Film photography has enjoyed a notable resurgence in recent years, offering users a chance to take part in a different approach to the craft and enjoy a more tactile and nostalgic process. Just like digital, though, there are some common pitfalls that can derail the quality of your images. This excellent video tutorial discusses five such pitfalls and what you can do to improve the quality of your film photos.
Coming to you from Kyle McDougall, this great video tutorial discusses five mistakes that can adversely affect the quality of film images and how to fix them. One of the most common mistakes beginners tend to make is assuming all the rules of digital apply to film. For example, we know that when it comes to digital images, once you clip highlights, there is no way to recover them, so generally, erring a bit on the side of underexposure is a better idea, particularly wide modern sensors that can tolerate a fair amount of exposure adjustment with few image quality penalties. However, it is essentially the other way around when working with negative film. Negative film tends to tolerate mild overexposure very well, but contrast and shadows quickly suffer when you underexpose. Understanding these differences will go a long way to helping you improve your shots.Check out the video above for the full rundown from McDougall.
I would add a recommendation for freezing color negatives and slides just after digitizing. The color shifts they undergo with time are irritating and hard to correct. A frozen Kodacolor from 1976 will be easy to color correct but negatives kept at ambient temperatures will show both generalized color shifts and weird localized spots.