Why is my college teaching me using film cameras?
I have signed up to the BETEC HNC Photography cource but was slightly surprised how the college is still teaching darkroom processing, they have also specified that a 35mm film camera is essential for the cource and a digital is ‘reccommended’ for reference purposes.
I understand that photography is more than just point and shoot but surely teaching ‘dying techniques’ as apposed to digital is not cost effective?? Im also worried that my new skills will not be useful. Can anyone help??
Firstly, you should always understand that there will be a time when either,
a. You find that your digital camera’s battery runs out, so it’s also a good idea to carry a camera which uses film, a 35mm SLR being the smallest useful format.
b. Need or want to use a very long exposure time.
The fact that you worried about learning what you call ‘Dying’ techniques, is understandable but I’m sure that you will soon realise that shooting on film and printing on a quality paper, especially for B/W, (I’d recommend Fibre based paper), has a distinct quality that you just can’t find or get from a digitally produced print.
When I first started, we made and used pin-hole cameras, which seemed pointless. However, after a lot of time and a lot of over exposed paper negatives, I achieved some interesting results.
In my opinion every type of media, negative, transparency and digital has it’s place and uses. There will come a time which you’ll have no choice but to use whichever one is to hand. Better to know about and be able to work with them all.
You may find yourself creating a piece of work by combining digital and film. [:)]
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