Blowouts, Blurs, Grain, And Flaws That Remain

You'd think that with continuous use, you'd obtain mastery of something. While that is true in many cases, it isn't so for my film photography endeavor. That van that gives away free coffee is in town so I dropped by and had a few good pictures along the way.

Free Coffee! This is among my better shots in the roll. Cool van in a cool place on a lovely Sunday!

The more I use it, the more I encountered less than ideal situations and in turn- less than stellar results. Some turn out grainy, but still acceptable. Being white balanced to daylight means unintended color tinge on the output when shot on other light sources.

Selection of beans to choose from.

Beans to choose from! The barista there mentioned that the beans are locally grown. Buying here helps the local farmers.

Classic Car, and Coffee! Two cool things you see today.

Pick up after your dog. Don't ruin the place for everyone else.

This dude doesn't use a thermometer. That's experience and mastery right there for you. He makes great latte.

Manual focus means you don't always get your subject in focus. The combination of low light and low ISO (just doing ISO 200 on this roll.) means compromising by slowing down the shutter speed or having to open up the aperture, and both immensely to blur.

Coffee evening at Starbucks. Practically everyone is looking at a mobile device. Weird, right?

Blurred! Low light means you'd have some difficulty focusing. I took a guesstimate and got this. I'm off about half a meter.

Botched sunset. Lesson learned - try to avoid overexposing as much as you can.
Lovely sunset looked washed out now.

Photographing baristas indoors. The lights are a different shade of white from sunny outdoors.
Film doesn't do auto white balance, hence this result.

Grainy low light. This was shot underexposed. No, I didn't correct this digitally.
Doing so defeats the purpose of shooting film.

Ready to pour. I had to slow down to get more light. ISO200 is challenging to shoot with indoors.

Focusing is a tad challenging too. He kindly posed for me but I still missed the focus.
The blur in film doesn't look as bad as in digital though.

PEACE! I also missed the focus here. I recall I was shooting wide open, hence the blur due to the focus I easily missed.

These folks were having a lovely time, and she spotted me composing. This wasn't tack-sharp, but still a keeper for me.

With good lighting, I can go to more forgiving settings,
and good results are easier to obtain.

In real life though, my sight is kind of like this when I'm out in public. Faces can be blurred but I recognize them anyway.

... Then again if I wanted the sharpness, I would've went for digital. Hooray for the imperfection!

I think it's something one can learn from. Overcome challenges here, skills and habits acquired can help take better pictures. And also, it's a rare kind of journey especially in this day and age.

I'm actually having fun with this. I dare say a bit more fun than digital. It's kind of like shooting with an Instax... In hard mode. With a bigger output. Film is not dead. The day it dies will be the day after I shot every single roll of them... It's still very much alive. It offers a kind of suspense and delayed gratification that digital photography doesn't offer out of the box.

Anyhow, more pictures to come. Also, follow me Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, Flickr, and Instagram. Yes, I'm kind of all over the place. Don't hesitate to share your thoughts on the comments as well. Until then, don't let the fear of getting lost deter you from going out to wander! :)