This is the life, originally uploaded by viridari.

Seeing how it’s 3:15AM, I’m not terribly with it right now. I just got finished developing my backlog of 120 roll film. There were some nice candids hiding in there, including this gentleman enjoying a gorgeous day at Lake Shelley in north Raleigh.

Yes, I’ve been getting more and more into film lately. Call me a masochist, but I really like the look of it and how the process forces me to slow down.

“Does that really work?”, originally uploaded by viridari.

I’m wondering if any other photographers get this question very often.

The photograph accompanying this blog entry was taken after these two young men stopped in the street, curious about the very unusual (to them) camera that I had slung around my neck. It was a Mamiya C330 Professional TLR, which looks nothing like what most people would consider a camera today, but isn’t particularly unusual among film photographers.

They looked at it, laughed, and asked if that was a camera or something. I chatted with them a bit, always happy to try to give street photographers a better public image, and they asked if it really worked.

So I took their photograph.

Would these guys have stopped and allowed me to photograph them had I been carrying a more conventional looking camera? I very much doubt it. Nobody seems to be very interested if I’m carrying an SLR. In fact, many seem to get defensive. But with the TLR, many people get downright friendly and eager to have their photographs taken.

I couldn’t get to sleep last night.  Something has been  bugging me for months, and I had to resolve it before laying my head down to rest last night.  It just wouldn’t wait any longer.

See, I’ve got this thing for film. But the film cameras that I have are well suited for some types of shooting but not so much for others. I wanted a reasonably modern 35mm SLR, and I wanted it to be a Canon EOS model so that I could use my lenses from the DSLR (just not the EF-S lenses) and the 430EX speedlite.

So I ended up buying a Canon EOS Rebel G.  Ken Rockwell put this specific model over the top for me. Nothing much to it.  It’s just a consumer level SLR, very small, very light, and very inexpensive.  Unlike digital SLR’s, the camera body doesn’t mean much of anything to the image quality in a film SLR.  The lens, the film, and the photographer are infinitely more important. There are other practical limitations, mostly involving the focus points, ergonomics, view finder, etc.  But otherwise it’s just a 35mm film camera that happens to be compatible with my favorite lenses and flash from my Canon DSLR.

This camera came with the optional battery grip, which will allow me to run rechargeable AA batteries in it.

I should also point out that 35mm is not my favorite film format (that would be 120, shot in a 6×6 camera). But it is convenient, it is small, and it’s good for shooting more prolifically around town or in poorly lit clubs (I’ve tried that with a TLR and it is very difficult to focus through the waist level finder in low light).  I look forward to putting some film through it and sharing some of the results here soon.