How shooting film will improve your photography (part 2)

This is the second blog post in a series of five in which I will share the for me five best reasons why I will continue to use my film cameras. Reasons, for which I recommend that you also should consider picking up one of those older cameras, a roll of film, and giving it a try; and why it actually will improve your photography. Look here for the first post in this series.

My second great reason for shooting film after the break.

You need to know your photography theory

As I mentioned in the first post on this topic, most of the older film cameras do not have any auto mode settings. You all have to do it yourself: transporting the film to the next frame and cocking the shutter, setting the shutter time, choosing the aperture, focusing, and of course taking the picture.

Since you have to change settings manually, you really need to know what you are doing: why for example are you choosing a specific aperture, or specific shutter time. You also can not switch film sensitivity between shots (some medium format cameras, however, have changeable film backs, which do allow you to actually use films with different ISO values). Yes, even before you go out to take pictures you need to think about what kind of images you want to capture. Is it very light outside, or dark? Do you need to freeze motion, or do you want to blur motion? To answer these questions and make the right decisions for the pictures you want to achieve, you need to know a bit more about photography and light theory than when working with a fully automatic digital camera that can adjust ISO settings 'on the go'.

The next post in this series will explain why for some shots film just is better.