I’m an amateur photographer, with heavy emphasis on “amateur.” I know a bit about focus, and light, and aperture, and so on, and I shoot all the time, and I’ve got four cameras.
The fourth camera is the one I’m messing with; I got it for $1 at an estate sale a few weeks ago, and it’s about the simplest box camera imaginable. It’s a Vivitar something or other, 35mm. It’s totally basic: No flash, no focus, it doesn’t even have a battery; it just goes “click.”
Important: The directions on the back say very clearly that I should only use it in direct sun, and I should only use ISO 200 or 400 film.
So I’ve been playing with some different films; I shot a roll of that b/w C-41, which was pretty cool, and I shot a roll of ISO 800 and got some neat color results (if anyone’s interested I’ll link to examples of both of these), but what I’d really like to achieve here is some super washed-out looks, like those 1960s vacation pictures you find in the bottom of a box of magazines in your grandparents’ attic.
So I got a roll of ISO 1600 ($9 for 36 exp!) and I’m planning to go monkey around with it downtown sometime this week, but as I said I’m a total amateur. I’m hoping to get some unusual results with it, and I’m certainly not shooting for photo-realism, if that makes sense.
So what should I expect? What should I do that I may not be doing already to get some interesting results? Is there anything I should tell the Wolf Camera folks before they process it? C’mon, photographers, gimme some suggestions; I want these pictures to look distinctive and cool, so what can I do?
On 1600 film:
Well, it’ll be one stop more exposure (in theory a lighter print, but they’ll most likely try to make it “normal” when printing it) than the 800, and grainy as all hell. It probably will make a washed-out, faded-looking, extremely grainy print if you shoot it in the same conditions that gave you good results with the 800 (or in full daylight; that’s right at the upper limit of overexposing and still being able to get a print).
ISO 1600 film is really only beneficial if you’re trying to take pictures in really low light (or with very fast shutter speeds/small apertures, which doesn’t apply in your case); otherwise you’re just paying extra for lower print quality.
On other things you can do:
“Distinctive and cool,” in my experience, is more about composition and originality of the subject matter than seeing how weird you can make the print look, especially since the lab will try their best to make it look normal when they print it, unless you have it done custom.
That said, shoot a roll of color slide film (E-6; the names end in “-chrome”) and try to talk your lab into processing it in C-41 (negative) chemistry. You’ll probably like that. It certainly won’t be realistic. Do a Google search for “cross processing” for more info.
Great suggestions, Gunslinger; thanks. The folks I go to for photo processing know me and my experiments, and I’m sure if I ask them NOT to try to “normalize” the prints they’ll be hip to it and go along.
As for composition and subject matter, we’re in agreement: I figured out a while back that framing and content are 90% of good photography, and that’s what I’ve spent the last year or so focusing on (ha ha) almost exclusively. And now I’m ready to start monkeying around with processing and finishing and such.
I’ve got a friend with access to a darkroom, and before long I’m going to start developing my own, but for now I’m trying to get a feel for how the different types of film react to exposure.
A couple (unretouched) shots I’ve been happy with so far:
The jillelope. I love how rich the colors turned out in this one; shot it with ISO 800 film on the $1 camera;
And some basketball courts, shot on the same camera with black and white C41 film. Again, I didn’t edit this; the sepia color was apparently a happy accident of careless processing.
Thanks again for the suggestions; I’m itching to go shooting now…
It’s been a while since I used it, but ISO 1600 is great for shooting at night with no flash. Crank open the apeture and have and exposure time of ¼ to ½ of a second. Try a BBQ scene with an open fire pit for really good pictures. Or some shots of a downtown scene (where car headlights will streak by). Also works with fireworks.
I’ve also used ISO 3200 B&W film during the daytime (hence massively grainy plus really OTT contrast). I only ever did this once the day I moved into a new house. The pictures came back looking they were from a 1950’s crime scene. I loved them.
Sounds great! I think the only place I can find 3200 film is online; I checked around on Froogle and found some really cheap, so I think I’ll try it and see what happens.
I would shoot a roll of 1600 in a good camera with a good light meter and exposure control.
That will tell you what you’ll get from 1600 (grain grain and more grain)… probably gorgeous.
Then you can play with your non-controllable $1 camera with some idea of what you’ll get from over exposure, etc.
