Film without the faff

Film photography is booming, but even if you prefer to shoot digital, you can still get the classic analogue look. Will Cheung shows how to make your digital shots look truly ‘emulsional’

- Will Cheung

Add zest to your mono conversions

In dull conditions, you had to work hard to get a good shot in the wet darkroom. Retrieving bad weather shots is much easier in digital

Castlerigg Stone Circle, just outside Keswick in the Lake District, is a popular photo spot. Turn up there on a nice morning and you will often find several photographers exploring its many angles. On this occasion, the weather was dreadful with persistent rain, gusting wind and heavy cloud, and it was no surprise that I had the place to myself.

This picture was taken on a Pentax 645Z medium format camera fitted with a 28-45mm f/4ED AW SR lens at 28mm. A meter reading without any filter was 1/30sec at f/8 and ISO 400, but I wanted some movement in the sky so I fitted a 10EV ND filter, and that made the exposure 30sec, long enough for the fast-moving clouds to blur nicely.

Keeping the camera steady for a 30- second exposure in such conditions was going to be a challenge. So when I was ready to shoot, I stood to one side and as close as I dared, to shield the lens front from the rain and wind with my body. That worked remarkably well considering the conditions and also I could keep an eye on the filter in case any raindrops landed.

The biggest challenge in bad weather is keeping the lens free of raindrops. I wasn’t too concerned about the camera because of its weatherproofing, but water on the lens or filters gives smudgy pictures and droplets can be sharp enough not to be easily cloned out in Photoshop.