color film | Howard Owens

Pachuco on the Porch with Mums

Once I started shooting film again with my 40+ year old Nikkormat camera I realized something — for all of the years I actively used the camera, I was only shooting black and white. I was shooting black and white because I was shooting for newspapers.

At some point, somewhere I read that one of the advantages of film is that film is inherently sharper (all things considered) than digital.

So a couple of weeks ago I purchased a roll of Kodak Ektar 100 film, 36 exposures, and whenever possible, made pictures with the Nikkormat.

Here are the results — 15 publishable photos.

I do think they are sharper than what I’ve been able to get with digital, though at the resolutions possible through a web browser, that may not be obvious.

I certainly love the tone and warmth of the colors.

From here, with winter coming on especially, I’ll probably be shooting black and white for a while.

My wish is that I could afford to buy another or two (or find at a really good price) Nikon film cameras, so I can load both black and white and color film (one in each camera) and use the appropriate option for the appropriate shot. Some day.