I was bored this past weekend, so I decided to go out on photo trip. I took my 35mm SLR film camera and loaded it with a BW Tmax100 roll. I headed down South and visited the San Juan Capistrano Mission. I thought it would be suiting to take pictures in BW since that place is ancient. Also, I read online that one can “push” his or her film to suit the lighting conditions.

I used a tripod with this shot, the composition isn’t there, and it’s crooked.

A Tmax100 film is usually very clean. The grains are superbly fine, it’s almost hard to see. But, I wanted to see what would happen if I took my pics at 400 ISO. So, from 100 to 400 is two clicks up. This means that if I developed the film normally, all the images would come very underexposed, but if I extended the developing time (depending on how far one pushes), then my pictures should come out crisp and contrasty, but with grains.

This was the shot of the day.

The pictures came out fairly good, in terms of getting the right exposures. But, I need to work on my composition. I’ve been spoiled by the immediate results in a DSLR, that I barely think too much about my compositons. If it looks like crap, then I just simply reshoot. But, not with film cameras. Everything is set-up in my head first before I click the shutter.

I was disappointed with the depth of field, it wasn’t shallow enough. There were pictures that I wanted the background to be very blurry, but it didn’t come out that way. The problem with not blurrying it all the way is that, sometimes, it can look like a mistake.

Overall, it was a fun day. Taking pictures out in the sun is a good stress reliever for me. It helps me forget about the mundaneness of daily life. It can be costly, but it’s worth it. At least this time, the negatives came out fine.

Click Here to see the rest of the photos from that day.

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