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ALL ABOUT FILMIn the last of a three-part extract from Chris Gatcum’s new book
Mastering Film Photography, he looks at the all-important question of
exposing film to light, and explains how to get the best possible results.
E
xposure is fundamental to
photography whether you’re
shooting film or recording to
a memory card. On the face
of it, exposure is the same
straightforward concept for
both: it’s about getting the right amount
of light to strike the recording medium for
an appropriate amount of time to create
an image. However, this is one of the areas
where there is a surprising divergence
between the two technologies. When it
comes to determining how much light is
needed and for how long – and the ways in
which this can be adjusted – shooting film
requires a slightly different approach to
digital capture. Even if you are fully proficient
shooting digitally there can be numerous
pitfalls and challenges to circumvent.One of the biggest differences between
shooting with a digital camera and using
film is time, not in the sense that you
need more or less of it, but in terms of
technological development. Today, even the
simplest digital SLR or mirrorless camera
has exposure systems that eclipse those
found on many film cameras. Such is their
proficiency that modern digital cameras can
increasingly be relied on to make critical
decisions for you and – more often than not- deliver pixel-perfect results. Even when
the camera gets a little confused it still
provides a histogram to help you get things
back on track: ‘blinkies’ to warn of clipped
highlights and, as a last resort, an image
played back within seconds on the rear
LCD screen to confirm you have actually
nailed the shot.
Even the most sophisticated film camera
lacks these tools, so the first thing you need
to appreciate when it comes to exposing
film is that you are effectively shooting
blind. It’s not just the digital crutches that
you lose, either, with the ISO determined
by the film that you load, your exposure
options are limited to aperture and shutter
speed. This can often mean that you find
yourself using much slower shutter speeds
or wider apertures in low light conditions
(especially with low ISO film) or shooting
with very small apertures in bright sunlight
because you loaded your camera with
medium-speed film.
A side effect of this is that other
aspects of photography also become more
important: if you’re forced to use a wide
aperture, the depth of field in your imageBelow Exposure on film is no different to exposure with a digital camera: you simply don’t have as
many ways of checking if you’ve got it right, so have to rely a little more on your own skills and experience.© Chris Gatcum