13 reasons why you should shoot film in Street Photography

Introduction

These days it feels as if everyone is shooting with digital cameras. The reasons are many, but the basic and most obvious one is that like everything else surrounding us, photography too has been digitised. Digital photography produces great results, just as good as film, and some even claim it has now surpassed film. More and more amazing high quality Full Frame and APS-C sensors are being squeezed into small modern cameras with tremendous abilities. But still, there are Street Hunters out there that prefer film over digital. The Romantics of photography, the analogue masters of light. Why though? Why would someone living in our time choose to still use film over digital in Street Photography? What could film offer that digital can’t do even better? I have thought about this many times, especially during my transition from digital to film 2 years ago and I’m come up with 13 reasons why I think you should shoot film in Street Photography.

13 reasons why you should shoot film in Street Photography

Film in Street Photography makes you think before you hit the shutter release (Film constrains you so it makes you work harder for each shot & Film makes you pay more attention to the light)

Each roll of film has a specific amount of frames. Sometimes, one can be lucky enough to squeeze in 1 or 2 additional frames on a roll, but the amount of photos that can be shot with a roll is standard (12 or 24 or 36) and it can’t be changed due to physical constraints. Subconsciously and even consciously, every frame feels like it must count, so naturally a Street Photographer shooting with film tends to think more about the shot before releasing the shutter. Another reason is that contrary to Digital RAW files, film negatives can’t be saved from really bad exposures. So, before each shot is made, the film Street Photographer tends to be more particular with their exposure.

Film in Street Photography can be used with a mechanical camera without batteries for ever

Shooting Street Photography with digital means that the Street Hunter is dependant on camera battery life. Most Street Photographers carry a 2nd or even a 3rd battery for that reason, especially the more prolific ones. With film cameras, especially the fully manual ones that don’t even have a light meter, running out of power is not an issue. Everything is achieved mechanically, thus the whole battery issue is removed from the equation, helping the Street Photographer focus on taking the picture, not worrying about remaining battery life.

You can start shooting Street Photography with film for a very low cost

One of the best reasons why I think you should shoot film in Street Photography is because you can get in the game for a very low cost. You can purchase great film cameras online for the fraction of the price of a digital camera, buy yourself a few rolls of film and off you go, you are ready to hit the streets and make street photos. I purchased my Canon Canonet QL17 for just €90. My Yashica GTN for around €70. Both these cameras can produce amazingly sharp, high quality photographs that any digital camera would be jealous of. Just pop in a €5 roll of film and you are good to go. If you do the maths, you can see that you can have your “new” old camera and your first 1000 photos shot and developed for around €350 – €400. All photos will have high resolution, amazing grain, fantastic colours and yummy full frame-ness! The cheapest full frame camera starts at just over €1000 and your first 1000 photos shot on it will probably be test shots of cups, mugs, clouds or badly composed, hasty photos just because you can shoot as many as you like without worrying about wasting frames. Once you have got the hang of the menus, dials and features it comes packed with, read the menu and got a feel of your digital beast, you will be ready to start shooting. Film cameras all work the same. If you know how to use one, you know how to use them all.

You can shoot Street Photography with film at night. Not being able to do so is a myth

Oh yes people. Film latitude is amazing. You can push it and get great night shot results. If you have a fast enough lens you don’t even have to push because film is much more sensitive to light than any digital sensor. I shot this photos below at box speed (400 ASA). My lens was at f1.8 and my shutter speed at 1/30th. With my digital APS-C sensor camera I would need at least 6400 ISO to achieve this result using the same settings.

You can’t beat film grain. It just looks awesome

Something that digital just can’t do yet is to produce good organic looking grain, especially in low light images. Digital grain looks like something has gone wrong with the photo, whereas film, organic grain just looks natural. Sometimes it looks so good, it makes the photo look even better than if it didn’t have any grain in it.

Film cameras work for ever and will not let you down

A film camera is basically a light sealed box that works just like the first ever negative film camera did. Maybe it has better mechanics than an early 20th century camera, but it still works in the same way. It lets light in through the lens that burns the film and creates the negative image that is then printed out as a photograph. Because film cameras work like this, they don’t have a specific component that creates the image, like digital cameras do with digital sensors. Their “sensor” is the film and each image is made on a fresh piece of it. So, no matter how many photos a film camera takes, its “sensor” will never, ever lose image quality, colour and shadow tonality – it will not corrode or break. As long as the mechanics of the camera work, it can make photos. There are still cameras out on the field used by Street Photographers that are more than 80 years old, working just as well as when they were unboxed. What a solid investment.

Film really helps you achieve a specific look & feel in your Street photos

Each film emulsion produces a specific look & feel and if it is a colour film, it also produces specific colours. So, for example if you are a Street Photographer that loves grainy B&W shots, you can use Kodak Tri-X 400 pushed to 800 or even 1600 and get the same results each time. Or if you are into colour, load the gorgeous Kodak Portra 400 in your camera to achieve the colour rich, crystal sharp images you love. Your style can be defined and identified just by the combination of film emulsion and film developer you use.

Film has the original filmic look and feel everyone is looking for in their LR filters

I have noticed that most of us use film presets on our digital images to make them look more filmic. That is ironic if you think about it because if we like the filmic look so much we might just as well shoot film and get the results we need nice and easily! What is the point in shooting digital if all we want to do later in post is to make those digital images look like they were shot on film?

Some of the best ever Street Photos have been shot on film

Many of us never think about this, but some of the best and most iconic images ever shot in the Street Photography genre have been shot on film. That means that film has what it takes and can produce fantastic results.

You can do the same things with film that you can with digital, if you know how to really use a camera

What I have noticed personally (and this was the main reason why I switched to film a couple of years ago) was that digital cameras with all their image processing, automatic metering and amazingly super-fast autofocusing turned my Street Photography experience into a point and shoot game. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy just focusing on composition sometimes and leaving the whole photography technique on the side, but that happens to me rarely. I want to feel that I have total control over my photography and what better way to do that than by using a manual film camera? Once you have control of your camera and know exactly how to use it you understand that anything you can do with a digital camera, you can also do with a film camera. What makes the difference is your level of experience and photographic knowledge. With film cameras you use your brain more that you use it with digital cameras. Your digital friend will usually save the day by giving you the best exposure, the fastest AF and a RAW file that you can squash and squeeze to your liking. But, who made the photo then? You or the little silicon computer brain in your high tech camera?

Film will not let you chimp, so you focus more on Street Photography and less on your already shot photos

This reason really doesn’t need any explanation at all. Chimping and talking on our phone are the top 2 reasons why we miss shots in the streets. Film cameras at least eliminate the chimping parameter, giving you more time to focus on your Street Photography and not your photos.

When shooting film in Street Photography you spend more time on the streets shooting and less time in LR and Photoshop post processing

One of the reasons why we Street Hunters love shooting Street Photography so much is because we enjoy being outside, in the streets. The more time we are in the streets taking photographs, the better Street Photographers we become. Film usually doesn’t need any post processing. It might need some leveling, maybe a slight tonal correction but that’s it. That means that when you get your shots back from the lab, all you have to do is do some minor tweaks and you are done. Digital photographs, especially RAW files look quite boring and dead out of the camera and almost always need post processing that could last for as long as 5 or 10 minutes. Imagine having to process 36 RAW files, 5 minutes each. That’s 180 minutes in front of your screen that you could have been spending in the streets.

People tend not to mind to be shot with a film camera. Digital cameras feel more like a gateway towards Social Media (Facebook, Flickr, etc).

Yes, this is something I have experienced many times. If I am confronted in the streets while shooting with a film camera, I usually get a different reaction to when I am using a digital camera. Because film cameras are old and they don’t have instant image production capabilities, people that are shot on film seem to believe their photo will remain on the negative, maybe even be printed on paper but then it will stop its journey. Somehow, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram seem disconnected from film cameras, making film cameras less of a threat to people that don’t like their photo taken. Additionally, because these people can’t see their photo on the back of the camera, it makes the photo feel more disconnected from them, it is as if it affects them less. Seeing a digital image is more substantial and thus makes it more possible in their minds that it may be shared on social media.

Conclusion

Fellow Street Photographers that shoot film already know all the above reasons and probably even more and that is why they prefer to shoot analogue rather than digital. Have you ever considered any of the mentioned points? Have you ever tried shooting film? If you are already a film Street Photographer please share with us what your reasons are for shooting analogue. We would love to read them. Before we say goodbye, we would like to present you with a few more reasons why film is generally cool to shoot with, not taking into account the Street Photography parameter. Hope you enjoy!

Bonus: 13 more reasons why film is super cool

1. You get a feeling of anticipation before you send your prints to the lab.
2. You get an unexpected high and sense of gratification when you receive your prints from the lab.
3. You get a full frame, high res negative on each frame.
4. Film has the best and highest dynamic range.
5. Film produces much better colours and skin tones.
6. Film makes you want to experiment (pushing, pulling).
7. Film sometimes rewards you with pleasant surprises.
8. Film allows you to actually hold your photos (Holding your photo in your hand beats looking at it on any high res screen).
9. You get to understand how cameras operate and work when using film.
10. Film cameras have a certain character that make you look cool as hell.
11. FIlm can be stored and archived for hundreds of years.
12. Because Film negatives and printed photos are archived physically, that gives them more value than digital files.
13. Negative film handles highlights better than any digital file and post processing can.