Any advice/tips on using the Canon EOS 50 (film) camera?

[Bluepoole]

Hey all

I've acquired a Canon EOS 50 (Elan II) film SLR - my interest in cameras and photography started when the digital era was already well underway, so I figured I wanted to play around and learn more about film photography.

I have never shot on film before, so any advice and tips in general on how to do it efficiently would be appreciated. Also, any advice and tips on using the EOS 50 would also be appreciated!

For a first try I've bought some ISO400 rolls...I see it is still possible to select the ISO on the camera (from 6 up to 6400). If I may ask a dumb question: I was under the impression that the film speed determined the ISO - why can I still select another ISO value on the camera? How does the selected value on the camera interact with the speed of the film?

Thank you in advance for any comments!

 

[Big Mike]

For a first try I've bought some ISO400 rolls...I see it is still possible to select the ISO on the camera (from 6 up to 6400). If I may ask a dumb question: I was under the impression that the film speed determined the ISO - why can I still select another ISO value on the camera? How does the selected value on the camera interact with the speed of the film?

The ISO setting on the camera can't override the actual ISO of the film, of course. But what it does do, is let you over or under expose the film...usually with the plan to over or under develop it. It's called pushing or pulling the film.
For example, if you only had ISO 400 film, but you needed a faster shutter speed, you could set the ISO to 800 (underexposing the film by one stop). Then when you develop it, you 'push' it by one stop.
This should get you the exposure that you want, but it will likely result in more film grain showing up...almost how higher ISO in digital gives you more noise.

 

[dxqcanada]

Adding to Big Mike's reply ... the manufacturer of the film stated that the particular film is properly exposed at ISO 400.

Pushing/Pulling film development is not normally a service that man Labs will do (and it costs money). If you develop the film yourself then it is just a matter of changing the development time.

If you want different ISO ... then buy different films.

Tip: don't shoot like a DSLR idiot ... what I mean is that you do not have 1000 images that you can expose on a roll of film, and you do not instantly know if you did something wrong.

Slow down ... think about what you are shooting ... think about the exposure and what will happen ... think first, press button later.

 

[Josh66]

Also, with the ISO thing...

I doubt it (unless you load your own), but you may run across a roll of film with no DX codes on the cartridge. You'll have to manually set the ISO in that case.

You'll also need to change it sometimes for multiple exposures, if you ever play around with that.

Usually (not always), when you do multiple exposures, you have to compensate for it. The easiest way to do that is change the ISO. Normal ISO X number of exposures on one frame = new ISO. Just don't forget to change it back when you're done.