A little bit about the film...

Photographic film has come in a variety of shapes and sizes and although the first flexible photographic roll film did not appear until 1885, thanks to George Eastman, it wasn't until 1889 that the first transparent plastic roll film arrived. Even then this was made from highly flammable nitrocellulose.

However, this is not meant to be a history lesson!

There are several types of film, including; print film which when developed, yields transparent negatives; and, color reversal film which produces positive transparencies, also known as diapositives. Reversal film is often marketed as "slide film".

Film also comes in a range of Film speed which describes a film's threshold sensitivity to light. However, more on that in a later post I think!

I have three particular favourite makes of film, each yielding a very different finish.

• Neopan 100 Acros - achieves the finest granularity for a 100 ISO Black-and-White Film due to Fujifilm's Super Fine-Grain Technology. 
• Lucky SHD 100 - a very cheap black and white film from China which produces some stunning results. 
• Fujifilm Fujichrome 64T - a slide film for use under tungsten lighting. Rich, balanced tone scale and clean, faithful color reproduction.  Excellent for shooting in bright daylight and cross-processing.

Cosmic 35 - The first candidate to run

I love my little Russian Cameras. And the Cosmic 35 is exactly that!

The Cosmic 35, or Smena-8, was a small viewfinder camera made from 1963 to 1971 in Leningrad by Lomo. Made completely of strong plastic this camera has a Triplet lens. The 40mm f./4 glass lens produces great contrast, detail and tones and can be nicely sharp.

The Smena-8 was the camera USSR tried to enter the international market.

I bought mine for the princely sum of £12 from a thrift store and it is in almost mint condition. Included was its original brown leather Lomo case.

Here are the specs of the Cosmic 35:

• Shutter: Leaf, manually cocked 
• Pop-up rewind knob 
• Shutter speeds of 1/15 to 1/250 plus B with synchronizer 
• Lens: T-43 (Triplet) 40mm f/4 
• Aperture: f/4-f/16 
• Focusing ragne: 1m to infinity 
• Hot-shoe 
• Self-timer 
• Film Transport: manual, without double exposure safety.

Planning and preparation...

Recently I've spent quite a bit of time planning and preparing for the next few months.  Initially, I didn't have a great deal of plans or ideas about how I would undertake the idea of using a different film camera each month.  I figured I would just find a camera, load it with film and then get any exposed film developed!  Not so difficult when you already have a good range of cameras and a selection of film to use.  I have two companies I use for developing, depending on what I am processing, and that was pretty much all of my thought process.

However, it was only the other day, whilst getting the blog started, I realised I would need to think about several things.  After all cameras, film and developing have never been an issue.  And, as this is meant to be something of a (re)learning process, I figured I should find some cameras other than those I would ordinarily use.

First some ground rules...

So, being a bit of a process driven person I decided that I should set myself some simple guidelines. Something to provide consistency throughout my endeavors and structure to my works.

12 months.  12 cameras

• Only one camera will be used during any given month as part of the project.
• Cameras will be analogue.
• I will publish all resulting images.

That's it!  After all I do want it to be fun.

A little history...

I have always loved photography and can recall using cameras from a very young age.

My first steps into the medium where with my very own Halina 110 Instamatic.  It featured on many a holiday and school trip and hidden in the depths of our cupboard are many of the resulting photos.  Sadly the camera is lost in the depths of time rather than our storage and I have no recollection of where and when we parted company.

Having both a close family friend and an uncle who were keen amateur photographers only fueled my passion further.  Watching images form on the photographic paper under the dim red tinge of a safelight was magical and something I wanted to learn.

Zenith-11 Ilford FP4 (Film and paper) 

My first "real" camera was a Zenit-11.  A beast of a camera (and considerably heavier in comparison to my plastic Instamatic).  My journey in to the world of SLR had begun.  And, unknowingly, it would also be the beginnings of my love affair with Russian cameras and all things Lomo.

Zenith-11 Ilford FP4 (Film and Paper)

It was something of a love hate relationship between me and my Zenith.  It's tendency to occasionally chew films up on the internal advancement cogs as you rewound an exposed film tested my patience and even my love of photography.  Obviously I stuck it out, otherwise we wouldn't be here and I was shooting on my Zenit well in to my late 20's when it finally ground to a halt and the winding mechanism totally seized up.

For a short period of time I was camera-less.

I then entered the digital age and purchased a simple point and shoot Kodak EasyShare CX4210 with a mighty 2.0MP!  I was quickly hooked again loving the fact that I saw instant results.  No chewed up films!  Who knew?  I eventually progressed to a FujiFilm FinePix S700 Bridging Camera before quickly making my way in to the world of DSLR and purchasing a Canon 450D, something I still shoot with today.

Kodak EasyShare

Kodak EasyShare

Kodak EasyShare

At very much the same time as I was venturing into the digital age I was also introduced to the world of Lomography and all things analogue, specifically the Holga.  I instantly fell in love with the mighty plastic camera and as a result (re)discovered Russian cameras.

For a time I shot a lot of film.  I purchased a lot of cameras.  I experimented!  Running 35mm films through the Holga; converting an old Brownie 127 to shoot 35mm film; building pinhole cameras for the very first time.  Film was back and with a vengeance.  But the simplicity of digital was slowly luring me away from the world of film.

I was never tempted by Instagram.  I was shooting Medium Format film with my Holga at the time and I always felt it was a cheap imitation.  Why fake it when you could do it for real?  But then I discovered EyeEm.  This has been a major draw from the analogue to the digital.  The development and lure of the marketplace and digital simplicity to take, upload and sell my photographic works (past and present) has been a very big draw (and partly the reason that I stalled for a year on the advent of this project).

And this is where you find me.  My Canon 450D is still my DSLR (although I plan to upgrade to a 5D); I use my Samsung Galaxy S5 and have recently purchased a CamKix lens kit for a little more choice; and still my analogue cameras keep reminding me that I need to give them an outing now and again.

So, it's time to start shooting with one of my 12 cameras.....