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Features

3 Reasons Why Spring is the Best Time to Get Out and Shoot Film

Chris Gampat
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03/27/2015
2 Mins read

Chris Gampat The Phoblographer Zeiss 50mm f2.8 touit extra photos (8 of 14)ISO 2001-1000 sec at f - 2.8

Here in the NorthEast of the USA, spring is in the air. With spring comes lots of new opportunities to go out there and take photos of everything around you, but in particular, spring is an excellent time for you to go out there and shoot photos with film. Why shoot film? Because film photography forces you to sit there and get everything perfectly right in the camera before you press the shutter. You’ll make decisions that you never thought of before like how highlights are affecting the scene, how dark the shadows are, and what the colors will look like. It will also force you to do things like spot metering and figuring out the right exposure that you want–not what the camera is telling you.

Here are some great reasons to get out there and shoot film this Spring.

The Chances of Natural Diffused Light are Best

Chris Gampat The Phoblographer Sony A6000 review images (3 of 37)ISO 1001-250 sec at f - 1.8

If you’re going to go out and shoot with a format that isn’t as forgiving as digital is, then it will only be advantageous if you shoot in an environment where you’re least likely to mess up. When shooting outside, it can be tough to photograph a scene with both strong shadows and strong highlights unless you are purposely going for a specific look. Spring, however, provides you with a very low contrast scene due to all the cloud coverage, and therefore your exposures will overall be more even.

With naturally diffused light, you can set your exposures in a way that give you beautiful shadowless images due to the soft, diffused light. What you’ll learn by shooting on film is overall mastery of exposures.

Colors

Pro Tip: the latest emulsions of Kodak Portra were designed to be scanned. We recommend Portra 400 more than almost anything else out there.
Pro Tip: the latest emulsions of Kodak Portra were designed to be scanned. We recommend Portra 400 more than almost anything else out there.

Like the fall (autumn), spring is where you’ll encounter so many different colors. This is one of the few times where you see pinks, whites, purples and other colors that are completely different from the rest of the seasons. You’ll not only see this on flowers but people will also begin to wear brighter colors, too.

Shooting in the spring also gives you a great exercise to learn how to compose scenes by colors in addition to the original rules of composition. When it comes to shooting film, we recommend Portra 400 for portraits and Ektar 100 for everything else.

Temperature

Chris-Gampat-The-Phoblographer-Fujifilm-Instant-100C-of-Brandon-1-of-1-680x536

Besides the fact that it’s getting warmer out and you can enjoy the warmer weather, we’re specifically talking about temperature here as it relates to Instant film. If you’re shooting in large (and medium) formats, then you’ll be working with Peel Apart film and its development will depend on the temperature.

Ever try shooting with color Instant film in the cold? It takes forever to develop and sometimes even needs an accessory to help keep it warm and closer to your body. But when the weather is warmer, you can have as much fun as you want.

ektar film instant film Photography portra shadows
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Chris Gampat is the Editor in Chief, Founder, and Publisher of the Phoblographer. He provides oversight to all of the daily tasks, including editorial, administrative, and advertising work. Chris's editorial work includes not only editing and scheduling articles but also writing them himself. He's the author of various product guides, educational pieces, product reviews, and interviews with photographers. He's fascinated by how photographers create, considering the fact that he's legally blind./ HIGHLIGHTS: Chris used to work in Men's lifestyle and tech. He's a veteran technology writer, editor, and reviewer with more than 15 years experience. He's also a Photographer that has had his share of bylines and viral projects like "Secret Order of the Slice." PAST BYLINES: Gear Patrol, PC Mag, Geek.com, Digital Photo Pro, Resource Magazine, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Finance, IGN, PDN, and others. EXPERIENCE: Chris Gampat began working in tech and art journalism both in 2008. He started at PCMag, Magnum Photos, and Geek.com. He founded the Phoblographer in 2009 after working at places like PDN and Photography Bay. He left his day job as the Social Media Content Developer at B&H Photo in the early 2010s. Since then, he's evolved as a publisher using AI ethically, coming up with ethical ways to bring in affiliate income, and preaching the word of diversity in the photo industry. His background and work has spread to non-profits like American Photographic Arts where he's done work to get photographers various benefits. His skills are in SEO, app development, content planning, ethics management, photography, Wordpress, and other things. EDUCATION: Chris graduated Magna Cum Laude from Adelphi University with a degree in Communications in Journalism in 2009. Since then, he's learned and adapted to various things in the fields of social media, SEO, app development, e-commerce development, HTML, etc. FAVORITE SUBJECT TO PHOTOGRAPH: Chris enjoys creating conceptual work that makes people stare at his photos. But he doesn't get to do much of this because of the high demand of photography content. / BEST PHOTOGRAPHY TIP: Don't do it in post-production when you can do it in-camera.
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