First Film Roll – Taipei On Kodak Gold

4 min read

Hello world! As this is my first post, I thought I’d start at the beginning. Sometime in August 2021 I was in Taiwan for a business trip. After 14 days quarantine, I was eager to walk around, as I usually do, but this time I had a destination. I headed to the famous “camera street” in Taipei – Bao’ai road in the Zhongzheng district (中正區博愛路). It’s walking distance from Taipei main station, so that made it convenient to get to.

I had been interested in photography for as far as I could remember, but could not afford a “proper” camera until I started working after university. I started with an entry level DSLR, learned all the features (read the manual too 😅) and moved on to a more mid-tier DSLR. I enjoyed shooting, but also editing my photos. I am an engineer at heart, so learning all the technical details about a piece of equipment is what makes me excited. After a few years with the DSLR, shooting during my holidays, hikes, etc, the “spark” was just not there anymore. My camera felt bulky and I just stopped taking it with me. I had started thinking about trying film for a while, but just never really got around to it….

This was my purpose, walking to the camera street in Taipei – I was determined to buy my first film camera! As any photography geek would probably not be so open to admit, new gear is always exciting (and maybe sometimes gear gets too much attention as opposed to actual picture taking). I had been researching a few options, I even had read about medium format and some obscure film format called 120 (just 120, not 120mm? 😁), but for now I had my eyes set on a Nikon F3 HP.

Since it was pandemic times, the streets and shops were not so lively. To my luck, the first shop I saw had exactly what I was looking for, on display! I thought I’d check out a few other shops, but eventually I came back to the first one. The shopkeepers were really friendly and helpful – I got a couple of rolls of film from them too. Shout out to 佑昌相機專門店.

And this is how my film photography journey began!

The next day I went back to the area, and started my first film photography walk. To be honest, after getting my scans back, it was a bit underwhelming – the sharpness and clarity you get with a modern mid-range SLR or better is difficult to be beat with film (at first glance), but it was more about sharpness or specs. The analog process really does feel different, however cliché this sounds. My main reason for trying, and continuing to shoot film is that I’m forced to slow down and think. For all general purpose photography I rather use my phone (I’m only shooting for myself), but when I want to be focused on the photography process, I prefer film. I was tired of going through 500 shots per location with my digital camera – I am now more deliberate and I definitely get more good shots per shoot (although I don’t think my composition skills are that great).

Talking about scanning – you come up against the capabilities of the scanner, the film stock you picked, and the optics you put in front of that film. This is a much more indirect way of getting the picture information digitized and therefore more sources of error (noise or optical aberrations). This is one of the reasons for trying to go to a fully analog process (darkroom printing), but that’s a story for another post.

Taipei Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall

Taipei main station

All of the technical talk aside, I was quite happy with the first shots I got. I’d like to focus less on the gear and more on technique – the gear should just be a tool to help you achieve a task. At this point I had no reference for how different film stocks looked, but I liked Kodak Gold’s warm feel.

Tainan streets