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Comment on Is anyone else here into film photography/cameras? in ~creative
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Comment on Is anyone else here into film photography/cameras? in ~creative
Mojosam Link ParentAs gorgeous as Portra and Ektar are, they are expensive. I would recommend that you start out with a good, cheap B&W. Shoot a few rolls. You will make mistakes. I know you said that you used to...As gorgeous as Portra and Ektar are, they are expensive. I would recommend that you start out with a good, cheap B&W. Shoot a few rolls. You will make mistakes. I know you said that you used to shoot film a while back. You will probably still make mistakes. I did. Those skills rust after 5-10 years.
Once you feel confident that you can operate the camera and get decent exposures and have moved past stupid mistakes (that may only take a few rolls), then you will feel more comfortable shooting the more expensive films.
A good place to buy film is at Freestyle. They have their own private-label film, called Arista.edu. It's actually rebranded Fomapan. The stuff is made in the Czech Republic. Opinions vary, but most people agree that it is perfectly fine for a lot of purposes. Considering its price, it's a good value. I personally love Fomapan 100. Something about the look. I'm not so keen on the 200 and 400.
I recommend that you buy a few rolls of Arista.edu 100 to start with. It's only $4.29/roll. After that, go where your whim takes you.
Here is Freestyle's B&W 120 roll film page. They're based in the U.S. Not sure where you are.
If you want to try something with a better brand reputation, anything by Ilford is good. A few of their films are under $6.
The hobby that I've sunk thousands of dollars into is digital photography! The technology is maturing now, so you can go longer between feeling the need to upgrade. In the first dozen or so years of this century, the technology was advancing rapidly. Each camera was better than the last, but they all still had limitations. Poor low-light performance was one that perpetually frustrated me. So every couple of years, I felt the need to upgrade. It's what I called "the digital treadmill". That's what drove me back to film. (BTW, I still shoot digital. It's probably 60% of my photography. I'm also still using the digital camera that I bought four years ago. It was finally good enough.)
The other thing that drove me back to film was the slower pace and the very limited number of exposures per roll (and that fact that each exposure has a real and significant cost). There are a lot of good film cameras out there for quite good prices. If you develop your own film, your per-exposure cost drops significantly. For me, the money I have spent on film cameras, film, and developing is less than I have spent on digital cameras; a lot less if you consider the much beefier computer hardware that digital photography encourages you to buy (Yes, just taking the straight out-of-camera JPEGs and using cheap/free photo-editing software is a viable alternative to that part of the hobby.).
Anyway, it's a matter of how you view things and what you want out of your hobby. I don't know anybody who shoots film exclusively. It's just a matter of degree. Find the balance that works for you.