I need to know if I'm the only person here who has trouble capturing 36 images from a roll of fiñm.
I recently purchased a Pentax Spotmatic SP 500, and I wanted to test it out. All I had im the fridge were rolls of 36 exposures. It's been two weeks now and I can't seem to capture 36 images!!
With my digital equipment I have no issues capturing several dozen images per day, whereas with film it seems to take me forever to fill up one little roll of 36 images.
I ordered a few rolls of 24 exposures to see if that will make it easier for me in future.
Anyone else have trouble finding suffucient things to photograph to fill up a 36 exposure roll of film?
p.s. The lab I use will not cut me any deals or discounts if I shoot less than 36 exposures on a roll, so it would be a waste of money if I shot less than 36 exposures.
The same is true for me. Yesterday and today I actually made a real effort to finish most of the film loaded in various cameras (120 and 35mm), because I discovered earlier this week that my developer is going to expire soon. I’m so used to being careful with film, whereas with digital I’m not.
Must say I loved that tactile feeling of advancing the film, but I also took pictures today that I probably wouldn’t have taken if I hadn’t set out specifically to shoot those rolls. And I still have one roll left in one camera, but in that case I’m suspecting that the camera’s meter or aperture control isn’t functioning properly. I may just take the roll out and see what’s wrong.
I keep a half-frame camera in my pack for snapshots and it can take me several months to get 72 photos; sometimes I use 24-exposure rolls to get 48 if I'm feeling impatient. I'm usually surprised when I develop those rolls as they often include photos I'd completely forgotten about.
One time my lab sent me someone else's scan's by mistake and of course I couldn't resist having a look before I deleted them (I notified the lab and they re-sent them to the right person). That roll of 36 was taken over the course of a pregnancy through the infant's first few days, so it took them at least 9 months to finish it (the first photo was of the positive result of a pregnancy test), and I've talked to people who've had the same roll of film in their camera for more than a year.
I watched a documentary about Kirsten Klein, a great photographer from Denmark, who mentions that she's a frugal person so when she finishes a roll of film she puts it on the shelf until she has enough rolls to max out the capacity of her tank. I don't think I could do that; a finished roll of film just fans the flames of my curiosity and I need to develop it right away so I can see the results.
