Perhaps not quite a decade has passed since I last had a roll of film developed. Such is the easy lure of digital imaging, I suppose. Still, it didn’t take me long to get used to not looking at the back of the camera for an image review. It’s as though I was quietly slipping back to the old film camera habits and movements of my childhood. The slowness of photographic practice demanded by the Nikon F80 on this day – taking in the scene and the light – matched the eerie end of the earth silence of the town of Iron Knob.
I said to a friend that the Nikon F80, made in the year 2000 at the end of the mainstream film era as digital was fast taking hold, feels every bit Nikonian. What I mean is that for someone used to handling and holding modern Nikon cameras, the F80 feels ever so familiar – the button placements make sense, the hand grip is deep and comfortable, and the working philosophy is the result of decades of Nikon engineering and knowledge. The sleek, black Nikon Z5 digital camera was nestled next to it in my bag, looking like it had come from a different century, but the two share the same DNA.
The Kodak Ultramax film I’d loaded had expired some years ago, so I used the ISO function of the camera to fool the exposure system and set it to treat the loaded film as 200 speed ~ slower than the box rating of 400. Doing this slows the shutter speed down and allows more light to hit expired film that’s less sensitive due to age related degradation.
Iron Knob was established in 1915 and was the birthplace of the Australian steel industry ~ something I didn’t know and a fact that certainly surprised me. I’d seen the town on maps over many years and had developed a curiosity, but hadn’t had the chance to visit until recently. As it happens, I was also testing the F80 for use at our daughter’s upcoming 21st, and it seemed a good idea to load some batteries and run film through it.
The Iron Monarch mine looms over the town, forming a red and dusty backdrop. When the Hematite poured from the earth, the town thrived and was no doubt filled with macho banter, drinking, and the dirt-filled sweat of hot days. You can still see those halcyon days in the closed roads where Keep Out signs warn travellers – wider than would seem appropriate for the minimal traffic in town today – barely recognisable bitumen strips that are crumbling and lead nowhere, flanked by corrugated iron homes that may or may not be inhabited. The only food takeaway shop in town is closed – old faded stickers in the window advertise Chiko Rolls ~ that most Australian of junk food icons. The sign on the door says that the shop is temporarily closed, but it seems to have been there a long time.
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Excellent, moody photos! I have never used a film camera and have been an amateur photographer for a long time. 🤭 Thanks for following my blog!
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Thanks John. No problem. I have a lot of film cameras, but this one is nice because it feels modern and offers good control. I think I’ll be running more rolls through it.
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Happy clicking!
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I applaud your discipline in cycling through your cameras, something I should do more often. Not sure about running film, but you obviously enjoy it.
Curious: are you exclusively using the F80 at your daughter’s 21st birthday, or in addition to your Z50?
I still have my N8008 (F-801) . . . although I’ve not used it for at least two decades, and I don’t see me likely to run any film through it.
Yes, more care goes into shooting film, but despite the familiarity and tactile pleasure of handling the N8008, I’ve not had the urge to run a roll of film through it. Probably because I got better results from digital right off the bat, using it as a learning tool in a way that film could never match.
I didn’t develop my own film; always sending it out to labs created two disconnects between shooting and looking at the end result. That was eliminated with digital.
Today, I could probably do better with film than I used to, but I don’t have the nostalgic gene. Well, somewhat . . . I still run digital film through my D100 and D200.
But, even my beloved D7500 has now been supplanted by the Z50 II. It will soon join my other cameras, old friends that are still appreciated, but seldom revisited.
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Admittedly, I’ve not used film for some time. The F80 will be used alongside the Z5. Importantly, the use of film was a specific request just for the “film look”, hence my testing it out. The digital will definitely also be there! You’re right, of course, about the much improved feedback learning loop of digital. The F80 makes film kind of a breeze really, but unless prepared to develop your own prints and do all the edits, it offers far less flexibility than the digital workflow. So, there is that disconnect. It is certainly nice for a change of pace and thinking though. Thank you, as always.
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Have you ever tried something like DxO’s FilmPack?
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Yes. I also have Exposure X, which is aimed at film emulation. I use them rarely. Most of my time is spent using digital and having a digital workflow. On this occasion, apart from the fact I was testing the camera for a specific use case, it was just nice to go back to film for an afternoon. I expect to run more film through it, as I have many rolls to use, but I don’t imaging it becoming my default working camera week to week.
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Thank you. I just like to shake it up a bit, I suppose. I never could afford expensive film cameras when I was young, so it’s nice to be able to use them now. Oh, the F80 was there just for a few special portraits. I used the Z5 most of the time, as I thought I would. I’ve yet to have the 800 speed film developed from the event, so the jury is still out. I have a Nikon F301, but the battery compartment is in a real mess due to alkaline battery leakage. So far, my cleanup efforts have yielded no life in the old thing. I agree that digital does speed up the learning curve considerably. Not only that, but it has democratised the hobby, for good or ill, depending on who you are and what skin you have in the game.
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