Analogue Photography

June 13, 2019

Analogue Photography

Analogue, roll or film photography, also known as traditional or chemical photography, is how the traditional photographic process is described, which does not use digital methods to produce images, in comparison to digital photography, most recent appearance.

I will now talk about the technical side of this type of photography:

Photographic film and image acquisition

This is a physical-chemical process that involves the use of a active photosensitive material, applied on glass plates or on a flexible film of translucent material (now plastic), and its stabilisation (development), for the acquisition and processing of the images.

Photographic images are obtained using a medium known as photographic film or film reels that are exposed to light. That light depends of the exposure with which we are going to work, the higher the ISO os the reel, the more light it will give us, which means that we can shoot very dark objects in very dark places and still get the necessary light, as in the case of 6400 ISO film. On the other hand, if we are going to take pictures of the surface of the sun, we should use a very low ISO such as 25 ISO.

This amount is called EV (Exposure Value) and to obtain a correct EV, the cameras have a diaphragm and a shutter. It can be explain comparing the eyes with a camera:

Diaphragm: the iris of the eye. If you open more or less, you can see a determined amount of light.
Shutter: is the eyelid of the eye. The more time you have it open, the more incidence of light is on the film.
Camera lens: is the lens of the eye. Focuses the objects so that they come out sharp.
Film: is the retina. Where images are formed and remain permanently until the film is developed.

The required EV is measured by an exposure meter.

The development

There are two basic steps: developing and fixing. The image obtained has its light values inverted with respect to the original capture, which is why the treated film is known as negative.

Positing is the process by which the light values are inverted again, by enlargement or contact, resulting in a "positive".

In the case of the following images, instead of making copies of the image on paper or on another film, they were transferred to a computer using a specific scanner and then developed with Photoshop.

ORIGINAL