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Digital Analog Proxy



The campus where I work has shut down. We had a really great group of darkroom students we were really looking forward to working with before this crazy Pandemic shut us down. I knew some students have dSLRs and was thinking of ways they can learn more about film photography under these unusual times. So here's what I came up with. Set your cameras thusly:

  • Quality: Raw + Jpg
  • Color to B&W
  • Set camera controls to manual
  • Turn off autofocus (plus any other special features you might have like IBIS)
  • Set ISO to 400 (to match our usual HP5 plus film)

Best case scenario is that you have a full frame dSLR (or mirrorless) and a 50mm prime.

The logic here is that you can learn alot (and faster) this way and most things apply directly.

Most meter systems have a match-needle like method similar to any old 35mm SLR. If you screw up substantially exposure wise, you'll see it in your JPG. You can learn how short you can effectively shoot - test 1/60th, 1/30th and how many of your photos have motion blur?

Tonality .... who knows film has some qualities that vary from type to type. But more importantly development methods impart more effect.

Depth of field will be exactly the same if using a full frame DSLR with the same settings.

I've been doing this myself, take a look here:LINK

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