Film Photography

Camera Techniques

Shutter Speed

This is the speed at which the mirror inside the camera is open. The shutter speed is measured in seconds and appear as fractions of a second when the denominator is higher this determines how fast the shutter speed is. (I.e. 1/100 would be faster than 1/30).There are setting on the camera which adjust the shutter speed for example the setting ‘B’ on a film camera this allows the shutter to be open as long as you want. The general setting we must use is 1/500 when we are taking images anything less than 1/60 would need a tripod as there may be camera shake. When we have a longer shutter speed it does not work as well in bright light as the images will appear over exposed. Bright light generally works when using a fast shutter speed. Fast shutter speed is affective when you want to achieve different effects. For example to freeze fast movement this could be in the context fast action, football, nature. We think of the shutter speed as a room and how long the curtains in the room are open for.

Aperture

The aperture works together with the shutter speed we think of the aperture as the size of the window. The higher the aperture the more light is let in. It is the size of the lenses. It is fairly confusing when using aperture as the larger the aperture the smaller the number. It controls the light and also the depth of field; this is how much of the image is in focus. It is also important to adjust the ISO when using the aperture but you must adjust the aperture first then the ISO. 

ISO

ISO depends on how sensitive the camera or in a film camera the type of film, is to the available light. This affects the quality of the image the lower the ISO the clearer your image will be the higher the ISO the image will appear to be grainy. The ISO can also help us with the lighting, if we are in a dark place we can increase the ISO and vice versa however this is last resort if you have changed the aperture and the shutter speed and the image still appear dark we then increase the shutter speed. 

Film camera

Enlarger

 Chemical Process

Thomas Wedgewood

Thomas is famously known for his photograms, he loved to experiment with different chemicals to create glaze colours by this process. This is when he discovered how to use fix in order to develop photographs. In this process he discovered part of the development process, but was not successful in the sense of creating permanent photographs, but his hard work contributed to discovery and the revelation of creating permanent images. 

Stages: DSFW

Development     1-2 minutes
Stop bath       30 seconds
Fix                    3 minutes
Water               2-5 minutes

Film Shoot

I took a film shoot experimenting with the film camera I then enlarged my images and developed them using the chemicals. It is important to develop your images in order for them permanent .If you do not process your images correctly the image may start to fade. I had to focus my own images as generally on a film camera you have to do so. It is also important to get the exposure right some of my images where over exposed and other not barley exposed at all.

I had two attempts with this image in the dark room to expose my film to the right exposure. The second pictures is slightly under exposed the pictures appears to be fairly light and the detail in the image is not visible this is due to the focus either when photographing the image or when exposing my image when using the enlarger. I had exposed the image for 5 seconds with the setting on a dim light. I then  increased the time I had exposed it for and this darken the picture I exposed 

the images for 9 second which improved the image.