Hi friend! 👋 

I hope 2025 is treating you well so far. 🥳 It is very cold 🥶 in NYC right now.

Here’s what we’re talking about today:

1. 🖼️ The Argus C3 results.

2. 🤖 Will AI kill film photography?

3. 💁 5 Ways AI can help your photography

🖼️ The Argus C3 results.

Last week I talked about using the Argus C3 for the first time. The first roll of any used camera is always a little tense—did the camera work? Any light leaks? Was the roll wasted? After developing and scanning, I’m happy to say that my Argus work! 🎉 

I’m really enjoying this camera. I’m already halfway through a roll of Kodak Portra 800.

🤖 Will AI kill film photography?

AI is the new hot thing and it’s everywhere. There is DALL-E 3, Lightroom’s generative remove, and Photoshop’s generative fill. All tools that let you create and manipulate images with ease. And cameras themselves are increasingly performing more computations at the time of capture. The lines between what’s real and what’s AI generated are becoming more blurred every day. 🫠 

So what does this mean for film photography? I actually think it’s a good thing! 😲 

Hear me out.

I believe a consequence of everything becoming digital and artificial will be an increased desire of things that are real and tangible. We’ve already been seeing a resurgence of film over the last few years and I think it’s going to keep increasing. Film sales are up. In fact back in November Kodak shut down its entire factory. Not because of a lack of demand; quite the opposite. They needed to perform upgrades so they could keep up with the increasing demand. This is a good thing for the film community.

Right now film prices are high. 💰️ That’s because there is increasing demand without enough supply. But if demand keeps growing 📈 then just like Kodak did in November companies will invest more in production and we’ll start to see prices come down. 📉 It’s not going to happen overnight, but I think AI is putting us in the fast lane to higher demand for all things analog. And the more people that get into film photography, the more likely we’re going to get new films and new cameras! 😍 

What do you think? Do you think AI will keep pushing demand for film photography?

💁 5 Ways AI can help your photography

Speaking of AI being good for film photography. It’s actually a very helpful companion and resource. Not to create images for you, but to help you learn. I’ve used ChatGPT for a while now to help me understand concepts and processes within film photography. So here are 5 ways AI can help you and the prompts you can use.

1. ⚙️ Technical Questions

Don’t know what something means? ChatGPT is really great at explaining technical concepts in a way that you can understand. The best part (and unlike tutorials) you can ask follow up questions and deep dive into specific areas.

Some prompts to try:

2. 🤔 Deciding on what film to use

There are a lot of different films out there and each has it’s own unique set of characteristics. AI can help you understand these characteristics. Additionally, you can find out which films are good for certain lighting situations.

Some prompts to try:

3. 💡 Lighting setups

Mastering artificial lighting is hard and it takes a lot of practice and trial-and-error for it to become second nature. However, AI can help you get a good starting point, especially taking into account your available equipment (lights, reflectors, diffusers etc.)

Some prompts to try:

4. 🧐 Critique your work

Critiquing your own work is hard. It’s difficult to be objective and notice where things could be improved. AI can be that objective third party, and provide some insight into your work. While it is no substitute for having photographers you look up to critique your work, it is nice getting some feedback at 1am.

Some prompts to try

5. 💭 Ideas on what to photograph

The age-old question, “What should I photograph?” Especially, if you’re in a rut, it’s good to get out and photograph something, anything. You can use AI to help give you ideas and try out new techniques you don’t regularly use.

Some prompts to try

Hopefully, this gives you some ideas on how you can use an AI tool like, ChatGPT or Claude to help you with your film photography. Like I said it can be a pretty good companion.

Well that’s going to be it for today. 🫡 

I will see you next week.

Happy shooting, and remember to turn a negative into a positive.

Ben Henschel

📷️ Argus C3 / 🎞️ Kodak Portra 800

P.S. While I use AI for proofreading, I write these newsletters myself. 😄