Why I Shoot Film and Digital at Almost Every Wedding Now

It started with harsh light.

I’m a Boston digital and film wedding photographer, and if you’re getting married around here in July, you already know the problem. Ceremony at one in the afternoon, sun directly overhead, a white dress reflecting everything back at you. Every photographer has a bag of tricks for it. You find open shade, you drag the shutter, you pull the highlights back in editing and hope the recovery doesn’t look muddy.

For years I did all of that. And then I started shooting medium format film, and watched the highlights just roll off. Not clip, not blow out, not get rescued in post. They gracefully stop.

That’s the moment film stopped being a novelty for me and started being something I needed.

One thing worth saying plainly before I go any further: digital is still the priority on your wedding day. It is the coverage I build the day around and the thing I will never compromise to chase a film frame. Film is what I add on top of it.

What medium format film actually does

I’m going to be specific here, because “film just looks better” is the kind of thing people say when they haven’t thought about it much.

Highlights. Digital sensors have a cliff. Push past it and the detail is gone for good, and no slider brings it back. Film doesn’t have a cliff, it has a slope. Overexpose it and the highlights compress gently instead of falling off an edge. I shoot Kodak Portra 400 and 800 and deliberately overexpose about a stop, which on digital would be reckless and on film is exactly how you get those creamy, forgiving skin tones.

Harsh light has nothing on film. Genuinely.

Frame size. My Pentax 645NII shoots a negative roughly three times the area of a 35mm frame. That bigger frame is where the depth comes from, the sense that you could step into the photograph. It’s the difference you feel before you can name it.

Rendering. This is the one that’s hardest to explain and easiest to see. It’s the way tones transition into each other, the way grain sits in the image instead of on top of it, the way a face looks rounded rather than flattened. Modern digital cameras out-resolve film on paper. They still don’t render like this.

I’m not going to tell you no digital camera can match film, because someone with a very expensive medium format digital body will turn up in my comments. What I’ll tell you is that after eleven years and 500+ weddings, elopements and engagements, I have not gotten a digital file to do what a 645 negative does in bright sun. I’ve tried. I built presets. It isn’t the same.

The part I didn’t expect

I picked up medium format for the pictures. I kept shooting it for a completely different reason.

Sixteen frames. That’s what a roll of 120 gives me on the 645. Sixteen.

You cannot spray and pray with sixteen frames. You have to actually look. So I stand there and wait for your mom’s face to do the thing instead of firing off a burst and sorting it out later. I notice light I would have walked past. I compose instead of cropping.

It slowed me down, which I did not go looking for and now can’t imagine working without. And it’s made me better with a digital camera too, because that habit of waiting doesn’t switch off when I pick up the other body.

Film is not a downgrade in disguise

I want to be really clear about this, because I think some couples quietly worry about it.

Adding film to your day does not mean I take fewer pictures of you.

There’s a version of the film photographer pitch that goes “fewer images, but better ones,” and some of that is true. But I’ve also watched photographers use it as cover for handing couples a thin gallery and calling it intentional. That’s not what’s happening here.

Film is something I’m adding to your day. It is not something I’m removing to make room for it. The image minimum in your collection doesn’t move because I picked up a second camera. The image minimum in your collection doesn’t move because I picked up a second camera.

What each camera does on your wedding day

I’m not precious about this. As a Boston film wedding photographer I shoot digital and film side by side, but they are not equal partners. Digital carries your day. Film joins it where film is the better tool.

On the film side I have three bodies, and which ones come with me depends on the day. The Pentax 645NII is the medium format camera, the one I reach for when we have real time and real light. The Canon EOS 1V is my 35mm workhorse, fast and autofocusing, for when things are moving but I still want film. And the Contax T2 lives in my pocket for the loose, in-between, nobody-is-posing stuff. Some weddings get all three. A few get none, and I’ll tell you upfront if yours is one of them.

Film gets the portraits, the details, and the quiet in-between moments. Anywhere I have a second to breathe and get it right. Anywhere the light is beautiful or brutal. Golden hour, midday sun, the two of you actually standing still for once.

Digital gets everything else, and everything else is most of your day. Your ceremony in a dim church. The first dance under uplighting. Anything moving fast, anything backlit, anything where I need to see the frame immediately and adjust. Digital is also how I shoot freely through the parts of the day that move quickly, which is how you end up with a full gallery rather than a beautiful sparse one.

What you get from a Boston film wedding photographer

Some of my wedding collections include two rolls of 35mm, and the lab scans them as TIFFs so they hold up when you print them large. Those frames sit in your gallery alongside everything else.

If you want more film, you can add rolls, and lots of couples do. The 645 is the camera I reach for when we have real time together and good light, so portraits are usually where those rolls go. I shoot Super 8 too, if you want your day moving as well as still.

And you still get your full digital gallery, at the same minimum your collection promises. The film sits on top of that, never in place of it.

Some honest things about film

I’d rather tell you now than have you wonder later.

There’s no preview. I don’t see what I got until the lab sends the scans back. That’s part of why I love it, and it’s also why film is not where I put your once-only moments. I photograph your first look on digital. The film version is a bonus, never the insurance policy.

It takes longer. I ship the film out, the lab develops and scans it, and only then can I start. Your film scans arrive after your digital gallery, not with it.

Dark receptions are a digital job. Anyone who tells you otherwise is showing you their three good low-light film frames and not the twenty that didn’t work.

Some frames don’t come back. That’s film. It’s the single biggest reason digital stays the priority and the coverage is never optional, and why I won’t promise you a specific number of film images.

Should you add film to your day?

If you love the look, yes, and I’d put the rolls toward portraits where we actually have time to work.

If you’re undecided, check whether your collection already includes two rolls, because if it does you’ll see exactly what film looks like without committing to anything. A fair number of couples get those scans back and wish they’d added more, which is usually the moment it clicks.

And if film isn’t your thing, that’s completely fine! Your gallery will be gorgeous either way. I’m just a Boston film wedding photographer who got obsessed with how a twenty five year old camera handles sunlight, and I cannot shut up about it.

xo erin