For the love of photography
We love photography, and we’re guessing you do, too. We’re crazy about it for the freedom it gives us to capture and share the world the way we see it, and for so many other reasons.
A new way of thinking
Shooting on film gives us even more—its constraints slow us down, allowing more time to appreciate the world as we pass through it, searching for that decisive moment. We’ve been working on introducing those constraints to digital, and we’re here to share our ideas with you.
Try it on for size
The best way to understand how it works is to try for yourself. Here are some steps we’re taking to enjoy photography the way we used to, without losing any of the convenience of our wondrously modern digital cameras:
Disable auto-preview + preview in monochrome
It takes some getting used to, but allows you to focus on your subject rather than your camera’s LCD (it also helps avoid obsessive chimping).
If your camera supports it when shooting RAW, switching your preview to monochrome allows you to check your composition and lighting from time to time, rather than any other distractions (don’t try this unless you are shooting RAW files, otherwise your final images will be monochrome).
Use manual focus
Focusing manually slows you down, giving you time to consider every shot. While you can switch most modern lenses to manual, using vintage, manual lenses is another excellent approach—you can usually find old lenses and adapters for most dSLR bodies on eBay.
Limit your in-camera storage
Knowing you don’t have all the space in the world is one of the best constraints of shooting rolls of film, and can be easily—and inexpensively—recreated by using smaller CF or SD cards (our virtual “rolls”).
Smaller cards are usually older (and thus slower), so it will also help steer you from shooting frames in rapid bursts.
Process each virtual roll as one film-type
Each batch of 24–36 consecutive images (12-24 for medium format lovers) are post-processed as if they were on the same film stock (this works in concert with the previous step).
Import presets make this easy in Lightroom, ACR, and Aperture, and many film-emulating presets are freely available online:
Lightroom/ACR
Aperture
If the presets aren’t quite what you want, or you prefer to edit in Photoshop, use plugins made by other talented folks: