Going Back to School

The last time I had experience using film was the first time I tried my hand in photography. Complete.. utter.. fail. (http://www.flickr.com/photos/bhry/sets/72157627747981108/)

I had my share of using film before. We had a film camera growing up and I remember always having a roll of film and a Kodak camera on my backpack back in high school. It was just all for fun back then, taking pictures of silly stuff we did. I remember just shooting every where.. in the school library, the classroom while taking exams, just fooling around inside and outside campus. (it's fun to pop out the flash when things get boring during class ;p) Anyway, I don't remember putting much thought into it back then. All I wanted was to capture fun things that everyone can enjoy.

And so now I decided to take another crack at film. Why? Because my old 400D has died on me a few months ago, I'm stuck here in the US for six months without a proper camera, and the new one I want, well.. let's just say it's currently "out of the budget". I will still be saving for that OM-D, but for now I have my OM10 to keep me busy ;p.

Got this one off of ebay, used of course, but in pristine condition. I may need to replace my light seals later on but aside from that, almost like new. It came with a 50mm Zuiko, a 135mm Makinon, and its original receipt! (Dated 7/23/1984, it's just a little bit younger than I am.) Very impressed with the build of these things. First released in the late 70's, everything was metal heavy. Very solid and stable. They just don't make SLRs like this anymore.

I'm currently two-thirds through my first roll and I'm not expecting anything special. I'm looking forward though to actually seeing the results. This may very well be a test roll to just test out the camera.. And my first lessons on working full manual.

It's quite a bit of an adjustment from digital; working with a fixed ISO, advancing the film lever, using the focus and aperture rings on the lense, setting the shutter speed, getting your metering right, and finally hitting that shutter button. It's that one fluid process of taking a shot, waiting for everything to fall into place. It has a certain calmness into it.

The experience here is pure photography. All you're working with is light, glass, and film. There's no image processor to auto-correct your images, no auto-focus mechanism. Instead you have to be quick with your hands and your eye. There are a lot of decisions to be made in that decisive moment before pressing the shutter, and all of them has to be right. :)

prints!, originally uploaded by bR!@n.