A few had some parts of it remain black, for a reason unknown to me. (I thought maybe a light leak, but then it should be white, not black?):
Written by Peter Weilnböck
Published on: 2023-12-26
My first steps into film photography, documented in a few words and some pictures
Recently my parents visited us in Tokyo, and my father brought me his old camera. A Canon A-1, which had gathered dust over the last 30 years. Well, it did not actually gather dust. My father had always taken good care of his cameras, and so it had been well protected in its case. Therefore not literally gathering dust, just figuratively.
In any case, since I had mentioned my blossoming interest in film photography, he immediately said that I could have his old A-1. Of course I was quite enthusiastic about the opportunity. At our visit to Austria this summer, I forgot to pack it (which might have been a good thing, since our luggage was near bursting), but when my parents came this November they managed to make room for it in their baggage allowance.
Quite happily I dragged them to Yodobashi in Shinjuku to buy my first roll of film. Uncharacteristically, I did basically no research at all and bought a roll of Ilford Delta 100. Since I expected to travel with them and therefore shoot some pictures in bright daylight, I thought ISO 100 should be fine.
I had not realised at that point that I had a small stack of ND filters that would have fit on the lens. But the ISO 100 worked out mostly anyways.
So I kept shooting away (sparingly, having the limitation of just 36 pictures in mind) finally finishing the roll on December 19th. I handed the rolls to a lab on December 20th and on December 23rd I got the scans.
And, as expected, there were some troubles with the images.
A few had some parts of it remain black, for a reason unknown to me. (I thought maybe a light leak, but then it should be white, not black?):
On others I simply missed focus, still learning to use the focusing screen. For some I did not adjust the exposure to highlight the important parts, and on others I simply shook the camera too much because of the shutter speed (ISO 100, and no stabilisation):
But, there were also some pictures, that I am actually happy with. Mostly towards the end of the roll:
The Canon A-1 was a joy to use, the operation becoming smoother with usage. And since at least some of the pictures turned out well, I am looking forward to continue to use it.
Looking the camera over, the light seals seem to have dried out quite a bit, so I intend to change them before I load the next roll of film. Still, my enthusiasm for analog photography definitely brightened by the experience so far.
I also want to start developing film on my own (again enabled by my parents, from whom I am getting a Paterson/Ilford starter kit for Christmas). And then, lets see where this journey is taking me.
Tokyo is full of used camera stores with a wealth of vintage lenses. And I am inclined to also try out a fully mechanical camera at some point, since the Canon A-1 is already quite feature rich. To my knowledge, it is the first camera having all the modern shooting modes: PASM.
In total, I am excited to see where those analog adventures are taking me.