Usually 2. The reason is insurance against the kinds of random annoyances that I get a lot: dust, a wind gust stirring up branches, a bird swooping into the corner, helicopters (seriously ... i live in NYC), etc.
If the light and the sky are changing rapidly I might do more.
Lately I've often just done one.
I used to shoot two sheets. But I found over time that I didn't actually use the second shot for anything. So I started shooting just one sheet. This has saved me a lot of time and a lot of money. I've only lost one sheet in the last year or so (about 500 sheets) due to operator error.
What's your "hit rate" of "keepers" to total scenes shot? For all those shots that you don't think were keepers, you've burned two sheets of film. Ask yourself what you gained by doing that, and then decide whether to keep burning two sheets, or to burn just one. Of course, there's nothing to keep you from burning two or more for those shots for scenes that you can tell, in the field, will be keepers.
One of the joys, if you can call it that, of shooting a single sheet is that it forces you to really think about your setup and exposure. You have to get it right, because you don't have a backup. I think this has made me better at my craft. And because of the film I save, I can setup on and shoot twice as many scenes as I was before for the same money. Shooting more, I think, is making me a better photographer.
But clearly YMMV. You have to find a system and a "rythym" that suits the way you want to work. The more comfortable you are, the better work you can do.
Bruce Watson
I shoot two sheets per subject. I tried shooting one but inevitably found that after developing the negative I wished I had developed longer/shorter. After a number of negs that were lost through scratched emulsions or dust I gave up on the 'perfectionism' of one single exposure and went for the safer and less ballsy multiple. It was quite satisfying to be able to pull the one sheet of the image out the fixer and see it was all there, sometimes it was a bit scary and the whole time you are in the dark developing the negative you are swinging wildly between depression and ecstacy on the outcome :-)
CP Goerz
As for the economics, I use expired film that costs only about 30cents/sheet, while processing is one order of magnitude more. So when the first batch comes back from the lab, if I don't think an image is a "keeper", I just throw out the back-up sheet. Additional cost is 10%. If the image is a keeper, I am glad to have two of them (for instance so that I can consider sending out to India for scanning without loosing sleep). On the few times I shot a single sheet, having a holder half-used contrarily to my usual rythm has caused me to make a fair amount of mistakes, like double-exposing. In practice, what limits the number of images is time, rather than film costs, esp. since at the same time I like to run around with my 35mm.
I take one. If I need to bracket, I use MF.
I normally shoot three sheets. The first is processed, then the other two, with any adjustments as required. One then goes to my slide library, leaving me with a least one good un', or two if I got it right!
Steve
www.landscapesofwales.co.uk
I just take 1 shot
that figures
that figures
It is all I need, I know how to control my materials. I dont need to fix them afterwards in PS.
I usually shoot two sheets Quickload. But I expose 2 stops under the brightest highlight on the first and close down one stop for the second. Then I process both at once. If the shot is exceptional or I am using nd grads I might expose a few more.
I'd never keep track which one was which if I exposed both the same and then process one first.
In my fine art black and white efforts with the 8 x 10, I shoot only one sheet, unless I know I have made a mistake. However, when I have shot professionally with a 35mm camera, I would expose up to seven roles of film to cover an event. The only problem with this multi-roll approach was that I would have too many "keepers," and I would spent a lot of time looking at proof sheets in order to reduce the number of usable shots that I was going to show the client. In your case, your method of working seems sound and logical to me if you can afford the film cost.
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