Analog Diaries: Hong Kong

This series on the blog will be dedicated mainly to—you guessed it—analog photos taken on film cameras. My interest in various analog formats has always peaked and waned throughout the past year, but now it's at a phase wherein I'm really stoked about disposable film photography.

I want to start this series with a set of photos from my recent trip to Hong Kong. The camera that I used was the Fujifilm Simple Ace 400 which I bought from this really neat online store that specializes in analog photography gear. You can find their website here.

Photography on film cameras is totally different from digital. I believe that a big part of photography as an art lies in the experience of capturing the photo and I really do have to give credit to all the photographers back in the day who only had film to work with. It is totally nerve-wracking being unable to see the photos right after you take them, and I got a taste of that experience shooting these photos. Overall, I really enjoy the whole experience of taking pictures with this format and will definitely be ordering more disposable cameras soon.

Now onto the photos.

I'm really happy with how the photos turned out, and it should also be noted that no post-processing was done on my part—the photos are exactly how I received them. The colors of the film used are simply stunning and despite not being a fan of green-tinted shadows, I really do seem to enjoy them when they come from genuine film rather than processing that mimics it.

One of the things I kept in mind when shooting this roll was that the film was only at ISO 400. This, combined with the fact that the aperture was probably tiny (maybe f/5.6 and above?), really forced me to shoot in brighter conditions. An added challenge was the fact that film is somewhat the opposite of digital with regard to how difficult the shadows were to bring back and the highlights being what's saved. These are all things I had to bear in mind when I shot using this film which limited it to only day-time use.

Despite all the drawbacks of not being the fastest camera to use, I'd really recommend the Fuji Simple Ace 400. It's really small and light weight and you don't have to worry about it getting damaged because you're gonna break it open anyway. In fact, it's so small that most of the time, I just put it in my pocket!

I hope you enjoyed this set of photos from my trip to Hong Kong and the first installation of Analog Diaries. Leave a comment down below on how you found this post or to let me know what other formats you'd be interested to see me try and review on this blog!

You can find a collection of my photos taken on film here.