ever wondered how to get this vintage / faded effect on photos, well it’s really simple to do…
…it isn’t photoshop, it’s analog photography!
last week i got this an AMAZING package by photo-lang, a webstore that i have been buying at for a very long time. i found their ebay store a while ago and started buying their expired films, that are really nice and also super price worthy.
so i thought of doing a little tutorial on how anyone can do this wonderful thing called analog photography.
imagine a world without DIGITAL cameras. a world in which you actually had to think before pressing the button and where every picture was connected to cost. a world in which you had to wait for your photos and not just load them on your computer. welcome to the world of photography a few years ago.
1. EXPOSURE, APERTURE AND ISO
So, there’s a camera and a film. The film is put into the camera. First step done. Now there’s automatic cameras, that do everything for you. But then, there are cameras where you have to expose manually. For this there are three parameters that need to be chosen.
Exposure (or shutter speed) is the amount of time that the film is exposed to light. A fast shutter speed (like 1/1000) gives less time (therefore light) to the film versus a slow shutter speed (like 1/8). The shutter speed always indicates the fraction of a second, so 1/60 is a 60th of a second. The longer you expose, the shakier your photo will get. If you use long exposures you will need a tripod in order to have a focused photo. This photo was exposed pretty long, that’s why it’s a little “shaky”:
The aperture is the amount of lens opening, it’s measured as the f-number. f64 would be a very small lens opening versus f1,8 which is a very wide opening. As mentioned in this post the aperture also affects the depth of field. This photo was taken with a very wide aperture, therefore the background is very blurry:
Last but not least the ISO is the film speed and therefore the sensitivity of the film. The higher the ISO, the more sensitive the film is to light. A film of 100 ISO has less sensitivity than a film of 400 ISO. With higher ISO it’s easier to expose shorter in dark surroundings, but also the grain is stronger. In the photo below you can see a photo taken at night, where there’s a strong grain due to the bad light conditions:
2. DISPOSABLE CAMERAS
For many photos that i take going out and partying i use exposable cameras. At photo-lang they offer a wide range of disposable cameras, also offering some with creative efffects like the rollei ones. But don’t overdo it, those cameras are obviously not very eco friendly as they are being trashed after one use!
3. BLACK/WHITE VS. COLOR
This might not be important since it’s a very technical aspect, but when buying film remember: color comes cheaper. Most color films are developed with machines, whereas black & white films have to be processed manually (there are some exceptions!). Getting a black & white film developed will cost you more, since the work is greater. Using expired color film will get you a really nice result sometimes, try it!
4. TRY!
As in every tutorial, the only way is: trying. Go and buy a film, try to find a cheap manual camera at the flea market and just TRY. Asking people and spending time trying to learn everything in theory will do nothing (it’s the same for digital photography!). Trial and error is the best way and the way i learned photography many years ago.
my lovely jane
with lovely mark from mark & julia and hannah from houseof whatthefuck
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