Author name: Mike Hannon

I got into film photography shooting a nifty fifty on an Olympus OM body while I was on holiday. I don’t think I even had a battery for the meter. But according to Kirk Mastin’s sage advice I wouldn’t even need one if I shot everything at f4, 1/125 on 400 film in good light. True to his word, the shots were perfect and I fell in love with film. Admittedly, this was partly due to the focal length. I liked 50mm because on the one hand it seemed so versatile (step back a bit for an environmental shot, move a bit closer for a portrait) and on the other hand I found the process of framing compositions at that shooting distance to be especially satisfying. Another part of the love affair was the tactile pleasure of the camera itself, the clunk, click and clack of a metal body SLR: how it felt and how it sounded. And then there was the fear and excitement of knowing that gears, levers and springs were shifting and rearranging with each flick of the winder and each push of the shutter release, letting in light and burning an image on the film inside.