Film new to film

lucien

Legend
I just ordered a nikon F80, not very familar with film photo.... I picked up 2 rolls of ilford iso 400 mono film . Let's say it a sunny day and I have the 50mm 1.8 on it. Would I use Shutter 180, Aperture f7 and I'm good to go? Or ..... Do I shoot it like digital. I can't no auto iso?


thanks,
 
Sunny 16 rule: Sunny day, use a shutter speed the same as the Film ISO and shoot at F16.

The F80 has a good meter in it. I would use an Automatic mode for learning film exposure. Film is very forgiving compared with digital. But F7 and 1/180th would be at least a 2stop over-exposure on a Sunny day. Set the shutter speed to 1/250th on shutter-preferred auto, and watch the F-Stops that the camera selects. This will give insight on various shooting conditions without being overwhelming.
 
I wouldn't vary ISO unless you really know the film and how you expect it to be processed. If you bought HP5, it's a pretty versatile film and can be processed with a pretty wide range of variance (this is called pushing and pulling film), but the problem is you have to process the whole roll the same way. So no, nothing like auto ISO.

Aperture is one of the most useful changes to make on film. Since the ISO stays the same, and in low light with no stabilization you have to keep the shutter speed above a certain threshold, changing the F-stop is a much more linear thing in film shooting and more of a necessity than just a creative choice.
 
If I was new to film I'd set everything to auto and let the camera take care of things. Aperture priority mode would be the next thing to fiddle with. I burned through a chunk of film on manual/aperture-priority before reading various forums and realising my camera battery choices were affecting my metering (ditto aging selenium meters). The F80 will be pretty good in that regard - modern enough that you don't need to worry about old mercury cells and finding a decent modern match.

I'd focus on composition and getting the shot, then read the manual and experiment with the settings after you've got a feel for the handling & other controls.
 
The film box says 400 iso, and somewhere on petapixels it says to shoot 400 iso at 200 iso. Is that correct advice? And the film didn't have a red marker on it which is called a leader so I pulled out way too much film and had to rewind some of it. Does that mean I've lost 2 or 3 shots? The manual said to look for the red indicator on the film, but there wasn't any. I'm off to work so can't respond til later

thanks,
 
The film box says 400 iso, and somewhere on petapixels it says to shoot 400 iso at 200 iso. Is that correct advice? And the film didn't have a red marker on it which is called a leader so I pulled out way too much film and had to rewind some of it. Does that mean I've lost 2 or 3 shots? The manual said to look for the red indicator on the film, but there wasn't any. I'm off to work so can't respond til later

thanks,
I would shoot at the box ISO speed if you're a beginner with film. Yes you have lost a couple of frames I'm afraid. Not sure what the red mark business is about, as far as I know that only applies to 120 film, not 35mm, and you would look for it through the window on the back of the camera anyway.
 
Most 90's era cameras will auto-load - you really just need to make sure there is enough film for the sprockets to grip onto the take-up spool. When you close the back it'll just pull through and set the counter to '1'. If for some reason there isn't enough to catch on, then the film-counter won't increment and you'll need to pull out a little more or just check its properly seated in the feed-guides.

120 defo has arrows/marks indicating where to stop winding onto the take-up spool - bit more of a manual exercise.
 
Thanks a lot everyone. I've just reset the ISO to 400. I might just go for manual all the way. shoot one over one under and one just right, The goldilocks complex and take it from there. lens on the body is 50mm f1.8 D
I forgot to mention 35mm film, but what does the Nikon F80 take?
 
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