This is my first film camera, any tips for shooting film?
Things I’ve said before, but are worth repeating. I always rate film at a lower iso on the meter I’m using. Meaning I try to over-expose it by at least a third of a stop. Eg, if I have 400 iso film, I set the meter on the camera to 320. This is mainly for negative film. Slide film I rate at the designated iso because it has less flexibility, I’ve found.
The X700 has a relatively solid metering system and in the P (programmed auto) you select your aperture on the lens and focus and the camera will shoot the shutter required per its internal meter. There’s also an indicator in the viewfinder whether it’s able to compensate correctly.
Take your time with each shot, frame it, then fire. It’s pretty simple. Don’t get discouraged if every shot isn’t what you expected.
Also, be careful buying any film 2nd hand. You don’t know how it was stored. Most film is pretty resilient, but if you want accurate reflections of what you’re shooting without any chance of the exposure being funky, I would buy film direct on Amazon or from a photo store. Just removed a variable. If you’re planning to shoot things that doesn’t matter if the possibility that it might not be perfect, used film is a great way to experiment cheaply.
Finally, fuji color film is not my favorite. Provia and Kodak gold are definitely better.
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Will add that the reason you want to overexpose is that film is much more forgiving to overexposure than underexposure.
Buy some extra batteries and keep them in your case in case one dies while you are out shooting. Unlike older fully mechanical film cameras the shutter is electronic, so dead battery means no photos.
Double check the lightmeter in the camera against a known working lightmeter (there are some good lightmeter apps). I had an older minolta with a broken lightmeter and I had some poor rolls before I realized It was broken.
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Quick questions for those wiser than me.
- I bought a Sony RX100V to put in my bag to be able to take photos on/of the course and I like it. Been taking some video too. Very fun to learn how all the settings work/change the photo.
But now I find myself wishing I had more zoom to get some pics of friends playing or in general.
Do I need to upgrade to a full body camera with interchangeable lenses? (Idk which lens I’d need if I did). Or can I achieve results learning to use Lightroom and zooming in after?
- if I wanted to take a photo with say some trees in the foreground framing friends on the tee box in the background, how can I make it so both the bark and friends are in focus? I spin the dial/wheel to adjust focus and just do the best I can but one always seems more in focus.
I think the short answer is: technically yes. But theres a BIG caveat. Cropping in on a picture taken in with a wider lens is not the same. you dont get the same lens compression and same depth of feild effects of using a longer (more telephoto) lens.
If you want the effects of a longer lens, you need to shoot with a longer lens. Telephoto lenses bring things farther away to appear closer. This causes a “compression” of the field of view.
So if you want to accomplish this, i would suggest looking into a mirrorless interchangeable lens camera and get a longer lens. on my full frame camera im either shooting with a 70mm-200mm zoom or a 100-400mm zoom. the 70-200 is probably a good starting point. But if you get a crop sensor camera, the numbers would be different depending on the sensor size.
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The cheap option is to walk closer and then take the photo. Not sarcasm! I bring a prime (no zoom) portrait length lens on the course a lot. I gotta use my legs and position myself to get the framing I want.
Zooming in using lightroom is not great if you are cropping a lot to get the framing you want. Photos will lose a ton of detail and sharpness as you are removing most of the pixels. Can you do it? Yes but the photos will suffer a bit.
Depending on the lens and distance between the subjects you may not be able to get both in focus. Lenses are very cool but they are not magic unfortunately. The best strategy is to stop down your lens as much as possible (f/16 or f/22) and try to set your focus somewhere inbetween the two subjects. That gives you the best shot at having both subjects sharply in focus.
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“You tell 'em I’m coming, and hell’s coming with me you hear?! Hell’s coming with me!”
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I’m going on a safari (honeymoon) in about a month. I sold my dedicated camera a while ago because I never used it and don’t really want to lug it around. I have an iPhone 15 Pro now.
For the safari I got monoscope attachment for the phone. Works pretty well testing it out but I need to use a 3rd party camera app due to the way the iPhone uses sensors to not do what you explicitly want (essentially the attachments covers up all sensors/lenses except the 3x telephoto lens and the iphone thinks it’s super dark and wants to use the main lens).
Anyone have any feelings over Obscura vs Halide vs…something else? I bought Obscura 1 back in the day and it still works but it doesn’t even know what an iPhone 15 Pro camera is.
Will hopefully have some good pics to share in 2 months!
These are really wonderful photos. Thanks for confirming my very myopic view of Texas that’s informed almost exclusively by the Coen brothers.
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Your colors are fantastic! Very balanced not too saturated, but they really pop too! Are you doing anything special in post at all?
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I have a handful of presets that I like for certain color palettes, which I’ll sometimes use as a starting point, but I also use the point color tool in Lightroom a lot to adjust my colors. Also, lots of masking.
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Gotcha. If you come across a video or site that describes some of those concepts, would appreciate you sending this way!
Again, great stuff!
Did my best @BigHapaPump impression on my walk at lunch. I have no idea what I’m doing but starting is the first step to learning!
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It’s all about reps, baby! I didn’t know anything when I started either, and I’m very much still learning.
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Curious, where are you going on Safari? Potentially looking into one at the moment.