BUDGET ANALOGUE PHOTOGRAPHY
Film expert Mike Craw ford shares his advice on how to keep costs down when it comes to analogue photography
Photography can certainly be an expensive pastime, considering the price of top-of-the-range dequipment. Analogue photography might also appear to be a costly pursuit, given the additional expense of buying film, processing, scanning and printing, though I would perhaps argue this does not have to be so. I took up photography in the 1970s with a cheap Zenit SLR, eventually progressing to moreadvanced cameras as finances allowed, but over the years I think I will have spent more money on film than equipment.
Perhaps one of the biggest economies we can make is simply resisting the temptation to photograph everything of interest; and to take a more considered approach. Knowing that every developed frame has a cost attached helps me to be more judgemental before pressing the shutter, though once engaged with a subject or location, I will then use as much film as I feel necessary. However, there are further possibilities for cutting the cost of film photography.
Colour or black and white? Not so long ago, it was possible to buy 35mm Agfa colour film at discount stores for £1 a roll. Today, there are no budget colour films available, with premium Kodak and Fuji films costing between £15 to £20 for 35mm, and over £15 for 120 film. A cheaper alternative is Kodak Gold 200, which retails for around £9 for 36 exposures when bought in packs of three.
Compared to the amount of black & white I use, I have never shot a lot of colour images, but when required, Gold 200 has always been my preferred choice. In 2022 Kodak released a Professional version in 120, available in packs of five for less than £40, making it a more economical choice for medium format. While not quite as fine-grained as Portra 160, it is still an excellent, very popular, general-purpose film.
