Field Testing My Point and Shoot by Falling on It

Sometimes plastic lenses are the better choice

All photos by author | Sticker by Random Direction

Planning a trip always involves planning what camera gear to pack. I knew I wanted to document the snowy slopes on my first snowboarding trip, but I also knew I’d be falling a lot. Tumbling down mountains is not ideal for glass lenses and SLRs, so I looked at alternatives.

Normally, disposable cameras are my go-to for outdoor adventures. You can toss them around because they only need to last long enough to shoot one roll of film. But this time I wanted to use some film I already had, so I grabbed a Kodak M38 at my local camera store. It works the same as a disposable camera, but you can load it with your own film.

Testing the camera on the flight out

I started with a roll of Portra 800 that I was eager to finish, and also because I thought it would be funny to put $20 film in a $25 camera. To make it more interesting, I had this roll pushed to 1600 ISO in development. Pushing the film really exaggerated the “filmy-ness” of the shots, as can be seen above.

Next, I had a roll of 320 ISO black and white film that I hoped would capture the contrast between the white snow on the…