When I was home over Thanksgiving I found some rolls of my past Fathers unshot film on his shelf - Kodakcolor 200, expired of course, as it was dated 2004.

And the idea of shooting this film came upon me. At first I thought how nutty - and then the idea started to simmer a bit - and I became “film curious” again.

The last time I shot film was at ISU for an intro photo class. It was quite the pain in the ass to say the least - but I slogged thru and worked the challenges. Developing the B/W rolls was the easy part - but the most difficult was the printing in a communal setting. I didn’t like that very much.

So - I dug out the FM-2, motordrive and 50mm f1.4.

“The Medium is the Message” — Marshall McLuhan.

Aside from the most obvious difference, the film, Autofocus is the most game changing function of today’s systems. AF was introduced on the Nikon pro side with the F4 - although some F3’s had a cobbed together system, it has allowed my technique to become abbreviated with a better outcome.

It would be difficult for me to use a non-AF system and still be relevant.

The shooting experience was about the same with the caveat that one must be able to trust their equipment as there is no “chimping”. Development was a crap shoot - as it was done at the local grocery store but as luck would have it there is a nationally known lab close to SLC in Orem called theFind (Film Is Not Dead) - go figure.

This isn’t a cheap endeavor though - not counting the film, development was $12 - and at a theFind that would be about $22.

All in all it was an interesting experience - and I would be really interested in shooting Ilford Delta 3200 on an F5. Until then I may just do this on the FM-2.