Cover image: Trees (2018) Beeltjens, Westerlo (B) Olympus OM-2n with 28mm f2,8 and Fomapan 100 Classic at 400. Rotary developed with Fomadon LQR for 13' and scanned with a Minolta Scan Elite 5400.
Welcome to the second issue of Filmdiaries Photozine, a free magazine dedicated to analog photography. I received a lot of positive feedback and much of it I took into account for this issue. The great comments are very motivating. I have a basic account on Issuu it is not possible to download the magazine. Therefore I created a website/blog where you can download issues and, over time, more free stuff. Check it out HERE. I am still looking for contributors. I’m looking for articles that are related to film photography. Reviews, techniques, whatever. A monthly column would also be nice. And of course, I’m interested in your portfolio’s. I can’t offer anything in return except my commitment to make this magazine as interesting as possible. In this issue, I present a beautiful black and white portfolio by Stefano Ferrando. Donald Stark has written an interesting article comparing the costs of film photography with digital photography. You’ll find some of my work too. Thank you for your support and I hope you will enjoy this issue.
Stephan Pot
Contributors Stefano Ferrando Donald Stark
Stefano e Chicca
My name is Stefano Ferrando and I currently live in Italy, in the wonderful land in the North West called “Langhe” (the term refers to the world “slice”, from the Latin “linguam”). I’m a philosopher, specialized in Aesthetics, in particular in the development of the idea of the “end of art” from Hegel to Walter Benjamin. My passion for photography started when I was a child, making my first attempts with my father’s Fujica STX1 camera with 50mm prime lens. I think this start conditioned my whole approach to photography: a simple camera, with as less as possible functions, one single fixed lens and a film. I did my first exhibition in Aosta in 1999 and it was the occasion for a real change in my relation to photography. I had the opportunity to discuss about my pictures with other photographers involved in the exhibition and got a lot of suggestions about how to improve my skills. I never considered myself an “artist” but simply a “light catcher” and this is another important aspect for me in photography. Especially today photography is at the reach of everyone, using various medium such as digital cameras, smartphones and others. I think too many persons take themselves too much seriously and the fact of having an Instagram account brings them to consider themselves “photographers”. I know a lot of real photographers and I know photography and art are thing different from this. Guido Harari is a photographer I personally know and highly admire and is a good example of what being a photographer means: he lives for photography, he lives from photography and photography is his life. I used many cameras during the years and I went digital too when I started working for an ADV agency. It lasted ten years, then I got frustrated from this approach to photography and I totally returned to film.
Digital photography in my experience has been a completely commercial affair, a running after the last new thing in order to being competitive and receive commissions. Film photography is for me a whole different world: I load a film, a slow down my thoughts, I imagine what I want to get and I study the light. This is what I mean when I talk about photography. It isn’t a fast firing frames in order to get the better possible thing, it is trying to get what is nearer to what I imagined. It is a world of freedom, of calm, of personal satisfaction, a way to get in touch with myself and know myself better. I use three cameras: a Leica M6 TTL, most of times with a 50mm Summicron lens, an Hasselblad Xpan II with a 45mm f:4 lens and most of all an old Contax T3 that is always in my bag, every day, every time. My films of choice are Ilford’s FP4 and HP5, because of their contrast and tones. During the last year I mostly used the T3 with FP4 for a little project about the land where I live. I tried to document the history, the everyday life of this wonderful place on earth that adopted me years ago. I hope you will enjoy my photographs and I invite you to take a look to my blog at monochromios.wordpress.com. To dear Stephan Pot my heartiest thanks for his wonderful idea and for the kindness of inviting me to contribute.
How to submit your work... I recently started "Filmdiaries Photozine" as a hobby in a hobby. It is a project I want to share with other film photographers. Do you have a something you want to share with "Filmdiaries Photozine" that can be educational or interesting for other readers? Maybe a review of an old camera or lens? Your experience, tips and or tricks for shooting, developing or scanning film? Do you have a portfolio or reportage you want to share? A project you are thinking about? If so, submit your article and/or photos and help me, help us, give “Filmdiaries Photozine” a voice on the Internet. It must be related to film photography. Images should not be larger than 2048 pixels wide and in 220ppi JPEG format. Don’t forget to include links and or graphics you want to include in the article. A self-portrait would also be great. Please specify the personal info you want to share with the article. We’ll use only your (full) name and/or your website. We won’t publish any other personal information. We will put together your article, edit anything that may be needed but we will not alter or touch your photos unless it is to make a title image/ graphic. When posted your name will be in the headline title and any links you submit will be in the article. That’s it! We’ll send you an email thanking you for your submission and we’ll try to
tell you in which issue your contribution will find a place. Please note Filmdiaries Photzine does not offer you money for your submission. Also, don’t forget coverage will be limited for some time while we try to get this Photo zine known. Need more information or want to pitch an idea? Email me at stephan.pot@outlook.com
Economies of film cameras
Social media is filled with the unquestioned misconception that film photography is prohibitively expensive. You see it stated in recent writings such as Mason Resnick’s “5 reasons why I am never going back to film,” (https:// petapixel.com/2018/04/05/adorama-angers-film-photographers-with-articleand-stolen-photo/ ). The perception of digital being more economical than film comes from the fact that shooting digital is largely a fixed cost. The initial purchase of a digital camera accounts for a large portion of its lifetime costs, while shooting film requires an ongoing expenditure for film and processing. But if asked, few people could tell you just how expensive it is to shoot film. So, let’s conduct a little thought experiment. Let’s compare the cost of purchasing and shooting two different types of DSLRs, to the cost of getting an equivalent film camera and shooting/developing film in that camera for the typical lifespan of the respective DSLR. Let’s consider two cases. At the high end, a lightly used Canon 5DS, with a 24120 mm zoom lens, costs around $4500 ($2750 for the camera body and $1750 for the zoom lens). The average life span of a camera like the Canon 5DS is between eight to ten years. Let’s assume nine. Let’s add in another $700 to cover expendable costs such as an extra memory card or two, an extra battery, and a sensor cleaning every other year. So, at the high end we are looking at roughly $5200 over a period of nine years. At the low end let’s consider a used cropsensor DSLR such as a Nikon D7100. Such a camera has an average life span of about seven years. The D7100 plus a kit lens, would run you about $700. Add in an extra $500 for an extra battery, an extra memory card or two, and three sensor cleanings over the life span of the camera and shooting the D7100 would run roughly $1200. We will ignore the cost of things like a computer, software like Lightroom, and an inkjet printer, because you might also want these when shooting film. The Canon 5DS is a pro-level, full frame, DSLR with a resolution of just over 50 Mega-pixels. Let’s compare the Canon against a Mamiya 645AF. The Mamiya
645AF is a medium format, auto-focus film camera, that produces a 645 sized negative which can be scanned at a resolution of over 50 MP. A Mamiya 645AF can be purchased on EBAY or KEH, along with a couple of lenses, for as little as $650. While other medium format cameras can be had for less, the Mamiya 645AF is the closest in function to a pro-level full frame DSLR, and therefore a more direct comparison. Now, what about the expendables. I shoot about 50-60 rolls of medium format film a year. That averages to about one roll a week. Unless you are a professional who has regular shooting jobs, 50 rolls of film (800 shots with the 645) should be more than sufficient for a year’s worth of shooting. Today, in the USA, 120 roll film can be had for between $4 to $9 a roll. Let’s pick the midpoint of $6.50 per roll. Fifty rolls would cost $325, or about 40 cents a shot. What about development? I’m able to process those 50 rolls, if they are B&W film, for less than $100 of chemistry per year. C-41 color development costs more. I send mine out to a lab, which offers a bulk rate of $10.20 per roll when processing five or more rolls. Let’s say I shoot and develop an additional ten rolls of C-41 color film. The color film and processing would then cost around $167. Total expendables for a year of shooting film, costs me under $500. This number reflects my style of shooting, “your mileage may vary.” Crunching the numbers, I could buy the Mamiya 645AF and shoot film for just over nine years for the cost of the Canon 5DS. Let me repeat that. For the cost of a top of the line full frame DSLR plus normal operating costs, I could buy a medium format auto-focus camera and shoot brand name film for over nine years. If I cut out the rolls of color film, I could extend that to fourteen years of shooting B&W. Shooting a medium format film camera is therefore comparable in cost to shooting a full frame professional level DSRL. While this can be considered extravagant, it is well within the norm of what many digital shooters spend. Now what about someone who is shooting on a budget. We have already shown that a used Nikon D7100, plus extras, would run you about $1200 for the seven-year, average life span of the camera. Let’s compare that to the cost of shooting B&W film in a 35mm SLR for that same period. A manual SLR with a couple of lenses can be had for under $250. A 100 ft bulk roll of Arista EDU film
runs around $50. A 100 ft roll should give you around eighteen 36-exposure rolls, or about 648 shots. Let’s budget a roll and a half in order to get 972 shots. The chemistry to process those 972 shots would again run you around $100. So, the total cost for a budget shooter’s expendables runs around $175/yr. At $175/ year for film and processing, you could shoot film for nearly five and a half years for the cost of the D7100. That is roughly 75% of the life span of the D7100. Both of these examples show that the cost of shooting film CAN BE roughly the same as buying and maintaining an equivalent DSRL. The key assumption is that you will need to do most of your own film processing. If you send your film to a lab, or mostly shoot color, or shoot significantly more than 1000 images a year, the calculation swings solidly in favor of a digital camera. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think everyone should be shooting film. Digital surpasses film in many instances, such as when shooting active subjects, in low/ natural lighting conditions, and under circumstances where you must be certain that “you got the shot.” And shooting film requires additional work, such as loading and processing the film. But I shoot film because I enjoy the process and it is complementary to my style of making photographs. I enjoy working in the darkroom and I prefer making silver gelatin prints in a darkroom over spending more time in front of a computer and struggling with an inkjet printer. Cost isn’t really a factor in my decision to shoot film, as long as it is affordable. But that is me, not you. Your needs and preferences are going to be different, and it is up to you to figure them out. Just stop telling me that it’s too expensive to shoot film, because I’ve shown here that for how I like to shoot, it’s about the same cost as shooting digital. Author: Donald Stark Websites: https://kellylittleblackdog.wordpress.com/ https://donaldstarkphotography.com/
Internet Photography Titbits You can look at the internet as some kind of living structure. New websites are created or deleted every day. There is no way I can guarantee the links provided her are still active tomorrow, or in a month. I found these articles interesting and like to share them with you. This does not implicate I agree with the content. To visit the link, click on the pictogram. Article title : How Architectural Photographer Marvin Rand Defined Mid-Century California A spectacular new book of his photography serves as a visual index of Modernist landmarks. The story of California Modernism is often dominated by a select few names. But without Marvin Rand, a Los Angeles native who captured California’s architectural history over five decades, the story as we know it could be quite different. Article title: The Turn-of-the-Century Pigeons That Photographed Earth from Above In 1907, just a few years after the Wright brothers lifted off in Kitty Hawk, and while human flight was still being measured in metres and minutes, Dr. Julius Neubronner, a German apothecary, submitted a patent application for a new invention: the pigeon camera. The device was precisely what it sounds like—a small camera fitted with straps and equipped with a timer so that pigeons could carry it and take photos in flight.
Article title: The Photographer Who Captures Life’s Beauty Without Hands or Legs Achmad Zulkarnain is a professional photographer in Indonesia who has been gaining international recognition for creating his images without hands or legs. After being born without hands and legs, Zulkarnain became passionate about photography through shooting ID card portraits for fellow villagers.
Article title: Meet The London Cab Driver Who Takes Incredible Photographs Of The Capital's Landmarks At Dawn It’s on early morning drives before he starts his shift driving a black cab in London that Terry Gibbins sometimes spots the perfect photo opportunity – the still reflections on a stretch of water in the city, or a wisp of fog surrounding a London landmark. Terry often does photo shoots before or after a long day at work, but the flexibility of driving his own taxi means he can also snap a stellar shot during the day, in between fares. Article title: 18 Pictures From History In Extraordinary Color Long before the age of digital cameras and selfies, Kodachrome was the gold standard of color photography, bringing the world from black and white into lush and vibrant color. Article title: The Rolleiflex is Back: Say Hello to the Instant Kamera The legendary Rolleiflex twin-lens reflex camera is back… in a very different style. Rollei today announced the new Rolleiflex Instant Kamera, a TLR instant camera that shoots Fuji Instax Mini film.
Article title: Every single film stock you can buy today – Part 1: ADOX to Dubblefilm Article 1 Adox to Dubblefilm
Article title: Every single film stock you can buy today – Part 2: FILM Ferrania to Hillvale Article 2 Ferrania to Hillvale