Film Photo Diary

I bought my first film camera a few months ago. I’d been thinking about trying out film for a while, and I spent several weeks researching what camera would be best for a film newbie. I ended up buying the Canon AE-1 Program from a very nice guy on Craigslist. The camera was in excellent condition, and he even threw in a few rolls of film and a teleconverter too.

I was surprised by the weight of it when I held it for the first time. I was expecting something lighter, but it’s actually really solid and sturdy, which is nice. I can see how these cameras that were manufactured in the 70s and 80s have lasted so long. I love the design of it too. It’s a beautiful camera.

The great/scary thing about film is that you just have to shoot and hope for the best. No taking dozens of photos of the same shot, because film is not cheap! It definitely made me more precious and more considerate of each shot.

It took me a couple months to get through my first roll of film and I was so excited to develop them. I really thought there was a good chance that they’d all turn out to be horrible. In reality, there were a few duds, but most of them turned out much better than I thought.

The color and quality of the photos is just so lovely and shooting on film is a nice change of pace from my DSLR. When I had the film developed, I also got some prints and man oh man, professional prints are so much better quality than Walgreens/CVS prints.

For my birthday last month, I received another film camera, a Nikon point-and-shoot. This camera is quite different from my Canon film one. It’s much more compact and more automated. It’s so portable, which is really convenient, and it’s been fun trying out a different camera. I just finished my first roll in the Nikon, so hopefully I’ll get those developed soon and see how those photos compare to the ones taken on my Canon.

I’m starting to develop a little camera collection, which makes me really happy. Now let’s end of a shot of a delicious pizza, shall we?