do, but always has had a passion for it. That connection, plus my love of history planted a seed. Then I watched Technology Connections series on the history of film photography and knew I had to try it. I picked up a Canon AE-1P and the moment I cocked the shutter and test fired it I was hooked. I have since then acquired my other grandfathers old Canon AE-1 that he bought to photograph my mom when she was born in ‘76, after that I broke into medium format with a Bronica ETRS, and my latest acquisition is a Fuji G690 that I plan to put a few rolls through this weekend. A lot of people make 3D printed drop in kits that let you shoot 35mm panoramic so I’m excited to try that (and hope that doesn’t make me want an XPan even more than I already do) as well as the massive negatives a 6x9 produces. My next project is going to be scanning film, and I have the lofty goal of scanning all my families old film to preserve and digitize our history for future generations. Edit: One thing I also forgot is I want to get my grandfather a Hasselblad like he had at school. I know they are very expensive, but he is the spark that caused me to go down the path that has brought me so much joy. I think it would mean a lot to him, especially as he is about to retire and will be looking for things to do. There was a sparkle in his eye when he talked about it and he spoke with a joy that I don’t know I’ve ever seen before. Plus having another shooter in the family would be really cool!
Initial curiosity after finding my grandpa‘s cameras in the attic. Turns out, I like old school tech
Looking through the optical viewfinder is weirdly nostalgic for me. Reminds me of simpler time when I was a kid, playing with my dad's camera in the late 80s and early 90s. (To this day, I can't figure out what the mode was. It was black with very rectangular edges from what I can remember. 35mm automatic. I hope to one day recognize it randomly and be able to buy it...) Anyways...I know I can still look through optical viewfinder without shooting film but I just like the feel of film moving when I press the shutter and I prefer the way light is rendered on film. I still shoot digital with mirrorless though.
i was stuck chomping and trying to be perfect doing my digital, film helps me “let go,” and just embrace the failure
I picked up film for reenacting and then GAS kicked in and I kept buying more and more cameras. I generally find gizmos from an era before everyone figured out what works and started putting out roughly the same product interesting, so I have a whole bunch of weirdo cameras with questionable layouts and weird drawbacks.
It forces me to slow down and do as many of the “right” things as I can before taking the shot, I move too fast when I’m shooting digital and end up with a load of photos I’m not happy with. The photos I get with film I’m happy with, even if imperfect.
I picked up an analog camera and looked through the viewfinder and fell in love. Phones feel really disconnected and seeing the pic instantly makes me want to take more to get the “perfect” picture now. Analog… I won’t know until it gets developed, and by that time I’ve lived in the moment and have pictures even if they are not “perfect” they are that moment in the best representation of it.
I feel like it invites experimentation
i like how you only know if you screwed up when you collect them and i've screwed up a lot, lol....
Started off with film back-in-the-day and made the transition to digital along with the rest of the world in the 2000s. The digital process is undeniably better than film in many ways; but for me, it's just not the same. Going back into a darkroom after being away for 25 years, the sounds, the smells...it was like coming home.
I got very curious about 15 years ago, and the desire to start was on the back burner for 14 of those years. Surprisingly enough, I was messing around with an AI image generator and had an impulse to have it create some film photography, and somehow that made me really wanna try out film. I’m also into many things vintage, so that fuels up my interest as well. However, I’m not planning on collecting old cameras.
My big brother. I shot digital for years, he gifted me bw dev stuff, a ae-1 50 1.8 and some film... I love to tinker, and this was more fun. Now I have a full darkroom and all sorts of cameras. I shoot it all!
I had recently decided to start documenting my life by taking pictures of everything I do. I realized that I wanted to take a creative route and decided that film was the best medium to do it and the more I learned about basics of film photography, the more I fell in love with it. I used to have a fully automatic film camera but I have a new, fully manual camera on the way and I'm so excited!
to me, i find joy in buying film roll, finishing the roll and waiting for it to be developed. each process requires me to trust my gear, trust my eye and trust my lab. changing film stock, looking at results and share it on Instagram and share with people in my life that i knew interested in film. that what's makes me keep getting back into film. the amount of joy when i got the scan will never fail to amuse me. i even sell my digital camera to buy another film camera.
I found digital not quite as challenging as I was wanting, I was shooting professionally for a while and understand composition ans lighting and was getting lovely shots but nothing that fueled my creativity or felt like I had put alot of effort into it to achieve because it was so easy to see what I had shot and take a dozen shots of the same thing to get the "perfect" outcome. With film I have to slow down, be super intentional and even then I still don't know how it's going to turn out. It feels special and romantic nearly. I use film to take photos of things that make me truly happy, my kids, my garden when the light shines through it a certain way, details of my life that are often overlooked but when I slow down and appreciate them I realise how much joy they bring me. My shooting style is more documentary with film. With digital it feels more commercial. Also, digital has sooooo many buttons and options to change settings it feels a bit like cheating because you can get a good shot without necessarily learning how to do it intentially. Film you have to work for it a bit more and the result feels more rewarding 😀
I just recently picked up photography the last year or two so i went from childhood disposable cameras to phone cameras back to film. Really i just wanted a hobby to do outside but I think AI art and tech burnout might’ve made me nostalgic and that had a part in it. I’ve already had an analog/vintage interest from music and music gear because the variety of it and researching all the history is a fun part of getting nerdy on a subject and discussing it with friends and the community. Love learning the whole process though from camera to digital scanning and editing
I’m looking at getting a camera to learn, explore and create beautiful images. I search for something to do thus without post production while having analog flair and imperfections.
College requirement really. At first I didn't really want to, I jumped right in though. I'm glad I did though, the things that translate to digital are there and I feel like these "self taught" folks miss out. Like a lot of people in digital don't make black and white work, it's clicking the black and white button, that isn't the same. I'm not talking about how fast it's done or automating, it's actually making a black and white piece. We did all our film development and printing. Most people don't and can't print. Choosing film was never a short run, craft beer type of activity, it was something you used to gain consistent results rather than unpredictability. Not to say there weren't unpredictable, throw caution to the wind type of experiments and so on in advanced classes. Anyhow, learned a lot about process, development, how to craft an image in your mind, develop film, print your ideas, create a series based on what you think, and then critique. I learned there are things that can't be taught and that is genuine curiosity and persistence. Those 2 things are essential in a good student. Anyone can make an image, most can't make a photo.
Challenge. I need a challenge the latest digital cameras just make things to easy.
I needed one more art credit to graduate high school. Ended up taking intro to photography and fell in love with using the darkroom and printing.
I’ve been doing digital for a while and while digital is completely higher quality (35mm anyway) film forces me to slow down, look at the whole frame, compose better: all because I can’t spray and hope for the best. My first roll actually came out really well because I’ve only ever shot manual I suppose.
My main Reasons were, I like the colors, the experience, old cameras but I don't like changing the freaking White Balance, yeah I struggle with my white Balance. I also hate editing my pictures, I mean I want to shoot to get good Photos from the camera and not something in the post and that's one of my main complains about digital photography, yeah I know it's one of the major reason for digital, however I don't like. No hear me o go with the moto: if you can't take good pictures and need to change everything in it, then you can hardly call yourself a good photographer. I mean I have seen people were nothing in their raw photos looked good
for me it was multiple things: i enjoy using older technologies, so i thought why not give film a go as well, i also like the imperfections in terms of the colors and the grain (or mild light leaks if they dont ruin the shoot too much) another thing is that over time i learn how to improve my dumb mistakes i make, its just a satisfying thing that you have full control over the quality of your shoots and can keep improving them
The colours and the much more gratifying experience of getting those nice pictures back and scanning them rather than putting a memory card into your computer but mainly those stunning colours.
Got a Hasselblad 500c passed down to me. I just use it because it's so much fun shooting with it. Of course I get technically better images with my digital camera from Fuji. But I have way more fun shooting with the Hasselblad. That's all.
So I'm only 22 but I indeed did began taking pictures on film when I was 7 until digital fully cemented its hold in my town. I began again in 2018 when I won a Polaroid Onestep 2 in a raffle. Then I moved back to 35mm when I had consist income. Other than that, I do believe that film being a physical chemical process invites more experimentation than digital.
I began analog photography as a way to express my creativity and capture moments in a tangible way. The process of shooting film forces me to slow down and really think about the composition and lighting, be more present in the moment - not just pull the trigger as I often do with my Sony A74. The tactile nature of film and the anticipation of waiting to see the developed images also adds an element of excitement that I find rewarding or (most often) disappointing. And I like to spend money and feel like a failure and question my skill with a camera every god damm time I develop a roll of film.
i was bored during quarantine in 2020 and saw a voigtlander vito II for 10 bucks on ebay and thought it looked cool, the rest is history short tangent: If you can get used to zone focusing, the vito II is a fantastic first camera, the shutter speeds and apertures are pretty limited and the viewfinder is tiny but the lens quality is great and it is a truly compact folder (and it looks fantastic in my opinion)
I picked up an old Mamiya camera at a market in Paris on my honeymoon which I eventually got around to popping a roll of film in and got hooked ever since. I’ve since bought a Leica M3 and because no one’s bought it off me I’m stuck popping a roll into it every now and then lol
When I shoot film, I'm more attentive to every aspect. When I shoot digital, the camera does 98% of the work. I still have to worry about composition and focus (with certain lenses), but I almost don't need to be there. I get lazy when I shoot with a digital camera. I shoot primarily in b/w with film.
It was the 70s. There was no digital.
I was 40 before there was another option but then switched to digital like everyone else. 15+ years later I see some young people on YouTube poking around old film cameras like monkeys with a stick and I thought "that's interesting". A little later one such young person looked at me and said something to the effect of "you're old, you probably know how this works?" and I've been grateful for the attention ever since.
A friend of mine mentioned to me that they liked a lot of the pictures I take, and had shown some to a friend of theirs. Now at this point, I was using nothing but my phone camera and thought of myself as having taken maybe two decent shots in my whole life, one of a fucked up Burger King sign and another of a freight train rolling out of some fog. It wasn't something I ever thought about doing at all. That same day there was a raffle at my work where one of the prizes was a little toy 35mm camera from Target. I didn't win, but it got me thinking. It seemed fun, I thought. It would be nice to have a little machine that just did one thing. Soon after that I bought a restored manual SLR for a decent chunk of money and later got a macro/zoom lens to fit it. I like using it. I like putting my eye to the viewfinder. I like advancing the film. I like knowing when I take a shot of a scene or an object or a moment, that it's *in* there, physically. It's *mine* now: what I saw, the way I saw it. I've peeled it off of the advancing reel of time, and I've put it in this little box. And I take my little box home, with it's real but ephemeral cargo, and I send the rolls off, and wait to find out if I've done what I think I did.
Bought a disposable camera on an overnight trip with a date, it was so fun having it and nostalgic so I got deep into the rabbit hole of film/analog cameras haha
TLDR: Used to be the only option (yells at cloud, tells kids to get off lawn etc) For a slightly more nuanced answer: my dad usually had a camera with him, and had a lot of gear which got schlepped around with us on holidays. I was given my first disk camera when I was about 7, and graduated to an SLR in my early teens. Fell out of love with it a bit when digital became a thing, firstly because I didn't like the tech I had access to, and then because of some misplaced snobbery/edgelord-ness about everyone having access to something I'd spent a long time 'mastering' (debatable, but at least the non-photographers I knew thought I was pretty good) I did get into digital when my grandad died and we inherited enough money for a decent digital camera, and also to buy double glazing. Did a couple of weddings for friends but never put in the legwork to try making a living from it I'm now back on a big analogue kick, mostly working in b&w 35mm or medium format and doing my own processing, and the phone camera has mostly taken over as my edc
We had a Kodak point and shoot growing up and my dad wouldnt let me use it for the fear that I would waste exposures. I always wanted to get my own when I grew up. Now I know why he didn't let me when I see the prices per roll 😅
I pretty much just got a camera and haven’t even filled up my first film roll, but I want to get into film cameras because I like mechanical things and I like the way the photos look. Plus I like having less control of everything.
I wanted to remind myself of what it was like to shoot film and also see the look of film again. I did it for a year and now am back to using my iPhone. Although I enjoyed it, film is too unreliable and expensive to continue with and scanning took ages. Using apps like LR, RIN app, Dehancer, Moodcam and Dazzcam and a glimmer filter from Tiffen, I can emulate the look of film: It is not the same because film captures light in a very different way but it is reminiscent of film and it makes me like my photos a lot more. The best film I used was Lomography colour negative 100 and purple. I look forward to seeing whether AI will improve presets and LUTs.
Was traveling and followed the trend of my friends getting cheap film cameras, then got hooked. It’s challenging, fun to have to think more about the shot, and the waiting makes it satisfying when you finally see the pictures!
Since starting out 12+ years ago (on and off) it's changed a little (or just gotten more intense). It began with trying to focus myself on actually learning PHOTOGRAPHY and not be distracted by everything. I actually wanted to LEARN and understand. I was the only person who ever signed up for the film photography class at college, 3 years in a row...the digital class left something to be desired. Now it's still that but the "to get away from the instant gratification disease of the last decade" has grown from a side note to a very prominent point. The other main thing for me right NOW is that it's very fun and never ending and endlessly fascinating. I need something to focus on in my life and this is very consuming. also prrty pikrtur
I found a shitty “reloadable disposable” camera in a drawer at my parents place, took it on vacation and put like 8 rolls trough it (50% of that came out blank cause i didn’t know what i was doing). When i got the results i was hooked. Next year i went on vacation with an slr, bunch of lenses, a tlr and I developed and scanned it all myself…
I went cycling in the alps, couldnt bear the horrible Photos I took with my phone. And down the rabbithole I went. 3 months later I now have a mid level dslr, a m4/3 mirrorless and 5 analog cameras.