Shooting with film
One of my great loves in life is my Zenit E camera.
A fully manual Russian camera from the 1950s, I picked it up for a song (almost literally – I think it and all its accompanying lenses and paraphernalia set me back the grand total of £10) at a car boot sale about six or seven years ago.
I haven’t taken it out for a spin for far too long, as film is expensive and I always seem to be shooting for quick results instead of experimenting these days. But I did find these few photos scanned in from the last roll of film I put through her. They have a quality I’ve never yet been able to replicate in Photoshop.
Finding these has made me want to plan a trip to the seaside with my film and digital cameras side by side. The Zenit taught me more about light and camera settings than any course could, because you take time and you think more when you’re working with film. You can’t look at the results instantly and processing film is bloody expensive these days, so you find yourself instinctively taking more time over each shot. I love it – there’s nothing quite like it.
Do you shoot film?