Film Photography Tips from a Non-Expert

Last week, somebody on Flickr asked me for advice on taking photographs.

Me. I've only been shooting film a little over a year. Saying that, I do have video experience from university and so on, so I have some basic compositional knowledge. However, this person was all about the technical stuff.




The Sunny 16 rule. In a nutshell, set shutter speed to the ISO/ASA number of your film or higher. Then set aperture according to light conditions: f22 sun with sand or snow, f16 sunny normal, f11 hazy sun, f8 cloudy, f5.6 overcast, f4 dark clouds.

It's also worth knowing that your depth of field increases with the f number (also known as f stop). To get greater depth of field on a darker day, you'll need to up your f-stop and decrease your shutter speed.

I was also asked about good films. I don't know really but films I have really liked are:

Colour Negative: Fuji Superia 400, Fuji Venus 800, Kodak Ektar 100 (current favourite), Ferrania Solaris 200, DNP Centuria 200 (this last one is no longer available, I believe).

Black and White: Only ever tried and got developed Rollei Ortho 25 which was expired but was lovely.

Colour Reversal (slide): Fuji Trebi 100C is nice to process as a negative. I've never shot slide as slide because developing costs a bit more and slide film is quite unforgiving with exposure apparently, though I may shoot some in the holidays.

Other useful resources are: I Still Shoot Film and searching Flickr groups.

So, there's your rank amateur advice.