I’ve been crafting an eBay listing today. They’re having one of those ‘no insertion fee’ weekends, so I decided to exploit it by selling the above ‘job lot’ of cameras. The one in the bottom middle is my favourite out of the bunch – a LOMO SMENA 8M. I’ve had some pretty interesting results with that camera over the years (see my shots taken with this camera here). The film cameras I’m not selling is where it’s at though, for me. As well as my LC-A, the film cameras I’m hanging onto are my Grandad’s old Voigtländer, a new (to me) Olympus OM10 and a Lomo Fish Eye. We’ve got a Polaroid and a box brownie kicking about somewhere as well. I think that’s it anyway. Film cameras have had a habit of cropping up for me this year though, like the old 126 that unearthed itself with film that last saw the light of day on a family holiday around 1980.

I’ve got the idea in my mind that I’m going to spend all (if any) money I make from this sale, on film for my keepers. I’ve spent a large part of today trawling the interwebs for the stuff. I do this thing where I find some film then I spend ages looking at examples of it on flickr. The alchemy of film is so different to digital. Every film has it’s own character. Even different batches of the same film can be different. Other known change factors like how out of date the film is, the temperature it was stored at, if it was pushed or pulled in development, over or under exposure when it was shot – etc etc – the list goes on. You can never use the flickr comparison as an accurate gauge, but you can use it to get the overall impression of a type of film. Some films are punchy, contrasty, Disney colour things, whilst others are subtle, washed out delicate things. Some have distinctly blue and purple casts, others go pinky red. There’s typically a huge random factor with film, and that’s one of the reasons I love it. I find it fascinating.

I’m particularly interested in Colour infra-red though at the moment – it’s hard to find though as it’s not made any more. It is the Holy Grail of film and I’d love to give it a whirl as it does some incredible things – especially to leaf greens – as this set by kgartner beautifully illustrates.

I guess the price I get for the cameras, as well as the luck of the draw (ie, what films are for sale on eBay that week) will dictate more. the choice of film I go with. Ever more random factor. Nice.

If you’re interested in the above collection – have a look at my eBay listing.