Emulate Film Photography on your Digital Camera

In today's world of digital cameras where everything is instant and perfect, going back to old-school film photography might seem strange. But have you ever considered why bother with film-style photos when digital is so easy?

Well, shooting with film makes you slow down and think more about each shot. You can't take a million pictures and pick the best one later. With film, every shot counts, so you learn to be more careful and thoughtful about what you're photographing. This will make you a better photographer in the long run.

Today, I'll show you a method that you can use to emulate film photography with your digital camera. Even if you don't own an old film camera, you can still try what it would be like to own and use one.

Camera Settings

1. Format Your SD Card - The first thing you need to do is limit your shooting capacity to just 36 frames… or 24 if you're feeling hardcore. You can do this by formatting your SD card to the size of 36 photos.

   Don't worry, it's super easy! First, let's check how much space one JPG photo takes up in your camera. Yes, we'll be shooting JPGs to minimize our latitude in editing later. So, switch the format in your camera to JPG only, and take a single well-exposed photo, possibly in daylight. To get an estimate of how much space you'll need for 36/24 similar photos, plug your camera into your computer and check the filesize of this photo. Then, multiply the filesize by 36 or 24.

   To format your SD card on Windows, open the Disk Management app, find your SD card drive letter, and create a new volume with your desired size. Once you're done, plug the SD card back into your camera and check whether it shows around 36/24 photos remaining. If it's too far off, you might need to adjust your SD card size. It can be a bit of trial and error, but nothing too serious.

   Side note to those whose cameras have 2 memory card slots, you can turn off simultaneous writing, one will do fine.

2. Single-Shot Mode - Set your camera to single-shot drive mode. With film cameras burst-shooting isn't an option, so we'll stick to single frames.

3. Set a Fix ISO - ISO determines the sensitivity of your image sensor and can be adjusted at any time. Unlike in film photography, where ISO is a fixed value that cannot be changed. Set your ISO to a fixed value and avoid changing it while shooting.

   For a sunny day, ISO 100 is a great option, but if you want to emulate the look of high-ISO film like ISO 800, you can work around its constraints by stopping down.

4. Turn Off Your Monitor - On MILC cameras, turn off your monitor in your camera settings and only use your EVF to emulate the experience of using a film camera. If you're using a DSLR camera, avoid using Live View when out shooting.

5. Turn Off Auto-Review Image - Refrain from using Auto-Review Image as it is the biggest difference in shooting film compared to digital. With film, you can't see the photo you've just taken at a glance. To work around this in your digital camera, you can turn off the automatic image review in your playback settings.

6. Use Manual Focus - Most old film camera lenses don't have autofocus electronics built into them, so we can further immerse our film shooting experience by turning off Autofocus in our cameras, and using the focus ring on our lens to manually focus every shot.

   On MILC cameras, don't forget to turn off any autofocus helper functions such as Focus Peaking, Focus Magnification, and MF Assist.

7. Black and White - For MILC users, here's a tip: you can simulate shooting black and white film by selecting black and white in your Creative Style or similarly named setting.

Tips For When Out Shooting

1. Be Mindful With Each Shot - The essence of shooting film is that we should be intentional with each photo we take. Every time you place your finger on the shutter button, ask yourself, is this a photo I want to take? Remember, you only have 36/24 clicks for the entire day!

2. Expose Correctly - This is more a tip for DSLR shooters: always check your exposure meter before taking a shot to avoid under- or overexposing your photos. Remember, there's no live view to help you out here.

3. No Chimping! - It's very important to not look at each photo after you've taken it. The beauty of film photography lies in the anticipation of seeing your photos once the film is developed.

Try Film-Like Editing in Post

1. Add Color Grading - Experiment with different colors in Color Grading. You can try emulating film stocks if you know any, or just play around with colors. Try adding a subtle yellow to the Shadows to bring out those Kodak Portra vibes. Experiment with different Hues in the Midtones and Highlights as well to create your own unique look. No need to go overboard though, subtles values will do the trick.

2. Crush Your Blacks - To make your image more film-like, try increasing the black point using the Basic Settings or the Tone Curve. This will make the black colors less deep and reduce overall image contrast. If you want to add some contrast back, you can lower the Shadows slider or increase the Contrast slider.

3. Remove Sharpening - To achieve a softer and more filmic look, reduce the sharpening to zero. We don't need any digital oversharpening on our "film" photos.

4. Add Grain - There's no such thing as enough grain in a photo, so don't forget to add some noise to your images to really bring out the analog vibes.

Reset Your Camera Settings When Done!

When done with this excercise, be sure to reset your camera settings to your working settings. You can go through the above list once again, but the following settings are the most important to revert.

• Reformat your SD card to its maximum size
• Switch back to shooting RAW