For the love of Analog

Medium Format Film

Some of my first forays into photography were on medium format film. I was shooting it on a Holga. For those of you who don’t know, a Holga is an entirely plastic camera (including the lens), that is loved and derided in equal measure for its distortions, light leaks, and cult following. These characteristics gave Holga photos a rustic charm that was later emulated by Instagram’s square format and early filters – taking the legitimately terrible phone photos of 2010 and adding all sorts of retro filters and vignettes to make them look like they were taken on a lo-fi film camera. Exposure control on the Holga was limited to the film speed and a switch on the camera where you can select either sunny or shady. Focus was a guessing game – a choice between flower, person, or mountain and then cross your fingers and hope for the best because there was no way to confirm focus through the viewfinder. The film was wound on using a simple knob on top of the camera. Confirmation of having reached the next frame was achieved by peering through a red tinted plastic window in the back of the camera. It was common to tape this window, and around the gaps where the camera opened, with black electrical tape so that the user could take some control over the light leaks and thus the usability of the resulting exposures. The fact that the Holga took medium format film, rather than the more ubiquitous 35mm, was a fact that passed me by at first and, despite the camera’s numerous limitations and my inexperience, there was something that kept me coming back to that camera time and time again. It took me a while to realise that, while I took some of my favorite photos with the Holga, it was not the light leaks, distortions, or happy accidents that kept me coming back. It was actually something about the magic that is created in a 6cm by 6cm square frame of medium format film.

Being presented with a square frame forces you to think about your compositions a little bit differently. That large negative is, under the right circumstances, able to produce an effect that is at once difficult to put your finger on and very difficult and expensive to reproduce digitally. I’ve also always been a fan of scanning film negatives to include the border also. It wasn’t long until I was yearning for that same film experience, but with more control over my exposures, focus, and framing. After all, as the price of film steadily increased, I could barely afford the poor hit rate from such a basic camera as the Holga.

Below are some of my favourite photos taken with the Holga:

Twin Lens Reflex

Staring up at the shelves of a used camera shop in Manchester, I learned about the Rolleiflex TLR and, unable to afford one at the time, and unable to justify the expense for a long time after, it has caught my imagination for fifteen years since. The design choice to have the optics for framing and taking pictures in a Twin Lens Reflex camera (TLR) completely separated was once commonplace but, by today’s standards, seems rather esoteric and eccentric. For those unaware, in a TLR, the lens at the top of the camera focuses an image on a ground glass screen, by way of a mirror. This is used to frame and focus the image. Meanwhile the lens at the bottom focuses and exposes the image onto the film behind the shutter. In retrospect, it is easy to see that the writing was on the wall for the TLR design with the advent of the single lens reflex camera, or SLR. SLR cameras allowed the user to frame through the same lens that would also expose the image onto the film, by way of flipping up a mirror at the time of exposure. This not only allows users to compose more precisely, and preview depth of field, but also made the prospect of interchangeable lenses much more affordable. To make a TLR with interchangeable lenses – manufacturers would have to make, then persuade users to buy, and carry around, two lenses for each different focal length- whereas SLR users only had to buy and carry one lens of each focal length. Mamiya did make a TLR that had interchangeable lenses, and Rollei offered two variants of their high-end TLR camera with fixed wide angle and telephoto lenses, respectively, but stopped short of developing an interchangeable lens version. As SLR camera manufacturers started to produce lenses that could focus closer, the TLR design began to look more compromised. The parallax between the two lenses in a TLR are corrected for working distances between infinity and about one meter easily. But the trigonometry involved with correcting that parallax at closer distances, while maintaining the ability to focus to infinity, are mechanically complex and thus more expensive to implement.

Rollei tried to remedy this problem in the least expensive way possible with a set of diopters, called Rolleinars. Basically, magnifying filters that attached to the front of each lens, allowing you to focus closer than one meter, but, in doing so, sacrificing the ability to rack to infinity. The Rolleinar for the framing lens had to be accompanied by a “Rolleipar” lens, (incorporated into the framing lens roleinar in later models) which would further correct the parralax of the framing lens so that what you see in the ground glass is as close as possible to what you eventually get on the taking lens. These clever but inevitably fiddly work-arounds and esoteric workflows (all explained in the wonderfully vintage and kitsch “The Practical Accessories” manual) are among the reasons that drove working professionals and hobbyists to the rapidly evolving SLR systems and, by the ’80s, manufacturers had moved almost completely away from the increasingly obsolete TLR design. By the time I was born, the Rolleiflex TLR had had its heyday and already fallen out of use. By the time I put my Holga down for the last time, people were saying that film was dead.

Designed to Last

Yet, despite all these inherent flaws, inconveniences, and like many items once relegated to the dusty shelves of collectors and museums by the seemingly unstoppable tide of innovation and economics; these old things are gaining new life, or, perhaps never totally went away – not least because the old Rolleiflex cameras were built like tanks! What’s more, is that film is having a resurgence. Analog street photography is on the rise, and Fujifilm is making film again. Further, many street photographer praise the fact that there is no huge mirror slapping up and down inside a TLR, making it much more of a low-key street camera than its outward looks would otherwise suggest. It could also be assumed that, in 2024, many people you pass on the street may not even recognise a TLR as a camera at all. Fifteen years after first learning about the Rolleiflex TLR and fifteen years since I last shot film regularly I was finally able to get hold of one. What sets the Rolleiflex apart from most of the other things I own is the care and craftsmanship with which it is made. Despite my camera being made in the ’70s, the optics on this camera are capable of great detail and contrast too. Of course, the Rolleiflex TLR is one of the iconic cameras to shoot in a 6×6 aspect ratio that I loved about my Holga, and it gives me the control over my exposure and focus, that the Holga lacked. But, in also accepting the compromises and flaws of the Rolleiflex, I have kept some of that ineffable charm that comes with shooting film on certain cameras.

Long Live Analog

Like the millennials and gen Zs choosing vinyl, over the CDs of their parents, the iTunes playlists of their youth, and the Spotify playlists of their teenage years; perhaps, or perhaps not for the zenith of quality, like the audiophiles would have you believe but maybe just for the love of analog. For the joy of using something that was made to last, is maintainable, doesn’t require a wifi signal or a screen, and the fact that you can’t buy one on Amazon. Using a Rolleiflex TLR is slow, fiddly, and it doesn’t have all the bells and whistles that my digital gear does but the Rolleiflex delivers something the other stuff can’t – a kind of joy in just using the thing. The image, projected onto a large ground glass, the dials, built to last a lifetime, and the winding mechanism – one time around to advance the film and half way back to cock the shutter.

All these combine to give a manual, analog experience that those who enjoy pulling an espresso with a lever instead of a pump, drive a manual transmission instead of an auto, split firewood with a maul, or grind their coffee beans by hand – not because it’s better, but for the satisfaction – would appreciate. I would be lying if I said that I didn’t get joy from bringing back beautiful digital photos, timelapses, and video. I also enjoy being in beautiful places to capture those things. But, for me, the Roleiflex stands alone as the camera that is simply a joy to use, despite its shortcomings, and almost separate from the photographs it produces which can feel like magic in their own right.