Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Film and my Olympus Pen

For something different, after almost a decade of shooting digital, I thought I'd try using film again. Inspired by the re-release of the Olympus Pen, I bought one of the original film versions, the EES-2.

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The Pen series gets twice the value from a roll of film, as it takes two photos per 35mm frame. This gives a default portrait orientation of the camera and is a different aspect ratio to look at.

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My first roll of film covered a work trip through Vietnam, a trip to Sydney, the Blue Mountains and time spent wandering through Melbourne. It was agonising not knowing if the camera worked or not. I was very excited to finally receive the prints.

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I learnt a few lessons with using this camera. Firstly, pay attention to focus. There is no visual indication of focus, but rather a manual dial around the lens. I need to remember to change this more often, as the lens has a shallow depth of field in most conditions and I took lots of blurry photos.

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Secondly, I learnt to take more time with each exposure. This is the big win for my photography. The requirement is of pre-visualising the photo; the final you may not see for weeks yet. This led me to think quite carefully before taking a shot. Hopefully it leads to better photos.

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Finally, to have fun. Shooting within the constraints of an automatic, manually focusing film camera was liberating. The technology is fixed (in the 60's), so a good photo is the result of good photography. Now back to practising!

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