Benefits to Film Wedding Photography
Consider Film for your Wedding Photography
After years of shooting digital weddings I am returning to my roots: film. Someone asked me the other day what film had to offer that digital doesn’t. It really made me think about it. What are the benefits to film wedding photography?
I think there are two categories of benefits to shooting weddings on film. There are benefits to you, and there are benefits to me. Let’s take a few minutes and parse them.
Film Wedding Photography Benefits to You
- Film is gorgeous! I’m talking about art here. Instagram has filters named after the film that I load into my cameras. They do a second rate job of recreating the real thing too.
- The resolution is out of control. This translates to gorgeous large printed pieces of art! According to some 35mm is upwards of 175 megapixels. That’s just 35mm. If I shoot medium format (120mm) it reaches the staggering number of 1,140 megapixels!
- Film photography is unique. I’m willing to guess that not many of your friends had their photos shot on film.
- Film can be unpredictable (in a good way). You will get different results depending on the chemicals, weather, processing, scanning. Every film is organic has it’s own personality.
- It’s slower. Instead of having a cameras firing off 3000+ shots we will take our time and make every shot worth it. You may appreciate some more time to breath. Plus you get to play the model.
- Film photos are precious. Because of chemicals and light your memories are captured on a piece of film. That exposed film inherently has value. The are cared for because they are your memories. They aren’t cheap and effervescent like digital photos.
- It’s entertaining. People seem to really enjoy seeing the assorted cameras that I pull out of my bag.
Film Wedding Photography Benefits to Me
- First of all, film stretches me as an artist. I reached a certain level of mastery with digital. I’m not bragging, but I kick ass. I can walk into a room and guess the settings. If I’m off, I can look at the image on the back of the camera and adjust my settings. Nothing to lose. With film each shot costs between $.50 and $1.50. That means I need to make sure that each shot is right. I’m stuck on one ISO and need to work around those constraints. I love the high stakes.
- This one sounds cheesy, but I feel connected to the past. Film was around for a hundred and fifty years and we seem so quick to just toss it out the window. Not me. I love using my cameras from the days gone by.
- Did I say that it stretches me as an artist. I can take so much that I learned by shooting digitally and apply it to film. Within film there is a whole new world to explore.
These are just a few benefits. There are many more. I’m sure. Can you think of any benefits to film wedding photography?
0 Comments