SLR film cameras allow you to freely change lenses and manually control the parts of the exposure triangle
Point-and-shoots might be better in cases where you value shooting quickly vs. customization
You generally want to take your time and value âcreatively correctâ exposures with SLR film cameras
Private secondhand markets (eBay) are the best places to find deals on film cameras, but you need to be doubly sure that the camera works before purchasing
35mm film have 2 defining characteristics: style and price
Kodak Gold 200 is a good cheap-ish colored film for beginners
Main caveat being that itâs ISO 200, which means that it needs more light and requires slower shutter speeds/wider apertures
Make sure that you only open the back of your camera when loading and removing
Film is light-sensitive, so any time you expose your roll to light, expect to see some internal damage after developing it
When shooting digital, itâs often advantageous to under-expose, but you want to correctly or slight over-expose. your shots with film
This is because in film photography, details are easier to recover from highlights
Shooting film is difficult because there isnât that instant feedback loop that comes with a DSLR
That is, you often only find out about mistakes when you get results back from a lab
And even then, itâs difficult to diagnose what caused it b/c you donât have a record of your exposure settings for each shot (unless you keep one, which is tedious)
Metering is taking an exposure reading of something, which tells you what settings you need to use to get to middle-gray (mid tones)
When youâre shooting at something like the Sun (which we call a highlight because itâs lightly colored), you donât want to optimize for middle-gray and can do with some under-exposure from the meterâs reading
In other words, youâre overcompensating for what you want the scene to actually look like; we wouldnât want mid-gray in this case, and instead something more vibrant
But when you want your âshadowsâ (darker parts of your image) to be visible, you need to expose more than what the meter tells you
Called âexposing for the shadowsâ - with the obvious side effect that your highlights may get blown out
If you want to shoot in artificial light (Tungsten) environments, normal film wonât work - you probably want to use a Tungsten balance film