Overexposure latitude or: how to cheat your way to perfect film photography
Film photography doesn’t need to be difficult, in fact in many ways I think it can be much easier than digital. I’ve had a few people ask me recently how I have the guts to shoot film commercially. I’ve got to a stage where even the question seems alien to me, it’s just photography, I’ve been doing it professionally for nearly a decade. But then I remember, if you’d asked me about the idea of specifically shooting film professionally as little as 18 months ago, I’d probably have looked a little more worried. 18 months on I now find it no more of a challenge to get consistent results from film than I do from digital. If there is one thing I’ve learned in the last 2 years – one thing that has taken me from being worried about working as a film photographer, to being completely comfortable and confident in my work – it would be how to properly expose negative film. Actually, let me rephrase that, if there is one thing I have learned it would be how to overexpose negative film.
