Blog #5 - Two Shoots, Two Worlds: Vintage Simplicity vs. Digital Chaos

This week’s photography adventures have felt like living in two completely different universes.

One day I’m quietly composing frames along the canals of Loughborough with a vintage Fujica loaded with Ilford XP2 black and white film. A few days later, I’m scrambling around Stanage Edge with Bow, a rucksack full of gear, and the wind howling through both our hair!

Both outings involved cameras. That’s about where the similarities end.

Part 1: Loughborough, the Fujica, and the Beauty of Black & White

Ex shopping trolley. Taken on the Fujica.

Midweek lunchtime. No plan. Just a need to step away from the screen for a bit.

I grabbed the Fujica ST701, loaded a roll of 35mm black and white film (Ilford XP2 which is processed as C41, look it up nerds.) clipped on a single lens, and fired up the light meter app on my phone. That was it, no filters, no second lens, no backup camera, no drone. No bag, even.

It was a walk, not a shoot. But every now and then, the light would hit the canal in a certain way, or the reflections under a bridge would catch my eye, and I’d stop and set up the frame.

Shooting film slows you down. Each frame counts. You’re thinking is this worth it? Am I ready? Is the light just right? There’s no checking your results. No safety net. You trust your instincts and pull the trigger.

Of the 15 shots I took, most were measured and methodical with soft light, steady hands, and careful composition. After developing, the most editing I did was cropping to remove a few scanner borders. No need for heavy tweaks. What came out of the negatives was pretty much what went into the lens.

There’s a quiet confidence in that. The images weren’t perfect, but they didn’t need to be. They were done. And I was done.

That sense of completion is something digital doesn’t always give you.

Canal. Taken on the Fujica.

Part 2: Stanage Edge and the Curse of Choice

Saturday rolled in, and with it, our “expedition” to Stanage Edge in the Peak District.

Stanage Edge from Hook Carr. On the Sony.

This time, I packed the kit bag: Sony A7III, 20mm f/1.8 prime, 24–270mm zoom, 85mm prime, variable ND filter, spare batteries, DJI Mini 3 drone (no filters), controller, and Bow’s Sony NEX-5R with its lens. Plus two cereal bars and two bananas, because even captains need supplies.

What did I use? The Sony, the 20mm prime, and the VND filter. That’s it.

The drone never left the case, the wind would’ve flung it back to Derbyshire. Bow’s camera got packed away after about ten minutes because the wind was also threatening to fling her off the edge.

Her hike quickly became a survival mission, where the only safe ground was the gritstone boulders. The moorland path? “The ground is LAVA.” So we scrambled rock to rock, me lugging gear, her barking orders like a four-year-old action hero.

“Come on, Explorer (me)! I’ll get us across safely. I’m the Captain (Bow)”

Needless to say, I spent more time trying not to fall off rocks than worrying about composition.

Still, I took a lot of photos. Around 300 by the time we got back to the car.

Stanage Edge from Hook Carr. On the Sony.

The Edit Spiral

The Fujica roll gave me 24 exposures. The Stanage Edge set gave me an editing marathon.

First pass: culled the 300 down to 160.

Next: down to 85.

Then 45.

Eventually, I settled on 25 final images.

Straightening. Cropping (because full-frame RAW allows it). Sky masking. Linear gradients across the moor. Shadows recovered in the rocks. Texture pushed in the gritstone. Contrast pulled in the clouds.

I spent hours on these.

Even now, after final exports and uploads, I’m not entirely sure I like them. They feel processed. Over-tweaked, maybe. Or maybe I just looked at them for too long. Either way, they don’t have that “finished” feeling. Not like the film shots.

That said, I didn’t use any presets this time. That felt like a small win in a sea of sliders.

The Kit Divide

Here’s the contrast in numbers:

Film day:

• Fujica ST701

• One lens

• 24 black & white frames

• Light meter app

• No edits (except cropping scanner edges)

Stanage day:

• Sony A7III (24MP full-frame)

• Three lenses (used one)

• Drone (didn’t fly)

• Filters (only used one VND, which introduced vignetting)

• Bow’s camera (packed away after 10 minutes)

• Spare batteries (not touched)

• Around 300 digital frames

• 25 final edits

It’s wild how much stuff I carried up Stanage Edge for so little practical use. And it wasn’t even laziness, I thought I was being selective! But digital opens the door to “just in case” thinking. You plan for possibilities, not certainties.

With the Fujica, you can’t do that. The limitation is baked in. And that ends up being the point.

Two Sides of the Same Obsession

What this week really highlighted is how photography isn’t a fixed experience. It’s a mood. A mindset. A moving target.

Film gives me space to think. The camera doesn’t distract me. I don’t lose time fiddling with settings or options. It feels more like a conversation with the scene. Me and the subject, working it out. Quietly.

Digital, on the other hand, is a rush. Fast compositions. Instant results. The thrill of what you might be able to do in post. But that speed comes at a cost… time in Lightroom, second-guessing, endless adjustments.

Neither is better. But they are very, very different.

What Really Mattered

Despite the editing rabbit hole, the heavy bag, and the gear that didn’t get touched, the Stanage Edge trip was still brilliant. Bow was in her element, climbing, laughing, and giving orders with full mountain-leader energy. The camera just happened to be there.

And on the canal, walking with the Fujica felt like pressing pause. No expectations. No urgency. Just the sound of my boots and the occasional shutter click.

Both outings gave me something valuable. Not just images, but headspace. One helped me slow down. The other gave me a challenge (and a workout).

Final Thoughts

The Fujica shoot was about simplicity. A quiet walk, a few deliberate frames, and photographs that felt finished the moment they were developed.

The Stanage shoot was chaos. Windy, wild, gear-heavy, and far more photos than I needed. But it gave me time with Bow, who treated a rugged ridgeline like her own personal movie set.

Both were photography. Just very different flavours.

This whole hobby keeps pulling me in both directions, minimal and maximal, calm and chaotic, film and full-frame. Maybe that’s where the fun is.

Not in picking a side but in wandering between them.

Captain Bow