A Burgeoning Film Discovery 🎞️

Earlier this month, Tae was featured in a post by Biggs Camera about his journey with film photography whilst displaying some of the shots he got with his film cameras. Biggs is a local camera store in Charlotte, founded in 1959. They sell all types of new and used camera equipment ranging in price, they can also develop film for you. Definitely check them out if you haven’t already. Everyone is very knowledgeable and would love to assist you, beginner or veteran. 

Check out the instagram post on Tae’s journey, here and keep reading to hear a bit more detail on his film enlightenment journey. 

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Tae first picked up a film camera in April of this year after being inspired by New York photographers who mainly shot film. He’s been a digital photographer since 2023 but has taken to using a film camera recently very quickly since CLT Shooters Studios started selling them. After some research and further help from other film photographers, he bought his first film camera, the Olympus 35 RC that came out in1970. Once he saw the film scans from that camera he was instantly hooked. With the Olympus 35 RC camera, Tae discovered there were different styles of film cameras, additionally, that his light-meter was broken which then prompted him to learn and understand more about light metering.

Since then, Tae has managed to buy three other film cameras from various places ranging in type and style such as point & shoot or rangefinders, which differ in how you view, focus and capture your subjects. His second purchase (and favorite film camera to use), was the Pentax K100 released in 1976. It’s his primary film camera of choice. It's strictly manual and the design, technicalities, and image quality are what spoke to him as a top contender. Fun fact: what also drew Tae to this camera was that it was used by photography students in the late 1970s-1990s to learn photography fundamentals (how cool!).

While learning to shoot film, one is also learning what film stocks are best to use for your camera. Certain stocks can range in color and the amount of grain displayed which sounds kind of fun trying out different film stocks and being eager to see what the photo looks like. Tae learned that the ISO (the camers setting that causes grain) can cause limitations with the subject and environment depending on which film stock you use, so he’s had to be careful with the type of film stock he purchases. His discovered favorite is the Kodak Gold 200 since it has warm tones, is cheap, and accessible. The only con mentioned is that since the rebirth of film photography in the mainstream, prices have spiked which can be a deterrent. 

Quote from Tae: 

“There’s something fascinating about technology that’s limited compared to today’s cameras. While cameras are simply tools for the creative, I strongly believe film photography encourages you to push your creative vision even further because of its limitations. In fact, that’s one of the main reasons I got into film photography."”

@_taeinfinite

Written by Carmen Cummings (@naturalescenes)