getting started with 35mm film photography

27 Dec, 2024

Photography is one of those hobbies where there is no upper limit on how much money you can spend. But the thing is, you don't need any of that stuff to get started.

You don't need a Contax T2 ($950).

You don't need a Nikon FM3a ($800).

You don't even need a Canon AE1 ($250), which is always recommended to beginners for some reason and I have no idea why.

You don't need Porta 800 ($18 per roll).

You don't need 3 different prime lenses each with a complementary set of UV filters. You don't need a tripod, or a bag, or magnetic straps, accessory flash, or any of that crap.

You just have GAS.

GAS: Gear Acquisition Syndrome (noun). The tendency to buy really expensive shit you will never utilize the full potential of, but you buy it anyway on the premise it will improve your skills and to avoid the realization that "I just need some practice".

If you have literally nothing and want to get started in film photography. Don't even buy a film camera at first. And do not buy any of these. Use your smart phone for a while and take photos with that. Read a bit about composition and and play around. Getting direct immediate feedback is the best way to learn a new skill. Shooting film comes with a huge delay (sometimes weeks before getting development and scans or prints) before you see the final image. Just use your phone for awhile and see if you even like photography in general.

Soapbox aside... All you need in terms of gear to get started with film photography is a camera body, lens, some film, and a lab. The rest comes with practice and learning. click here for TLDR

the body

As far as a camera body. An SLR plastic body, from the early 2000s is perfect for beginners. Something like a Canon EOS on ebay goes for around $30. These were mass produced before digital become mainstream and so the supply is huge and costs are low. Batteries for these are still made and cheap too. The automatic modes will help exposure settings and reduce newby mistakes and thereby lessen the chances of getting all black images on your first couple rolls of film. After getting your camera body. Read the manual, find it on butkus.org.

Seriously, RTFM.

Back then manuals actually had useful information about any possible issue that may come up, and often some basic advice on how to use one of their FancyPants™ auto modes with examples and when those modes may fail or should be overridden manually. Ebay or keh.com are your best bet for used camera bodies. There are many point-and-shoots that are basically toys but these are called as such becuase there is little to no control of the exposure. You won't learn much from one of these cameras. Get one with some brains in it so you can use the FancyPants™ auto modes at first, then as you learn you can override the settings as you please.

the lens

After a camera body you'll need some glass. Get a cheap zoom lens of the matching mount type, again check the manual for compatibility. A zoom lens means a variable focal length. A range of 30-100 mm is common. The human eye is often compared to a focal length of 45-50 mm as the images they produce look "normal" or "natural". A smaller focal length is a wider field of view, and larger is cropped or zoomed in. The variable length will give a lot of freedom when starting out and learning what you want your images to be. Somewhere in the range of $40-100 will get a well kept used lens, again, eBay and KEH are your friends.

the film

Then buy whatever film you can. A few rolls to start. Color negative, C41 chemistry, is the most common and widely available. Walgreens is hit or miss if they stock it in store, but there are plenty of small webstores that sell film. Stay away from amazon for getting film, price gouging is rampant and can often just be straightup fraudulant listings. eBay is also hit or miss, stay away from anything expired until you are certain what you are buying and the risks of expired film, it may be cheaper sometimes, but there is a reason. Stick with new or very recently expired film stock. Check your local area for a shop or find a small webstore online. A few reputable ones are,

1. Reformed Film Lab
2. Boutique Film Lab
3. bhphotovideo

Kodak Ultramax 400 is typically around $8-12 per roll with 36 exposures. Don't waste your money on Porta or Cinestil at first, just get something cheap, C41 chemistry, and new.

the development

The last bit of the workflow is getting the film developed. After you've shot your full roll, you'll need to rewind the film into the canister (your camera may do this automatically again read the manual), and send that canister somewhere to get developed and turn the exposed still light sensitive film into a stable negative that is not light sensitive. Developing film yourself is super doable but is another deep rabbit hole of knowledge and tweaking. Support your local lab if you have one nearby, they will likely be pretty cheap. Development costs are generally $8-15 per roll. Keep in mind the cost is always per roll not per image, so if you buy a 24 exposure roll, it'll still take the same amount of soup for the lab to develop so the same cost.

Always ask for your negatives back. If you keep this hobby up eventually you'll start digitizing them yourself to get higher resolution, more control, or just for fun. You can always scan it again and in higher res as the technology gets better¹. This is where 4K remasters of old movies typically come from, a rescan of the same physical film that the movie was originally recorded on. I recommend your local lab first, but if you don't have one and you're in the contiguous US, use thedarkroom. They are great and can be trusted with your precious film. Shipping is a flat $5.95.

the final image

You will also need a way to actually view your images, the lab will almost always offer digital scanning of varying resolution and bit depth, and may or may not also do prints. The scanning process is basically taking a high resolution digital photo of your negative under very controlled conditions and inverting it to give you the positive final image. As far as resolution, get at least "HD", 2 or 3 megapixels is plenty. Scans may be a flat fee per roll, or a low charge per frame (like 50 cents or so). The lab may offer higher res or uncompressed .tiff files but that might be a bit excessive for the first go of it. Then ship off your film and await your scans!

When you get your first scans back (by email or a web gallery) it is okay to be a bit disappointed with how they came out. They will almost definitely need some light editing. This is normal. Most labs will scan a negative very flat, meaning low saturation and low contrast. This is the because they don't know you and your style, and a flat image is the easiest starting point for an edit. Use whatever free editing software you like and play around a bit, you will be shocked how different the results can be just by bumping the contrast and saturation up.

Take some notes on what went well and what didnt. What did you expect the image to be versus what is actually come out as? Can you adjust it with editing? If not, take note for next time. It's totally normal to have a bunch of duds early on. Some pros have mentioned that maybe 3-5 images per roll is even worth keeping. Preferences vary of course, but don't be too downtrodden if not every image is an absolute banger to get framed and put on the wall. The rest is practice and learning by doing. As you get more comfortable you'll start overriding FancyPants™ mode to do what you want instead and rely less on the auto suggestions from the camera body.

TLDR

All you need is the gear you already have, and some deliberate practice.

Constraints are brick walls that allow the vines to grow.

If you are completely new, try photography with your phone first to see if you even like it. Read a bit about composition and the exposure triangle, and experiment.

Beginner's starter pack

1. Camera body, EOS-like, early 2000s. $30-60, ebay
2. A Zoom lens, check compatibility. $40-80, ebay or keh
3. Film, 35mm, color negative. $8-16 per roll, local or B&H
4. Send for development, $15-20, local or thedarkroom.com
5. Order scans, may be included with dev fee.
6. Some light editing. Any free editing software

All in, it's about $150 to get your first roll of images from start to finish. After that, running cost typically works out to $1 per frame². Make no mistake this is an expensive hobby, but the fact that your camera can only take 36 images makes you much more intentional and deliberate with what you will photograph, and you will love those images much more as each is so precious. It is an expensive hobby, but it doesn't need to be overly so with the high end flashy stuff to get amazing images you will physically have forever.

#film