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Comment by null_object | Hacker News Reader

Hope this doesn't come across as pretentious, but if you carry a film camera with you on your travels it really helps in two ways:

1. You will be more parsimonious with your choice of subjects (avoiding the ‘twenty-seven almost identical captures of this landmark’ problem when browsing your images afterwards)

2. You are more ‘in the moment’ as a film camera doesn’t allow you to get lost in instantly reviewing your captures, instead of actually looking around and interacting with your companions and surroundings.

PS: ought to add that unfortunately our dystopian present has almost sabotaged this, as CT-scanners will destroy all your images if your film is passed through them by a misguided airport official.

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This has nothing to do with film, and everything to do with your habits. It is 100% possible to have those behaviors with a digital camera.

Agreed. I put thought into the photo that I'm taking so that one or two is sufficient to capture what I want, and I have image review disabled so I rarely see the image afterwards. I do occasionally check it manually if I'm not sure that I nailed what I was after, but that's not a regular occurrence.

Or even a phone, for that matter!

But in practice it's way more difficult. Adding a physical impediment helps you develop better habits. At least for me and my weak willpower.

100% what I came here to say. My film camera restricts me from checking each photo instantly, keeps other people from checking each photo ("Show me! Do I look good in that? Take another one") or from sharing online.

As an added bonus, I get to relive my trip a few weeks later when I get my films back from the lab.

I have to add that I don't think any of my films were ever destroyed by an airport scanner.

>I have to add that I don't think any of my films were ever destroyed by an airport scanner.

That is a bit of a myth these days. Modern airport hand luggage scanners are safe up to ISO 800 or so. And from my experience airport staff is very willing to hand-check high ISO film (did an intercontinental trip with T-Max 3200 once and had no issue getting it hand-checked in 4 different countries - it probably helped that I separated out only the 3200 film and got all others scanned regularly)

I hear there's new CT machines which may cause issues, but apparently the staff is well aware of this and they should be labeled.

I like high grain images, but I also wonder if it's kind of a fad?

The ability of modern digital cameras to shoot essentially unlimited photos might not be without its drawbacks, but being able to shoot low grain images practically in the dark is pretty cool.

I'd like to add:

3. You usually end up with prints of all your photos after getting the film developed. It's really nice going through them on paper and you can put them in a photo album.

One thing I found was that when you arrange your shots like that there's quite a few shots that you didn't like initially but end up growing onto, especially when juxtaposed with other photos.

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