I enjoy shooting film as well as digital. My battered old Ricoh KR-10 super with its taped up pentaprism housing has served me well, was my introduction to photography and is still going. Recently, whilst looking for a medium format film camera (more on that another time) it was clear that most were meterless or would likely have unreliable meters based on their age. No matter I decided, I would just use my digital or 35mm film camera to meter instead, even my little Fujifilm X10 so that I dont have to carry more kit than I really need. This led me to the realisation that digital cameras are really the polaroids of the day with regard to film. At around £2 to press the shutter on the medium format camera (and about 70p for the 35mm), it made sense to use a digital camera to check the exposure AND the image to see whether it was likely to come out as I was visualising it. Of course, its not like a polaroid back in that you are not using exactly the same exposure and lens set up and therefore the depth of field within the image will be quite different, but it still serves the purpose of checking out the image to gain greater confidence that its worth pressing the shutter, or at least until I gain the confidence to predict this better.

Interesting how the new technology helps the old but in this context, substitutes for the old technology whilst trying to serve the same purpose. All that time, technology, development and money, when all I’m doing is recreating the old ways. The irony appeals.