The Canon Sure Shot 35mm Camera

For the purposes of learning to shoot film and feeling comfortable doing it without breaking the bank, I wanted to ease my way into it slowly and cheaply. One of the things I have always found intimidating are the settings and how to even remember to set them for any given condition. It still blows my mind that so many people just know this stuff and are able to accurately set their F-Stop, Shutter Speed and ISO's simply be looking at their surroundings and how much light they have to work with. I already know this is going to be something I will struggle with for years before it finally sticks in my brain, so I didn't want to stress myself out right off the bat. So I decided to begin by using a simple, fully automatic Point & Shoot camera, one where I don't have to think about settings....at all. I literally just "point" the camera and "shoot" without having to worry about things like the shutter speed.

I grabbed a Canon Sure Shot point and shoot camera on eBay for roughly $30, and I used some old Fujifilm 200 that I had in my fridge for years after a failed attempt at film photography years earlier. A couple of YouTube videos turned me onto this camera, but also, it just looks so cool. I love it's design. As far as film goes, Fujifilm is really easy to find these days as you can pick it up at CVS and Walmart and some Walgreens. I was shocked to discover neither of my local Walgreens even carry film for sale anymore. It's pretty basic film, but it's cheap so it's really the best way to go while you're learning in my opinion.

One of the things I love about this, other than it's design, is how compact it is. I got to a point where I took this thing with me everywhere, and because of that I ended up getting a strap so that I could just sling it over my shoulder while running around instead of having to hold it in my hands all the time. It's also pretty light, but feels very well made. After a few rolls, I have to admit that I was very happy with the results. I made mistakes, and learned a lot about the limitations of shooting with one of these things, which I will get into in my next post with some examples.

~ jason