Clyde Cooper’s BBQ, originally uploaded by viridari.

I can’t help but identify with Clyde Cooper’s BBQ joint in downtown Raleigh.

Cooper’s shabby little two story brick building stands in stark defiance quite literally in the shadow of progress.

While the world is moving from film to digital photography, I’ve gone in the opposite direction. I still shoot digital, certainly, but I find I prefer film these days. And I was one of the earliest of the early adopters of digital, having switched primarily to digital photography back in 1995.

This image was taken on the first roll of film that I developed myself in about 20 years. The last time I went through this process, I was in high school. Much has changed in photography since then. But as I carefully hung the negatives in my spare bathroom, I smiled when I looked at this one and thought to myself that this subversive act of mine, moving back to film, has quite a lot in common with old Clyde Cooper’s place.

While I fully expect the City of Raleigh to condemn Cooper’s joint in the interest of re-assigning the property to a wealthy developer who will put a big bland tower of glass and steel on the spot, hopefully it will be a lot longer before I’m forced to give up the simple pleasures of working in analogue photography.

As I previously alluded to, this picture was from the first roll of film that I have developed myself in about 20 years.  It’s good to be back.  This was the big bottleneck keeping me from working more often in film, as I didn’t want to incur the very high fees from the lab.  Developing my own film also gives me a lot more creative control in the full process.

Vital stats:

Olympus Stylus Epic Zoom 80
Ilford HP5+ 400 (shot at box speed)
Rodinal 1:50 @ 70F for 10m

If you’re still shooting with a 35mm camera, especially one that automatically sets the ASA rating based on the DX label of the film cartridge, you can still push or pull your exposure even if your camera won’t let you manually set the ASA rating!

Check this out. Porter’s Camera Store sells DX labels for popular ASA ratings like 40, 100, 125, 200, 800, 1600, and 3200. So you could load your 35mm point-n-shoot with some Tri-X ASA 400, slap one of these labels on your film cartridge, and fool your camera into working at an EI of 1600.

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.