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Purchasing Film & Care

Lesson 11 from: Introduction to Film Photography

Sandra Coan

Purchasing Film & Care

Lesson 11 from: Introduction to Film Photography

Sandra Coan

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Lesson Info

11. Purchasing Film & Care

Lesson Info

Purchasing Film & Care

This is the question I get all the time: "Where do you buy your film? Where do you get it?" And I'm lucky enough to live in Seattle and we have an amazing camera store, Glazer's and they have a fantastic assortment of film. So if you are in Seattle watching, studio audience, you can go to Glazer's and get all your film needs taken care of. I always tell people if you do live in a town that has a big camera store, talk to them first. Give them a call, see if they carry film, see if they'd start carrying film. Like I said earlier in the beginning of this day, film really is on the rise. More people are shooting it and so that's good for us because the more people shoot it, the more people ask their local camera stores, the more we're gonna see it in the store. And I like buying it at a store locally because you know it's gonna be taken care of. Film doesn't like to be in the heat, you don't ever want it exposed to high temperatures and when you're ordering it online and it's shipping, yo...

u just don't know what kind of environment it's been in. When it's in a store, when it's coming from a supplier, you know that it has been properly handled and they're storing it properly, and that's really important to me. So if you are in a city that has a nice camera store, call your camera store, see if they order it or if they have it or if they could order it for you first. If you can't do that, you can still buy your film online. There are places you can get it, BNH, Amazon and all those places where you can order in film, which is great. If you're shooting consumer-grade film and we're gonna talk about that in just a few minutes, consumer-grade film, actually this is a consumer-grade film, is like a Fuji Superia or a Kodak Gold or one of these films that you could actually just buy at the drug store. So if you wanna just start on something that's not maybe as expensive as the professional-grade film, you can go to the drug store, see what they have and get those. So once your film comes in, say you do order it online or you go into your camera store and you buy your film, it's important that you store it properly. Like I said, film doesn't want to be heated, it doesn't wanna be exposed to a lot of heat. So you wanna keep it in kind of a cool, dark place. I keep mine in my refrigerator. I have a crisper drawer at home that is dedicated to film. (laughs) And I have an entire refrigerator at my studio. That is where I keep my film. So I recommend that, keeping it there. And then take it out about a half hour or so before you shoot with it so it has time to come up to room temperature before putting it in your camera. Once you have your film and storage, you've been shooting with it, the other question I get all the time is like, "Then what? What do you do with your negatives?" Alright? And this is, the struggle is real with this one because you end up with a lot of negatives. So there's a couple systems. With my studio negatives, I've gone through everything you could possible imagine. I've tried binders, putting them in binders, keeping them with the file names, storing them in like a safe, like a fireproof safe and all that, but you guys, I shoot so much that it just got out of hand. So now what I do, if you are doing this for your job, is when my clients buy their digital files and most of them do, I include the negatives and I include a little thing on this is how you care for your negatives, store 'em some place cool and dry. Not in your refrigerator, necessarily, but definitely somewhere out of direct heat and moisture. Keep 'em just in a nice, safe place. And so to do that, I actually for home, have found these little storage boxes. You can get them at like a craft store or you can order 'em on BNH. But they're acid-free little boxes and I ordered some of these handy-dandy little folders, file folders, that are made just for negatives. And then what I do is I can store my negative in the folder and then I write on the outside what it is. So it's an easy way for me to find it. So these are all my family photos. And I know I can just grab it if I ever wanted to re-scan these images again, or if I wanna print off of them, they're easy to find, they're marked and I know that they're taken care of. And then I just keep these on a shelf in our basement our of direct sun and cool. You could put them in a fire safe (stammers), a fireproof safe. I was trying to say a fire-safe proof, which wasn't working. But a fireproof safe if you really wanted to make sure they were safe, but I just keep mine on a shelf out of the sun.

Class Materials

Bonus Materials with Purchase

Discount Codes from Richard Photo Lab
Studio Gear List
Great Photo Labs
Black & White Film Stock Exposure Tests
Color Film Stock Exposure Tests
Noritsu Frontier Comparison

Ratings and Reviews

a Creativelive Student
 

Sandra is a gifted teacher!!! I've been following her work for years and know what an incredible photographer she is - but to be able to teach the way she does is truly a rare gift! I've been shooting film on and off for years and was amazed at how much I could still learn from Sandra's class. She presented the information in a way that was so easy to follow that you couldn't wait to get started. It's wonderful to learn from someone who is clearly passionate about their craft - but who is also excited for others to succeed at what they're teaching.

pinkparakeets
 

Amy could not have said it better in her review of this class! I am also a film shooter (have been shooting film personally for 8 years and professionally for 4) and even as someone who understands a lot of what Sandra was talking about, I STILL found this class to be incredibly helpful and learned a lot. Sandra is such a great teacher and an inspiration to so many film photographers. Great class! Thanks Sandra and Creative Live for putting this together for us.

Amy
 

Sandra is not only an insanely talented photographer but she's a gifted teacher. I've been shooting film for weddings and portraits for 5 years and even studied it in photography school so I'm not new to film by any means. But I've allowed myself to be so intimated to create portraits with film using strobes for far too long. But not anymore. I'll be 100% honest when I say that the information she teaches in this course, to a seasoned COMMERCIAL photographer mind you, may be insanely simple. But that's the beauty of it!!! There is no reason to over complicate shooting film with strobes. It's the simplicity and straight forward, clear as day information that Sandra teaches that's essential to rejuvenate today's overly 'tech obsessed' world. Film is alive and well! Sandra's course is gold when it comes to getting that appreciation for our craft back! I'm jazzed and ready to slow my roll down! Thank you, Sandra and CL! The value of this class is far more than that of the strobe kit I finally invested in (HOURS after the class!). : )

Student Work

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