film!

For quite some time, I've been wanting to get back into film.

My ideal setup would include a nice medium-format camera, which I would use as an alternative to my DSLR for "final", higher-end work. Work out the particulars of the exposure and composition with the DSLR, and then transfer the exposure info to the film camera, and fire a few more frames.

I have every intention of doing this some day, but my budget doesn't really allow for this system - yet.
In the meantime, I've been satisfying my film cravings by using my dad's old SLRs. I currently have his old F3, and have my eyes on his F4 next.

Not long ago, I was in a local grocery store, and while I was on the checkout line, I spotted a row of these little cameras hanging right next to the magazines and the gum:

See that price tag? That's right. $2.99. I figured "at that price, why the hell not?". So I bought one, and after opening it up when I got home, I found that it was obviously a re-packaged disposable camera. Here's what it looked like after I took off the cheesy paper wrapping:

So I carried that little guy around for a week or so, just shooting random things, half-expecting that none of it would come out.
To my surprise, everything worked out. You can browse some of the fruits of this little guy here.

Satisfied with these results, I decided to kick things up a notch, and purchased myself a Holga. I'm relatively inexperienced with medium-format film, so I figured this would be a nice intro to the medium (har har).

Getting the 35mm film processed and scanned (with no prints) from Walgreens or Duane Reade costs about $5. They're obviously not the highest-quality scans, but they're fine for sharing and "seeing what you got". I figure somewhere down the line, I'll pick up a film scanner for myself, and be able to do full-rez scanning if/when I ever need to.

Getting the Holga film processed (but not scanned) also goes for about $5, which isn't bad. I still need to look into the most convenient and cost-effective way to handle this, as I know there are a lot of folks out there doing this already. If anyone has any suggestions, please feel free to share.

Anyway, I decided to keep this trend going for a while, so for the time being, I should have at least one film camera on me at all times. Keep an eye on this set for my progress.