For The Love Of Analogue
Super 35mm Still taken on my T70 with a 50mm FD Lens. My dog lounging in the sun.
Over Christmas something small but meaningful happened. I picked up my Canon T70 again.
It’s been sat in a box for years, Facebook Marketplace find, cost me a tenner. I put a couple rolls through it back then, then life rolled on and it got forgotten like most things that don’t demand our attention.
But over Christmas I pulled it out again. Felt the weight. Pressed the shutter. That old whirr and clunk hit me right in the chest (at first it was slow, I realised I needed to swing in some new batteries). I remembered what it feels like to hold a camera that’s simple, honest, and real. No review screens, no instant feedback, just you, the film, and whatever moment you’re brave enough to capture.
Later that day I found the scans from my previous rolls. They were not perfect. They were not clinically sharp. They were grainy, imperfect and most of all alive. They hit me harder than any digital photo I have taken in a long time. It reminded me of growing up in the 80s and 90s. I am in my early forties now, a child raised on film, raised on VHS tapes, raised on photo albums that lived in drawers and cupboards. Maybe it is nostalgia. Maybe it is something deeper.
Super 35mm Still taken on my T70 with a 50mm FD Lens. My son on a cold winters day.
Digital is safe. Film is not.
With digital you shoot endlessly and hope something works. You check the screen, you adjust, you correct and you repeat, you also know you can fix it in post. But Super 35 stills force you to think. You have only 24 frames, each one costing real money and real intention. You slow down, you breathe, you compose. You choose the moment instead of firing ten frames hoping one sticks.
There is no instant feedback. No undo button. That lack of a second chance makes the process sacred, well, at least to me it does.
This experience also reminded me of patience. Real patience. The kind we rarely practice anymore. The kind I had to have in the 90’s when I didn’t have a phone and was waiting for the number 11 bus!
Shooting film has brought back the feeling of waiting. The kind of waiting where you get your exposure right because it costs you if you do not. Getting a single 24 exposure roll developed and scanned into TIFF files can cost upwards of twenty pounds. You think carefully about your shot. You meter. You wait. And when the roll is finished you wait again to see if you created magic or completely ballsed it up.
The whole process is patience. Patience to frame the shot. Patience to trust your decision. Patience to wait for the results.
Super 35mm Still taken on my T70 with a 50mm FD Lens. Even a modern street can feel nostalgic with film.
This has been great for my soul! We live in a world that expects everything instantly. But anticipation is part of the reward. Film forces presence, it forces you to slow down. It grounds you in the moment instead of dragging you through it. It reminds you to notice.
I think more people could benefit from that feeling.
Over Christmas I also watched films again, proper films shot on celluloid. One that surprised me was Super 8. I have never been a big fan of J J Abrams but this film got me. It felt like childhood. It reminded me of The Goonies and those old Arnold Schwarzenegger films I grew up with. The grain, the colour, the texture. It felt alive. It felt like cinema. It felt human.
Film feels real, it feels authentic. Film feels dangerous and unpredictable. Film feels like it cannot be repeated perfectly again.
As we move into 2026, the world is about to be saturated with AI slop. Smooth, perfect and soulless. AI might be able to copy a look but it will never replace the moment I press that shutter. It will never own the memory the way I do when I hold a print in my hand. These images are mine, forever. I can print them, store them, keep them offline. No scraping. No copying. No mimicry. Human work, protected.
So this year I am choosing analogue.
The digital cameras can stay at home more often. When I go on family trips, when my kids run through the woods, when I want to capture life as it is, I will take my T70 first. Not for perfection, but for truth. For presence. For patience. For something real that will live longer than any feed or trend.
In a world of infinite pixels, film feels like treasure.
And I think we need treasure again.