From Pixels to Film: Learning the Hard Way
Camera: Hasselblad X-pan
film: Portra 400
Shooting with the Hasselblad XPan feels more like composing a scene than just taking a photo. You only get 21 shots, and every one feels like a little gamble. No preview. No second chances.
I’ve been deep in digital for most of my life, so moving to film is like starting from scratch. Metering manually. Framing through a rangefinder. And then comes the part no one warns you about—the post-shoot chaos.
This time, I went out shooting, dropped the roll off at a photo store, and picked it up a couple of hours later. That part was easy. But once I got home, the real work began. Scanning negatives is an art form in itself. You need to know which side faces down, how to avoid dust, and how to prevent the software from auto-converting everything into some weird digital mess.
I used Lightroom with a plugin called Negative Lab Pro to turn the scans into positives. Then I tweaked them again in Lightroom like I would with a digital file. The whole process took way longer than expected, and I still feel like I barely know what I’m doing.
But here’s the thing: when a frame works, it really works. Film slows you down, frustrates you, and challenges you. And that’s exactly why I keep coming back to it.
-Thomas
