Plane Spotting with Black-and-White Film and a Nikon FM2

Shooting film is nostalgic, but shooting black-and-white film takes it to another level. I’ve always been curious about how everyday scenes would look in black and white. So when my son asked if we could go plane spotting, I immediately said yes. I packed my Nikon FM2 and a few rolls of 35mm film.

We then headed to a popular plane-spotting spot here in Manila, the C5 Shell viewing deck, where we settled in for a few hours of plane spotting. My son had recently gotten a new phone, the Xiaomi 15T Pro, and was excited to try out its camera that has a pretty impressive zoom.

As for me, I was still deciding whether to shoot with Kodak Gold 200 or Kentmere Pan 400. Since the weather was a bit cloudy, I went with the Kentmere Pan 400 B&W film.

Ideally, you’d want a telephoto lens for plane spotting. A good 70-200mm lens would have been perfect, but unfortunately, I don’t own one. So I went with the next best thing I had available, my Tamron 35-70mm f3.5/4 CF lens.

Most of the time, 70mm probably wouldn’t cut it for plane spotting, but we had a good vantage point relatively close to the runway, so it worked for me this time.

The Tamron 35-70mm is pretty compact for what it is. It’s a bit heavy since it’s built mostly from metal, but the image quality is decent. What’s interesting about this lens is that it’s actually at its most compact when zoomed out to 70mm. That is new to me but hey, I ain’t complaining.

Okay, I swear this blog isn’t about the gears. So here are some photos shot with the Kentmere Pan 400.

One advantage of using a zoom lens over a prime lens is versatility. I can go wide to capture more of the scene or zoom in to get more details of the planes. It’s convenient, especially when you don’t have the luxury of moving around to get the shot you want.

I know plane spotting was my son’s idea, but I think I’m enjoying it more than he is at this point.

I thought shooting with a manual lens and a fully mechanical camera would make plane spotting more challenging. But since most of my shots were of planes in the distance, I could usually just set my focus to infinity and concentrate on composing my shots.

The tricky part was getting the exposure right since I forgot to buy batteries for my Nikon FM2’s light meter. I may have overexposed some shots, but the Kentmere Pan 400 handled it pretty well, and I was still able to recover some details in the sky.

Overall, I think I did okay, and I’d definitely go plane spotting again! Next time, I’ll probably bring a proper telephoto lens and get a little more creative with my shots.

So, that’s it! Thank you for… Oh wait, my son! Haha! He enjoyed the day too and got some really nice photos with his phone. I might even make a separate post featuring his photos. In the meantime, follow him on TikTok. He makes awesome reels! 🙂

But seriously, thank you for reading my blog. Don’t forget to follow me on my socials and check out my other posts.

Until next time, salamat!