It seems I’ve never posted my film photos from Iceland this summer and now seems like a good time because I’ve just started with a brand new film camera – it’s an elderly SLR so it’s got settings and learning what all of them do is going to be my project for 2024. I say “brand new”. I spied it in the loft while getting the Christmas decorations down. Thought I’d take it down too, see if there was any chance it might work and it seems it does – not that I’ve taken or developed any photos of it yet but it makes all the right clunky clicky noises and now I’m just waiting for a non-mercury modern battery to power the light meter and give me the the best chance of getting anything worthwhile out of it. It’s my grandad’s from the late 60s/early 70s and I’m excited to start using it. (It weighs a ton – with the 135mm long lens, it’s 1.3kg, ten times the weight of the little plastic thing I took to Iceland in the summer.)
Anyway, I took my point-and-click to Iceland this summer and took a few photos and since film photos is apparently a thing I do now, let’s put them here. This is Kodak Gold 200 film, shot on a Kodak M35. I’ve had a look at my previous photos and I think this is possibly the best lot I’ve ever done – the first three rolls I used in Rome and Russia were ancient and expired and I enjoy the weird effects expired film can have but it’s nice to see the colours come out as they should. I don’t know if the Kodak M35 is a “better” (or just if I prefer it) camera to my previous one, the Olympus Trip MD3 that refused to work in February, or if Iceland is just a better subject for film photos than Helsinki because most of these have come out far richer and more textured and just generally look better.
This was the first time it occurred to me that there was a film camera sitting unused in the car and it’s caught the view from my tent over Myvatn on a really hot day pretty well. That blue sky, the texture on the grass, the hint of darkness around the edges, it looks much more atmospheric than its digital equivalent. A good start.
Film camera is really good for taking photos of volcanoes! I just love how much more depth and warmth it gives Askja and Víti than the same pictures taken digitally. The digital version of the bottom one has better sparkle on the water but there’s no depth or definition or colour to the rock in the crater.
The same goes for the Desert of Misdeeds – the graininess really adds to the texture of the lava field. 1000% better than the digital one – the mountains in the distance are kind of hazy but in fairness, you do get lots of detail of the gravel in the car park.
And yet when you get blue sky and blue water, it can give you that holiday feeling. So much more saturated than the digital version – there’s no warmth to the vegetation and the water isn’t nearly as deep blue.
I think this waterfall on the edge of a mountain mass looks amazing on film. The low cloud looks like an error, a light leak maybe, but it’s not. It’s a heavy oppressive cloud blocking out the mountain. The digital version of this is much sharper although similarly saturated and I guess it doesn’t really capture the haziness of the day – that mist hung over the entire day and made it all damp and I think the film version feels more like the day felt.
This is the first picture where I think digital works better. This was the first hint of blue sky after the mountain pass but it looks dark and ominous and hazy and it really isn’t picking up the light on the sea in the same way.
Ah, classic childhood holiday photo with a thumb in it! Yes, again this one didn’t come out so well. Even disregarding the thumb, this is probably the one out of the entire batch that’s closest to a fail.
I think film lends Jökulsárlón a certain sense of… industry? The water is still teal but it’s not as vivid and it doesn’t contrast against the sky so well. But it’s a lot more atmospheric, I think.
What do I make of the film version of the icebergs? I like the texture on the water but again, I want more contrast between water and sky.
Now, this is a holiday photo. Campsite, campervan, blue sky, snowy mountains. Yep, liking the colours and textures here. So much more colour and texture than its digital equivalent.
Skaftafellsjökull and the mountain on the right look great. All the shadows on the left and in the foreground, not so much. I guess the sun is low enough that mountains can block the light in certain areas. Not that it’s dark enough to do that grainy grey-brown film does in low light, it’s still properly dark and clean but the better-lit bits do look better.
Last one, the Pinnacles from Vík. This was the point where my digital camera absolutely refused to work any longer. Again, the light on the sky and the sea and the Pinnacles is great but not so much on the shadowed beach and headland.
So, on the whole, I think I really like this batch. The colours are richer and there’s texture and atmosphere that’s missing from the digital equivalents and I wish I’d remembered I had it with me more often – there are 15 photos here and 9 were taken on the same day. I didn’t even use an entire roll of film! I had to finish it at the Edinburgh Fringe! If I’d thought about it, I could easily have got through a dozen rolls of film! I took 1025 photos, of which 15 were on film! Definitely going to try to do better in 2024.