I Still Shoot Film

May 3rd, 2011

Black-and-White Tips and Techniques for Darkroom Enthusiasts

This is a fabulous guide from Kodak (almost as fabulous as my Beginner’s Guide to Film Photography) for improving your darkroom technique. It covers basics like achieving proper negative density and avoiding kinks in your film when developing, along with facts and tips about fogging and how to avoid it.

It also covers test strips, mixing and storing chemicals the push process in depth; using variable contrast paper; and the differences, benefits and drawbacks of RC and fiber papers. There’s even a section on hand-coloring your black and white prints (which I can quickly state from experience always works better on fiber paper). Here’s a direct link to download the PDF: Kodak’s Black-and-White Tips and Techniques for Darkroom Enthusiasts

March 18th, 2010

The Negative by Ansel Adams PDF

Follow up to The Camera, this book was also required reading for all of my photography classes. Explains everything you could ever want to know about film. Also great for beginners.

March 18th, 2010

The Camera by Ansel Adams PDF

Every single person who asked where is a good place for beginners to start: READ THIS BOOK. It was required reading for every photography class I ever took, including at college. It explains shutter speed, aperture, depth of field, optics, different types of shutters, how your camera works in general, and virtually everything else you need or want to know about a manual film camera.

This is a PDF, but I highly recommend buying this book if you are seriously into photography.