First rolls of 35mm / by Tom Henderix

So, an update on shooting film. These are shot on an old Nikon FM2n I found at a flee market. I picked up a few rolls of 35mm the same day and just started shooting. To say it's a different experience than digital, is putting it mildly... Last two images are digital, shot with the Fujifilm X100T. The difference in sharpness and lack of noise in digital files is enormous, but film has a certain look and joy of use that is hard to resist. Still, I'm not a fan of the Ilford HP5... I'm trying different black & white films to find something more to my taste. So far I prefer Kodak Tri-X. The Portra is not bad, I like the colours mostly, I'll try pulling some back to ISO200 next time to see what it does to the grain...

Forcing yourself to only take one shot does make it painfully clear afterwards how you need to improve as a photographer... But it's good exercise and can only make you better at observing and framing, so I'll stick to it. Zone focussing was not bad for a first occasion, but then again shooting at f8 and f11 a lot tends to be in focus anyway... I definitely need to shoot more people and try to capture more emotion. Shooting portraits feels very natural to me, but on the street I'm still too shy to really get close enough...

Location for these shots was Budapest, some in flight around Europe and at the orchid was taken at home.

Shot on a Nikon FM2n & Fujifilm X100T
Film used was Kodak Portra 400 and Ilford HP5 400
Developed and scanned by Carmencita Film Lab