TIME TO ELEVATE YOUR TRAVEL SNAPS
A practical guide to shopping for small, easy-to-use film cameras
Okay, here is my short(ish) plea to all of you reading this to pick up a film camera and start shooting on it…and continue shooting on it. I’m not a snob, a purist, a Luddite, or any other disparaging descriptor. In fact, what it boils down to is that I’m just incredibly lazy and shooting on film is the easiest, simplest way to take great pictures. Too dark? It looks edgy and grainy. Too bright? The whites in the frame blow out and look hazy and dreamy. But the real selling points are the following…
First and foremost, film allows you to control the amount of pictures you shoot. No one needs to see a hundred and sixteen pictures of Eileen’s first dance recital. Not even her grandparents. Also, no one needs to see seventy-nine pictures of you looking hot in Portofino. Not even that guy you’ve been sexting (trust me, he just needs one). Shooting on film allows your phone’s camera roll to be lean and mean, your visual history packed with only with the dearest moments and memories.
Second, the quality. Okay, I know I said I wasn’t precious about that kind of thing but that’s not what I’m talking about. Remember when the first iPhone came out (or even those fancy Nokias just before) and you snapped pictures and were just like “THESE ARE THE GREATEST PICTURES EVER!!!” and now you look back on them and they look like screenshots from an Atari console? Well, even if you have the latest iPhone Max fully tricked out with what-not today, in five years you’re going to look back at those snaps and be like, “oh man, what was I thinking…”. Meanwhile, film has been consistent from our childhood—our parents’ childhood—up until now. If you continuously shoot on film you will have a seamless, elegant timeline of your life. In fact it may be one of the only constants in these crazy times.
Finally, when I get a roll of film back from the lab—they’ll scan the images and email them to you so you can just drop them into your Photo library—all I do is just that: drop them in and forget about it. When I shoot something on my iPhone or even a fancy digital camera, I’m constantly adjusting the contrast, the color, the grain, all these different things in the hopes of making the image pop somehow. No need with film. It just looks great right out the gate. Saves you hours of time, maybe months over the course of a lifetime.
As for getting it developed, every major metropolitan city has a handful of great labs that will develop and scan your film, and if you happen to live out in the wilds, there are plenty of great mail-in labs. In the US I’ve heard great things about RichardPhotoLab.com and Midwest Film Co and you can also use this convenient site to find a lab close to you.
I’m not asking you go carry a camera with you at all times and become the next Garry Winogrand, but when you take that once-in-a-lifetime trip to Japan, why immortalize it with the same tool you use to chronicle your fucking latte art?
Below, in descending order of price, is a list of some great small cameras that can fit in any jacket pocket or handbag, and many come with a case with a belt strap in case you want to look as nerdy as me. Most of these have long-since been discontinued and your best bet on snagging one is on eBay, or hit up japancamerahunter, a British expat living in Tokyo who spends his days tracking down the best of the best used cameras.
The gold standard is the Contax T3. I’ve had one for about fifteen years now and I swear by it, it goes on (almost) every vacation and road trip (see the above snap taken on the slopes in Austria). It can be dummy-proof with one click but it also has a slew of functions if you want to get fancier (I am always using the over/under-exposure feature depending on sunlight). These run a pretty penny, usually around $2500-3200 for one in mint condition (they stopped making them about twenty years ago). THE MOST IMPORTANT DETAIL IN LOOKING FOR THIS CAMERA IS TO GET THE VERSION WITH “DOUBLE TEETH.” I could explain this to you but it’s a long, boring technical yarn that you probably don’t care about. Just make sure the seller guarantees it’s this version.
The previous model, the T2, can be found for half the price but it’s a bit bigger and most importantly, the focus is nowhere near as good, resulting in countless blurred images (see above self-portrait). I used one of those for a solid decade before splurging on the T3.
A couple notches below in both features and price (but not scarcity!) is the Yashica T4, an iconic camera that was the go-to for Terry Richardson during all those years he was shooting covers of Vogue and Gucci campaigns. 2/3rds of those images that helped define a generation of photographic style, were shot on this $150 camera that has now gone up to around $500 on the second-hand market (again, they stopped making them awhile ago). It only has two buttons, it’s “splashproof” and has an insanely sharp Zeiss lens. It’s so painfully simple that I got one for my mom and she loves it. DO NOT get the one with the zoom, and don’t get the T5. You want the classic T4 (or the or T4D or Slim T).
Finally there’s the Olympus Stylus. There’s dozens of incarnations of these and while I’ve never owned one so I can’t say which model is the best, I think all of them are probably pretty solid. But like the Yashica, DO NOT GET ONE WITH A ZOOM!!! Try to get one with a 35/2.8 lens.
And honorable mention should go towards good old-fashioned disposable cameras!! On more than one occasion I’ve arrived at the airport and realized I forgot to pack a camera and snag a couple from the Hudson News and the results are incredible! I also packed a few in my son’s duffel bag for summer and he churned out some damn fine images, like the one above.
Okay, that’s it for the rant. If a nine year old and a seventy-nine year-old can take great pictures with these cameras, SO CAN YOU!!!