hey I'm still new to APUG

hey everyone

I just registered with APUG yesterday and I'm still getting used to it. Lately i've been developing a big interest for film photography and everything to do with it. I only use a digital compact camera at the moment because I don't have money to invest in a darkroom and i want to get a 35mm film camera but i really don't know what type to get. For the most part i'm still 80% clueless about knowing how to set up a darkroom, and I'm not even sure what exposures and apertures to use for film cameras as i'm still too used to setting everything on digital and that may vary from digital to film cameras.

Any starting out advice in film photography will be greatly appreciated! Thanks

Shypii90

For really basic advice try The Photo School at www.rogerandfrances.com; go to (surprise!) Basics in The Photo School. Basics (and plenty more) are entirely free; there are paid-for bits as well but there's also a great deal of free stuff. You'll also find Welcome to Film, for example, and Our Darkrooms, and more.

Where in Malta are you? I lived there for 4 years as a boy in the 50s; my brother has dual Maltese/British nationality because he was born there; and it's one of my favourite places in the whole world. I even speak about 15 words of Maltese, though my favourite words are the ones I'm still trying to learn to pronounce, like dqiq; I can do a tolerable job with qaqocc and I always call courgettes qara baghli (sorry, no Maltese diacritical marks).

Cheers,

Roger

Shypii90, welcome from Hawaii. I would second Roger's recommendation - he has a wealth of information there to help.

Hello and welcome from NYC.

Try asking around of friends and family and you'll probably turn up a 35mm camera you can borrow. With the rush to digi a lot of good 35mm film gear has been relegated to closets and attics. It's just waiting to be re-discovered!

thanks!

cheers for the replies and welcomes ppl!

copake_ham, i'll be lucky if i even find digital cameras around in my family! hahaha... my family are barely interested in photography even when it comes to social snapshots :S

Thanks a lot Roger, i'll be on that site as soon as possible. I need these beginner stuff, i know it sounds stupid but i'm very limited on resources.

I'm in Mellieha, in the North part, near Ghadira beach. In the 50s it must have been a somewhat developing country , it only developed in the last 4 decades properly. Yeah we tease all foreign people to try and say "dqiq" ...sorry about that.. and yeah u got the other words right

At the moment there's not much to photograph though because it's summer season and here in summer it's so dry there are just degraded soil fields and the lighting is very harsh until about october. And everythings just light brown and dead when it comes to nature . I'll try though! ^_^

thanks again for the welcomes ppl

Shypii90 said:

At the moment there's not much to photograph though because it's summer season and here in summer it's so dry there are just degraded soil fields and the lighting is very harsh until about october. And everythings just light brown and dead when it comes to nature . I'll try though! ^_^

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Try interiors. Take the ferry to Gozo (it's not far from you, after all) and try the Folklore Museum in the Citadella (fast film needed), or the mill at Xaghra, or troglodytic houses out towards the coast (tripod needed). Or go to Clapham Junction for the troglodyte caves there. Or Ghar Hassan. Or any of the summer festas. Or any evening shots. Even photograph the tourists -- someone has to. Consider IR: Malta in IR is amazing. Go to 'Galleries' on www.rogerandfrances.com, then 'old galleries', then 'Malta'. There's not a lot there, and the quality isn't as good as later pages, but there are some ideas you might find interesting.

Cheers,

Roger

You're right, i'll keep these suggestions in mind when I get a film camera and a car to liberally drive around anywhere I please

Thanks for the help, I really appreciate it.
I really have a lot to learn when it comes to film! ^_^
Thanks again,

Shypii90

Shypii90 said:

You're right, i'll keep these suggestions in mind when I get a film camera and a car to liberally drive around anywhere I please

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Ah... m'ghandi l-ebda flus (remembered from almost 50 years ago as 'mandix flus' but checked with Kelmet il-Malti).

Cheers,

R.