Shooting college gigs and bike events; I used 35mm, the way that's now common with digital; buying bulk-lengths and self loading, would see me usually have around 20 rolls of film on hand most of the time...
I recall at a Family christening, in the early 90's, my cousin/dad's best mate at school, spotted the amo-belt of film canisters in the top of my camera bag, about six, I think, and quipped "I bet all but one of them are empty, you just put the empty cans in for effect, didn't you?" He was 'old-skool', and had a very old Spot-matic ISTR he was very proud of, having worked all summer between O & A levels to afford it, and as an Archaeologist, took it with him every where, for, by then I guess twenty years, taking photo's of hills and churches and 'stuff' like that; Considered himself a fairly 'keen' photographer, and enjoyed that he had cause to take photos for his work, and boasted he used about one film a month! (Average photographer of the era used less than two films a year!) He opened the can's and saw that there were five exposed rolls inside, so added "Oh! So you are saving up to have them developed then!" I told him to lift the camera cushion and look beneath.... that's where I keep the unexposed rolls, and he found a dozen of them! "WHAT!" he explained "You wont use all them in a YEAR!".. half of them were gone by the end of the day! Lol! Yup, spray and pray! Mia Culpa.
Bulk-Loading 'cheap' Croatian slide or B&W Kitchen sinking, I think that Boots Colour-Print was about three rolls for a fiver, D&P on 'economy' another fiver a roll; so about 30p a frame; I think a 30m roll of E6 cost me about £20, and the Chemicals to kitchen sink it, about the same, so 20 rolls for £20 film anther £20 Develop, worked out at under 5p a frame, so I could afford to shoot six frames for the same money, and not have to fret whether a subject was worth an exposure....
Now? Gong back through the archive, trying to scan it all to widgetal; YES, it is one fairly hefty regret that I took so many photo's on well.. crap film.... most often whilst I am waiting for another strip to scan, and when I look at what I get, thinking "WHAT on earth was I thinking of taking THAT!" (Still do when I clear down an SD card, actually!) Just SO many photo's to go through; and so many of them utterly meaningless, useless of plain duff. It's only when I come across the odd 'one', those little gems; often of long lost relatives or ow grown up children, and I think "That's a nice shot... IF ONLY...." But... actually... If I'd been eeking out the film, I probably wouldn't even have them... whilst the 'practice' meant that actually, making the most of the materials I could afford, and getting a lot of materials and a lot of practice, eve those shots, often aren't all that bad, and few would be THAT much 'better' were they shot on better film......
Moral of the Story?
Medium Format has NEVER been cheap...... 'although'..... the Zies Ikonta mentioned earlier was actually that cousin just mentioned's, Dad's camera; bequeathed to me after he died. As a 'spotter' during the war he learned his photo craft in the forces, and it was an old argument he and my Grandad oft had, over that 'old antique' compared to my Grandad's 35mm Kodak Retinette, which allowed him to shoot 36 pictures at a time, and in colour! (oooh!); where Uncle John, would counter, "Yeah, but I only NEED 8 shots... if I make em count... and I can take them home, and contact print them in the kitchen window and have them in the Album by Sunday lunch time.... you'll still be waiting to finish that film in a years time, then have it sat on the mantle-piece for another until you send it off to be developed.. and in three Christmases you might get the projector out for any-one to look at them!" (Which was more than a little true! I actually used a slide dupe lens and some rather cheap pre-paid D&P film fro ASDA to go through and make prints of all his old slides, in the early 90's and my Gran actually commented that she'd never even seen most of them before! Lol) Which is an exception to prove the rule; some more discerning folk, of old did shoot 120, as it worked out 'more economical'. not having film to 'waste', and exploiting B&W and possibly home dev to eek it out, rather than using Tru-Print; But on the whole, t has NEVER been particularly 'cheap'.
35mm? Has ALWAYS bee a 'cheap' compromise. The smaller format, being common to movie film, provided an economy of scale that made it more affordable; a point my Grandad with his slides always used to remark upon; And? For most, it offered an image quality that was more than adequate for most purposes. It became the defacto choice for journalism; even fashion magazines, where even 'feature' photo's were seldom going to be reproduced larger than A4, and IQ lost in commercial media printing.
Uncle John's Ikonta... absolutely fantastic bit of 1940's hardware; 'Precision German Engineering!" As I would hear both he and Granddad offer in defense of their cameras! And that Ziess, CAN deliver truly astounding IQ.. most of t utterly wasted by Uncle John, who never made anything larger than a contact print from it.....
Now? Digtised for digital display & distribution?... similar suggestion could be made.... scanning and threshold clipping will render the fantastic tonality you could get with film rather redundant; big negs may offer a lot of image to get very high Mpic count from a moderate scanning DPi.. but a heck of a lot of that is 'wasted' in display, where even the best monitors are not going to show more than maybe 4Mpix worth.. you will likely only ever get to see the advantage if you make large scale conventional prints.
Now; back in the mid 90's, a few did try and sway me to Medium-Format; particularly college photo, where the ubiquitous Lubtel 166 was the normal 'start' point; &I was actually offered a Hassy 500c, for relative peanuts, and had the loan of t for a week on approval. I actually took that out and did some landscape and architectural with it back to back with my OM4 and my XA2, all loaded with illford B&W. Developed, and printed, I couldn't start to find any meaningful improvement from the MF neg, until I was looking at tiny sectional crops of the neg, printed 10x8 and looked at under a lupe! So I gave it back! I really couldn't justify the cost.. not of the camera, I think he only wanted £50 for that and the lens! But the film! Even though I home processed. Fantastic camera; but largely wasted on me.
Which begs some thought; here and ow n the 21st Century; great as 120 may be; as fantastic as the cameras may be; and wonderful as the images can get.... is it really worth it? Is it 'helping' you, any if at all? Is it holding you back?
The cameras now, are incredibly 'cheap' comparatively, but film and processing isn't. Will say I was inspired by a Bailey comment in the late 80's, when he commented on how much people will spend on a camera, to be loath to buy film for it, and suggested folk should turn that around; buy cheaper camera and spend more on film. Which was sort of advice I heeded. There's a lot of merit in the discipline and diligence that MF can instill, by way of more involved, fully manual camera, often even lacking TTL metering, slowing you down, making you more considerate and making the most of your frames... but, you don't get photo's by worrying whether or not to press the shutter button; you don't learn by mistakes you don't make; and you don't get the 'practice' or experience, if you DON'T do.. Here 35mm really can score, and really an help, and IF you aren't wasting quality you never get to see, is it any great loss?
And moving on from being a camera operator, exploiting commercial D&P, to taking charge of the process DIY, developing & Printing and or scanning; its a NEW art to master; would it be worth parking the 120 roll films for commercial D&P when you can afford it, and going out with what you have leaned as a shooter with MF, with a more manual 35mm film camera, and a fixed lens; and shooting that, expressly for practice to home develop? Three times the number of frames, in half the chemicals, with film that's perhaps half the price? You could afford to bracket as a matter of course, and shoot three frames instead of one, and STILL not be incing over the cost ad learn even more along the way as a shooter, in scene assessment and metering by eye.
Which is all merely 'musings' for you to ponder.... but a step back to 35mm, to 'practice' metering by eye; using f16-sunny, and shooting stuff to practice kitchen sinking; rather than trying to do that with 120, having bee stung by the costs of it, may be the easier way forwards... .
As said, scanning my back archive of 35mm is frustrating; and coming across so much that is essentially little more than 'practice pieces', of little or no merit or interest to any-one, even me, now.. I would baulk at having to take that many photo's and spend the sort of money to do it on 120, and pay that premium to do so, to have so little to actually show for it along the way, just to acquire the skill-set... which is a slight sidestep alternative view point and query of how much is the picture worth, and how much the pleasure of making it?
but it is a very straightforward tutorial.
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