My Visual Diary: Week 3, Day 2

This morning we had a trip to the Barbican to try shooting in film. Before we went we had to rent out a film camera between 3/4 of us and have a quick induction in the camera. The camera that we used was the K1000. We learnt how to cintrol the focus of lens, how to change the apeture and the shutter speed.

Apeture is:

- depth of field which is how much of the picture is in focus

- the amount of light that hits the film/ censor

- the size of the hole

- apeture occurs on the lens

- f stops - the smaller the number the wider the hole

- the more light the smaller the hole

Shutter speed is:

- the 60th second or faster will freeze motion

- below 60th second will give a pivital motion

- there is a needle on the right hand side of the camera through the eye hole which shows whether the photo will be exposed right. If the needle is at the top then the image will be too over exposed and if the needle is at the bottom then the image will be under exposed but if the needle is fairly straight in the middle then the image should be in correct exposure. You can move the needle by turning the apeture dial.

Some of the notes that we got given for the task were:

- that we had 9 shots each as we were in a group of 4

- to make notes of the shutter speed and the apeture we used on every photo (if we remembered)

- to try frozen movement

- to try captured movement

- to try shallow depth of field

- to try wide depth of field

- to record what number we had on each of the film

We also learnt that when the film is put into the back of the camera it cannot be exposed to light for very long as it will ruin the roll of film. Also once the film has been taken out it needs to be put away into a case as it will keep it safe.

When we got down to the Barbican we all took it in turns to shoot our 9 shots. We also had to shoot digitally with a DSLR camera but I don't own a DSLR so I just used my bridge camera as I didn't want to be having a DSLR camera and a film camera to be carrying around at the same time. I felt that my camera can produce images at a quality which is good and automatically focuses in on some photos just like depth of field.

On my first shot with the film camera I used apeture 22 and shutter speed 500 but I'm not sure whether my photo turned out too over exposed as the needle wasn't moving very well as the battery was running low.

I think some of my images came out well but I won't know for another couple of weeks as were not processing them in the dark for another few weeks.

To remove the film from the camera you have to press a button at the bottom of the camera and turn the dial on the top left hand side on the camera until you hear a clicking noise which should then mean that the film is ready to be removed.

On the other hand to insert the film you have to place the film roll on the left hand side like a battery and then get the spare bit of film and thread it through to the end of the other side of the camera. You then move the lever to tighten the film and when its tightened enough the film is ready to use.