I decided a while ago that I'd get myself a real camera to shoot 35mm film. Before that I'd been shooting with a point-and-shoot Primax camera I basically inherited from my mom. Funny thing is, in her day this was the only way to capture photos. Nowadays everyone has a phone in their pocket with ten times the resolution and definitely more room than 36 exposures. Yet people still go back to analog for the feel.
Every photo is important. You get 36 (or 24) chances to capture the moment, and you only see it all at once after development.
Anyway, my girlfriend and I have always loved film photography. We approached it with the simplest mindset — just taking photos of us, our friends, our adventures. I digitized all of those photos and kept them stored for the future.
That unconditional love for film eventually led me to my first real film camera: the Minolta X-700. Absolute beast. I did my research on Reddit, and everyone claimed it was the best beginner camera if you wanted to get into film photography.
I found a listing on my local marketplace for €100. Figured, why not — it looked pretty good in the photos, and even better in person. The previous owner claimed it worked; I had no clue what I was buying or even how to check. It looked good from the outside, so I bought it. The guy even had film inside — jackpot. I rushed through that roll with random shots, just to see the quality, and decided to use a more premium scanner than my usual place.
A quick detour: foto.sk
I need to talk about the development shop I usually go to. It's called foto.sk, and it's the goofiest-looking shop I've ever seen. Film photography is having a real moment right now, and it shows — most places I've visited to develop film charge pretty hefty prices. But foto.sk is still holding onto prices from the 2000s, and the place looks the part too. Just an old-school glass shopfront. You walk in and the counter is some communist-era glass-and-wood display case where you can see rolls of film from the 1970s under the glass. A sweet old lady rings you up, takes your film, and hands you a slip of paper to write your email on. A few days later your film's developed and the photos land on some temporary cloud host. Downside: their scanner quality doesn't match the newer places.
Sidebar over. I went to the premium shop this time — why not, I'd bought a premium camera. The days of point-and-shoot were over. Waited two days, checking my email daily for the results.
Results came in — and as you can see from the cover shot and the photos attached, everything is underexposed.
I have no idea what happened. Went straight to the forums, even made my own post on r/AnalogCommunity. People there were mostly friendly, but fair warning — every community has its diehards, and film photography is no exception. Got some solid advice on how to actually operate the camera.
I'm already halfway through another roll on this camera — currently Fuji 400, and for the first 10 shots I had it set to 200 ISO. My bad. I'm honestly scared to see how that roll turns out once it's developed.
I'll shoot the rest with more caution: new batteries in, try the automatic Program mode first, then some shots in Aperture Priority, then full manual, to try and pinpoint the problem. After that, if the camera really is broken — people are guessing shutter issues, i.e. shutter capping — I'll need to talk to the previous owner. Fingers crossed.