Irreversible Photography (IP) I would define simply as the making a single and final version of a photograph the moment your release the shutter.
Beyond that moment there is nothing extra you add or change about the image, no adjusting, or tweaking, or processing. It’s irreversible.
The only further decision to make is whether it’s worth sharing, or keeping at all.
This is of course not to say IP is a matter of hit and hope, simply taking a snapshot with your camera on fully auto everything zoom program mode and crossing your fingers that every image that results is spectacular.
Like the proverbial infinite room of monkeys recreating the works of Shakespeare, you’d sooner or later produce something you like. But without really having any idea how, or being able to reproduce or take any credit for the decisions that led to this result.
With Irreversible Photography, it’s about shifting when and where you make the fundamental decisions that will result in consistent photographs that you enjoy and can be proud of.
That work doesn’t begin when you release the shutter.
Before that, the work begins with deciding where you’re going to focus the lens, and what your depth of field will be – therefore your aperture.
But before that, the work begins with deciding what to include in the frame, and what to leave out.
But before that, the work begins with deciding which focal length of lens to use that will allow you to include what you want in the frame, for the kind of environments you prefer to work in, and the subjects you most enjoy shooting.
But before that, the work begins with deciding whether you’re shooting in colour or black and white, and how to set up your camera so it outputs an image that you like the look of, and don’t need to spend hours (or even minutes) post processing afterwards.
But before that, the work begins with deciding which camera and lens you will use to make all of the work described above as easy and intuitive as possible.
Though it might seem thoughtless and lazy from the outside to some, Irreversible Photography is in fact a studied, considered and efficient approach.
One that allows us to do the work ahead of time so in those moments of capturing what we find beautiful, we have very little to think about but how to frame and focus.
And the less that’s in our way, the more likely we are to not only get the final images we’re pleased with, but to enjoy ourselves more too.
Irreversible Photography allows us to lose ourselves in that beautiful flow of photography without interruption or irritation.
You know this feeling as well as I do.
Something that is so precious and immersive, yet near impossible to find if we’re having to make a dozen decisions like those above every single time we raise our cameras. Or, if you have too many cameras, before you even pick which one to raise in the first place.
Irreversible Photography is something I’ve been steadily spiralling ever closer to in the last year or so.
With the Pentax Q, I’m pretty much there. The camera is set up just how I want it. Zero post processing is required. I simply decide after which photographs to keep and share, and the rest get culled.
With my Ricohs and Xperia smartphone, there’s one extra step – a simple process with Snapseed that takes a couple of seconds and mostly adds a little contrast.
(I like Hipstamatic too, but Snapseed seems more obvious in how to find and tweak the way you want, and it’s on all devices, not just Apple.)
But even with this additional little processing step, happily I feel I’ve evolved a long way from where I was a couple of years ago – being overwhelmed with decisions at every turn, and compounding the problems even further by continuously buying and trying more and more cameras.
How do you feel about Irreversible Photography, and how close to reaching it are you with your photography?
Please share your thoughts below (and remember to tick the “Notify me of new comments via email” box to follow the conversation).
Thanks for looking. Please share this post with others you feel will enjoy it too. If you’re interested, this is what my photography life looks like right now.
35hunter 
Burning, dodging, and cropping aside, a case can be made that all photography was irreversible, from its invention to the advent of digital.
By the time that a light-sensitive surface was struck by photons, the image was what it was.
I love your four or five “precursor decisions to be made” prior to pushing the button, and to DOF/aperture, framing/composition, focal length, color/B+W, hardware, one might add film type/brand, light control/manipulation, and certain choices of processing chemicals and protocol.
But prior to pixel times, the die had been cast and the stone struck when the shutter blinked: that was it.
The old saw that one must “take responsibility for everything in the frame” was shorthand for saying that there was no substitute for full understanding and mastery of those four or five or six things, the science and the math, if one was to advance beyond snapshots.
I dare say that most people beginning to explore serious photography in the “film days” or entering into BFA/MFA programs had already been taking pictures for most of their lives, albeit of the “you push the button, we’ll do the rest” sort, with simple fixed-focus boxes of limited function.
Photography was and is a lot of work, needing preparatory study and on-the-spot analysis, and had to be “simplified” to make a mass-market of it. Which is why Uncle Fred wasn’t Avedon: talent and originality apart, it was just too much work for the average citizen to capture and use the science.
It’s a quibble now to argue that ‘irreversible photography” is not truly possible with digital because the camera software itself (or rather the software team at FujiSonyNikon) has post-processed the RAW image into a Jpeg and made its own decisions. I think that your approach is about as “authentic” an IP as can be done: mastery and complete familiarity with the device and its unique and innate properties; a considered selection of limits within variables, and working deliberately inside that frame. A zen-state, if you will; kinda like working with the sonnet or haiku.
A liberating discipline within a simplification. Or vice-versa.
(And many thanks, BTW, for the notification “ding” before dawn on the smartphone that alerts to a new post. The UK being six-ish hours ahead, I can shake off sleep and stumble about in preparing coffee and tea and seeing to the cat while pleasantly thinking on a rich and engaging topic, and am lifted out of drear routine.)
Hi William, thank you for your thought provoking comments.
Yes, in terms of the negative, there was no altering once the light had hit the film, absolutely. So the decisions you made ahead of pressing the shutter button were vitally important.
And as you know, because I’m not big on post processing, with digital I like to have as much irreversible as possible. I try to work to the antithesis of that phrase you hear “I’ll just shoot RAW and recover/fix in PP later”. Why? Why not strive to get it as right as possible with the camera at the time? Why make extra work for yourself?
Yes with film you could add extra decisions, like the film you choose and others you mention. With digital it is much the same for me, just substitute “the film you choose” with “the settings in camera and in your processing software already set up”.
I’m not one to take a shot then try seven (or seventy!) different looks/filters/presets in a processing app just to see what they all look like. I know how I want it to look, and try to have that set up before hand, in camera where possible (as with the Pentax Q shooting b/w) and after with the Ricohs and Xperia via Snapseed.
I had to look up “why Uncle Fred wasn’t Avedon”, I get what you mean now, everyone’s uncle/dad/grandma with a camera wasn’t as good as a professional photographer with years of experience. I learn a few things and references every time we speak!
I feel you’ve completely understood how I use a digital camera. Yes the software already makes decisions when creating the JPEG, and becoming familiar with the outcome, and then figuring out what else you need to do, to get the photos how you want them, is the process. Again it’s the opposite of shooting RAW – I don’t want an infiite number of decisions to make after I released the shutter.
It helps of course that the two Ricohs I have are probably 95% or more the same as each other in how I use them and their output, and the Pentax Q I’ve been able to set up completely in camera, at least shooting b/w. So I only really use one default preset with Snapseed for the Ricohs, which tweaks the contrast and exposure a touch.
There are other decisions I make on the fly, such as controlling the light sometimes using exposure lock (for example I like my shadows really black, so in a high contrast scene I will usually use the brightest part, lock the exposure there, which pushes the shadows darker, then recompose, focus and shoot) and focus lock, as I rarely have the focus on the centre of the scene. But these are not made for every shot, and I guess just come again from experience of using the cameras and learning how to manipulate them.
With the Ricoh GX100 you can save familiar settings to two “MY” options on the mode dial. I have both set up identically, except one has the zoom at 35mm, the other at its widest, 24mm. This is just so I can shoot at 35mm most of the time, and if there is a tight scene where I could use a wide focal length, I switch to the other 24mm setting. But since having set this up, I can only recall using 24mm for one shot in the last few hundred. Another thing I like to have irreversible – the focal length of the lens.
Re blog post publishing times, I’ve been experimenting a little, and in this “week streak” I’ve been publishing around 1pm every day. Over here it’s lunchtime so people usually have a break, and in the US it’s I think between 5 and 8am. So the notification email should be near the top of people’s inboxes. The UK and US being my two largest audiences. But today I posted early because I’d linked to it previous post then forgotten it wasn’t live. I just published immediately, which was 7am.
I might switch the upcoming posts to 7am too!
Oh, no! The dawn ding of a new post clears the cobwebs!
I’ll try 7am (my time) posts for a few days then.
Mental exhaustion plays a part in defeating one’s ideals in achieving what one wishes with a camera.
You have to learn the thing. So well that it becomes second nature, intuitive, instinctive.
Yet people nowadays are often drained, enervated by the pace and complexity of modern life and the technicals demands it makes just to function, at work, at home, in remote banking and commerce and social connections.
In an Amazon public review of David Ulrich’s book “Zen Camera”, reviewer “Daihoon” observes that:
“This is a workbook. It’s meant to be a guide to practice, which means you need to read, practice, reflect. It should take months to work your way through the text. So how is it, two weeks after its release, there are already eight laudatory reviews? How can any of these writers know this book is of any value when they obviously haven’t done any of the exercises in it?”
People do not have the time or drive to learn their cameras or even the broadest principles; they often park them in ‘program’ and any ambitions they might have toward getting a specific “look” are consigned to the bucket of hope that they will recoup with a few clicks in post.
“Simplification’ may have more to do with focus of concentration and mastery of a limited corner of a given universe.
William, there’s a line in the movie Adaptation which I can’t remember exactly, but this is the gist of it. The main character seeks out exotic orchids and is obsessed with them. A journalist is following him, to find out more, and why. She asks the orchid collector why orchids, and why is he so obsessed to the point of excluding virtually everything else in his life. He replies that the world is so vast and overwhelming that the only way he can deal with it is to focus on one little tiny corner of it, orchids. Much like you say, “a mastery of a limited corner of a given universe”…
I had a roll of film recently, from my Pentax ME with my new 35mm lens, where I had to work hard to find ways to improve the images in Photoshop. That was on the Fuji 400 shot at EI 200. It was very exciting to simply upload the images to Flickr just as they came off the scanner.
Yet there was a part of me that felt like I’d missed out somehow. I think some part of me enjoys making the minor tweaks. Heaven help me.
Jim you’re not alone, many people love post processing! I’m just not one of them. For me the joy of photography is being out with camera, having that freedom, getting in that flow. Yeh I like to have a satisfying image or two at the end of it, but I can do this with the way I have my kit set up now, without needing to spend much time at all on a computer.
Out taking photos means outdoors, freedom, flow, fresh air. Post processing on a computer means indoors, drudgery, a chore and makes my back and arms and eyes ache! Ironic how they are almost the opposite experience, in my eyes anyway. Hence irreversible photography, to maximise the photo taking time and minimise the processing. None of us on our death bed will be saying “I just wish I’d spend more of my life in LightRoom…”
That’s the thing – up till now, I’ve done nothing but want to reduce or eliminate the time I spend in Photoshop. I have taken many steps toward that goal and have had some solid success. It’s been great to shoot my Canon S95 on it’s new settings and have 50-75% of the images be usable (maybe not perfect but usable) directly from the camera. I can shoot 300 photos in a day with that camera, and spending even one minute on each image in Photoshop adds up to a giant time commitment. Now I can spend far less time, focusing on only the images that I really want to make better. Perhaps it is because when I get a roll of film developed I’m looking at 24 or 36 images, and at a minute or so each we’re not talking any real amount of time.
Yeh that is still a difference with me comparing film and digital too.
I don’t spray and pray and come back from an hour or two of shooting with 500 images with a digital.
But for example today I went round Borde Hill Gardens, for maybe 90 minutes, and came back with 60 photos on my Ricoh GX100. An initial edit has it down to 45. I will cull further, and maybe 15 I’ll end up sharing. But most of these 45 I like, so that’s one good-ish photo every two minutes.
To shoot the same with film would’ve meant 2 x 24exp rolls. I just don’t think I would have shot that much, maybe one roll?
But on the flip side, now and again there’ll be shots I wouldn’t have risked “wasting” a frame of film on, but I did with a digital and it’s come out unexpectedly great.
Again it’s finding that balance and workflow that works for each of us, and this can change depending on camera(s) used.
Jim, I love the thought that you’re working to get what can be gotten from your Canon.
There is a huge lack of respect for the modest CCD devices and a lack of knowledge of what can be done with 8 or 10 mp rather than an egregious 24.
My Canon is my workhorse and I’ve shot some of my very best work with it!
Agree with that. I have a Ricoh GX100 and GRD III, both with 10MP CCD, and my two (currently dormant) DSLRs are 6MP and 10MP CCDs. All of these cameras are capable of wonderful results.
As allways, I’m impressed … where I thought photography is a simple thing … all about light 😉
Knowing what to do and how to do before doing it and knowing what to intend before hitting the shutter release is … well, essential to all kind of stuff you do with at least some seriousness … at least IMHO.
Sure, in today’s world, many (when not most) things are done just our of fun and the results are rated as cool or newfangled stylish.
Minimizing work after hitting the shutter release is … normal, I would say, when not this ‘work after’ is crucial for you. Some guys like working hours on a single image with all that fancy features available in today’s software.
For me, my approach looks pretty straight forward – even not as lean as your’s.
Sure you decide what film (not for digital), what camera, what lens to use and sure you know what you intend to get – a trip where you bring back partly documentary and partly non-documentary pictures, a photo walk where you know where to go and what you can expext to find. Allways subconciously scanning around for someting worth taking a picture – a perfect framing, a fleeting moment, a scene, a structure, a colour or contrast or simply … the light.
For me it fits having the jpgs and applying a filter preset for colour or for bw with some default adjustments and sometimes an alignment or a crop and that’s it.
But … the big but … even if you are satisfied for the moment with the results you achieve, you will strive for getting someting better next time 😉
Reinhold, I think with some photos I feel I did the best I could in the conditions, and got an outcome I’m really happy with. I think other shots where it doesn’t quite “work” are nearly always down to choice of composition/subject matter on my part. The final photo just isn’t as interesting as I thought it might be when I pressed the shutter button.
Yes, as with film in the old days, there are people who enjoy spending hours making the final print. Capturing the picture with camera is just the beginning. Not for me though!
After I press the shutter on one of my old film cameras I want to see the resulting image on a digital contact sheet of the roll as quickly and painlessly as possible. So I limit myself to just two films, just one developer (recently down from two), digitize the negatives as JPG’s, and apply the same PP script in Affinity Photo to all of my files that I run through ContactPage Pro to produce the contact sheet. The only variables in all of the above are the aperture, shutter speed, focus and whether the film is FP4 or HP5.
My process for the very few pictures on the roll I want to print is more complicated and time consuming, but it’s seldom more than one or two pictures a week.
Thanks for your thoughts Doug, sounds like you’ve found what works and are keeping ti simple.
I post process almost all of what I shoot. The exception is the Nikon N1 v3. It’s jpegs can simulate Ferrania Solaris. I like them so much that I will actually print them without re-touching them. I also like the N1 v3 for Elitechrome and T-Max simulations. But the only directly printed photos are the Ferrania ones.
I use film sim presets on lightroom. But I don’t like the Ferrania Solaris ones I’ve found so far.
I used loads of Solaris 200 when I shot film, mostly because I found some in Poundland, two rolls of £1, tried it and liked it, then bought up a batch every time I went again. Must’ve had well over 100 rolls at one point.
Have you found with any film presets that they might not perfectly emulate the film they are trying to emulate, but you like the look anyway, so you use them?
Yes they are often not perfect. But I don’t care. Besides, I mess with them to get a look I like better. I always remove the fake grain when in lightroom. Today when I was using the N1 I was switching between simulations. Actually taking the same shot multiple times only changing the simulation, T-max and Elitechrome, and Solaris.
Now I’m going to print the jpgs without messing with them (For this N1 only, and only today.) Using your idea of Zero Post Processing. I did take backup pics with a proper sized camera that I can mess with in LR if I want to.
So far the T-max simulation photos are my favourite. The N1 does a great job of them. I think it is easier to simulate Mono pics over colour.
I like this slight extension of irreversible photography. Instead of shooting RAW and then having an infinite number of adjustments and film presets etc to play with afterwards, you chose to shoot the same composition with three different simulations, in camera. Then the choice afterwards becomes one of three, instead on an infinite one.
Oh and I find b/w much easier to work with than colour in most ways. Colour just adds another layer of decisions, though it feels like an unending rainbow layer! I have found a few set ups in Snapseed that I like for colour, but there are still works in progress, whereas the b/w ones I rarely tamper with now.
I’m a great believer in the philosophy that placing restrictions upon yourself can have a very positive effect creatively and that seems to be where you are going, Limitation can fuel creativity but it’s also a bit of a myth that back in the day photography was “irreversible”. Dodging and burning in the analogue world, done properly is/was a time consuming and complex task which can dramatically alter an image.
Some of the world’s greatest photographers did a lot of what we would call post processing. Ansel Adams for example was renowned for spending as much as a day working on a single image in the dark room and his final prints were very different from the out of camera image.
One fascinating image I came across recently was the annotated copy of the famous shot of James Dean walking across Times Square in the rain. It’s covered with the printer’s annotations and gives an insight into just how much manipulation was done and how complex the task.
https://pin.it/5y5lsd7llhn2g4
Wow Tony that’s amazing the detail the printer went into with his notes. ave you read the Magnum contact sheets book? If not it’s probably something you’d enjoy.
Yeh I know Ansel Adams wrote that series of books on the camera, the negative, the print etc. And was famous for that quote (amongst many others) – “the negative is the score, the print is the performance”.
It’s just not the end of the process that I have much interest in, at this stage. I’m all about the experience of going out in nature and getting into that peaceful flow state making pictures. Not slaving in a darkroom for hours – literally or via computer software. To each his own!
Ha, well slaving for hours in a dark room doesn’t appeal much to me either 🙂 Last time I spent any time in one was 35 years ago at school. I remember it being smelly, cramped and hot, but back then I was mostly shooting transparencies and using a projector to view them, so it literally was out of camera for me then. I guess I was pointing out that many photographers who only have a vague idea of what was done in the darkrooms of the analogue era, perhaps don’t realise just how much WAS done or how time consuming it could be, hit and miss too unless you were a master at it. Whilst dodging and burning has it’s equivalent in software, the time it took certainly isn’t equivalent. It was something you would only do to an image that really deserved it or if it was a part of your whole artistic process and aesthetic (like Adams).
As you know, I’m newly back in the game and shooting film. I can’t see myself doing any heavy post processing. I’ve only had five rolls back from processing/scanning with another 5 going in this week. The images I’ve chosen to keep, if they got anything done was a contrast/saturation boost (or saturation zap if I decided to go black and white). I was looking through some of my old slides I took as a teen today and I remembered how much I liked Agfachrome for portraits … because it was quite contrasty and saturated looking. This Fuji C200 I’ve been using doesn’t get that look … it’s kind of muted, but a little tweek gets closer to it.
Ps. The Magum Contact Sheets book sounds great. I shall keep an eye out.
Yes, it’s one high on my wish list! https://www.bookdepository.com/Magnum-Contact-Sheets-Kristen-Lubben/9780500292914
Part of the experience is finding the looks we like, whether that means trying different films, or experimenting with processing.
With film I liked to use what came from the developer’s scans, without further digital manipulation on my part. It seem to make sense to keep film as untouched as possible, at least by my hands! With digital, as it’s digital files from the outset, I see it as a bit more logical and acceptable to tweak further with digital means.
In reality these days the vast majority of people shooting film have a digital/film hybrid result, it’s not like shooting film in the “good old days” where it was all physical and chemical.
The book is now on my Christmas list 🙂
It’s interesting that you feel it more acceptable to leave scanned film as is. I’m not sure quite how I feel about it. I get what you are saying, but on the other hand aside from subject and composition, what you see on the screen in terms of contrast, colour balance and exposure are partly to do with your choices (film stock, lens, exposure) and partly to do with how the scan was done, which unless you did the scans yourself, is outside your control. Some of the images I just got back seemed flat and muted, they lack contrast. Was it to do with my technical choices? Or was it the scan? I don’t know. Do I be purist about it and think, next time I need to make different choices over the things I control? or do I tweak the things which need a tweak? I think the answer is both. Personally I’ll tweak, but then try and work out what I can do so that perhaps next time I don’t have to, but I don’t think there’s any shame in it 🙂
I actually had a chat with my Mum about it. In the early seventies she was one of the ladies (and they were all ladies), who worked quality control at a big commercial film processing house. It was her job to check over all of the prints from a million people’s holiday snaps and if the exposure didn’t seem right or the colour balance seemed wrong send them back to get fixed. In other words to get them tweaked. What was considered right and wrong was pretty subjective though.
I think we sometimes mistakenly think of photography as taking a copy of a moment, a tiny slice of truth, and any changes we make as a step away from truth, but either ignore or don’t realise how much of what we see in the image are actually just artefacts of process/technology which you may like or dislike aesthetically. Maybe what we are talking about here is understanding which process or methods (I don’t just mean technically) lead to the images we prefer and that taking control of that leads to better results. I think that may be where you are going. Adams had his process and methodology, you are developing yours. The less we leave to random factors such as how much sharpening the guy who scanned my negs added, or whether my Mum thought your Aunt looked a bit green, the better .
Tony, with film, I started by having a lab do all the processing and scanning, then to save money I bought a scanner. Another reason was I was shooting some experimental film that I couldn’t easily get scanned, like 35mm film in a Holga 120N I’d modified so it exposed large frames, right over the sprockets. I modified an old Kodak Instamatic as a pinhole too, with similar results – the exposures ran right to the very edges of the film.
Having this film processed at a lab was fine, but then having it scanned in a commercial scanner with standard 36x24mm frames was pointless – all the images overlapped. So I had fun for a while with this kind of film. Then Scanning became such a bore and a chore, I came to hate it, and it was stopping me shooting film because I was dreading the scanning experience. So I went back to shooting just standard 35mm and having it developed and scanned at the same place.
I think it was such a relief being free from the laborious scanning (which never gave me the results I wanted anyway) I just from then on decided to accept whatever scans I got from the lab – which most of the time I was very happy with.
And yes I did also have this simplicity/purity thinking going on – a forerunner to the kind of irreversible photography I promote now.
I just find it a bit strange too that many people rave about the glories of film and how it’s superior to digital – but use digital software to create digital files of their film photographs. So it’s not purely film anymore anyway.
I also like the slightly unpredictability of film, and leaving the developing and scanning to someone else added to this, made the dice roll a little more random. I’ve had whole rolls of film ruined in the lab, and this is all part of the journey with film.
More recently, I’m all about finding a series of controllable, simple steps that give me results I really like, without too much fiddling about or artificial manipulation to get there.
Thanks for your stimulating thoughts!
I think the only time I could envisage doing my own scans is if I had an image I was so proud of I wanted it printed large and wanted to be sure of every last detail … which presupposes I had a scanner (I don’t) and had the skills required to scan it considerably better than a lab and then do a fantastic job in post (which I also don’t).
I’m using film because the cost of entry is very low in comparison to digital equipment capable of similar quality and it’s something I’m familiar with. Obviously the ongoing costs are a slightly different matter, but unless I go insane taking hundreds of images a week, it’s affordable. I can’t comment on it’s superiority to digital and I’m not using it for it’s retro appeal. In some practical respects it’s quite clearly inferior. It can have a look which I like, but it can also have a look which I don’t. I think it’s down to taste.
As to digitising … unless you also do your own printing it’s pretty much unavoidable anyway. Even if you order prints not scans, these days it will almost certainly be a print of a scan, not a print of a neg. Plus of course once it’s digitised, it’s easier to share and if post processing happens to be your thing, that’s opened up too.
I’ve had chats with several people about using C200 and the advice seems to be that to get best results for scans, to overexpose by a stop or two. Contrast and saturation should improve. I notice from one of your previous posts that you pretty much came to the same conclusion.
Tony I found a similar thing with scanning, when I did have a scanner. Aside from being very laborious, I couldn’t get scans as good as a lab anyway, and didn’t have the inclination (yes, or indeed skills) to tweak around for hours to learn. I mostly got a scanner for unusual negatives I either couldn’t get scanned at a lab, or they were too expensive, like shooting wide frames and right across the sprocket holes with a modified Holga. Once I stopped needing this, I went back to a lab every time, and usually just my local Adsa which is more than happy with.
I’m not sure I entirely agree about cost of entry. Yes, as I’ve written about before you can get say a Canon EOS, an M42 adapter and a great Takumar 55/2 for probably still less than £30. But I had a Samsung GX10 (a clone of the Pentax K10D) which was a fabulous old school DSLR (ie big, heavy and with manageable menus!) and it only cost me £55. Again a Takumar 55mm plus adapter was probably an extra £25. Or a very respectable A series 50/2 could be had for maybe the same £25. That’s going like for like. My favourite camera right now is my Ricoh GX100 digital compact which cost me I think also £55, with of course no additional lens costs.
The difference between either of these options and getting started with film is evened out after perhaps only a dozen rolls of film at the very most, once you’ve factored in buying the film, developing and scanning? Which is about the amount I used to shoot every month, on a busy month. As you can see, one reason for my gradual drift towards digital, just the ongoing affordability.
Re the look, yes you can get images you like and loathe with both film and digital. It just takes a while to experiment and find the combinations you like best. I don’t see it now as one better than the other, it’s just what you enjoy and what works best for you.
Regarding C200, yes I shot a lot of this, and its rebranded aliases, AgfaPhoto Vista Plus 200 and Tudorcolor XLX200. More often than not I was shooting slightly expired film anyway, so ISO100 or 125 for these ISO200 films was the default for me. Plus they have a +3 / -1 latitude if I remember correctly, as most consumer colour films do, so leaning towards overexposure always increases your chances of getting something usable. The few times I’ve underexposed film I’ve hated the look, whereas I’ve overexposed by three or four stops more at times, and still really liked the images.
[…] steady progress towards invisible cameras, zero processing and irreversible photography means that for the last seven or eight months I’ve only used three different digital compacts […]
[…] It felt a rather pure form of irreversible photography. […]
[…] We can’t change the composition, focus, depth of field and so on after releasing the shutter. […]
[…] Of course the depth of field, focus and so on are exactly the same, you can’t change those after the photo’s been made. […]