How do you avoid forgetting things?

[John Powers]

I was in sales and thus traveled a lot for my 40 years. Nothing like opening a suitcase Monday morning and finding you left out the..., socks for instance. If you are in a place where you can buy socks it is only an irritation, but some times it is much worse. To this day when I pull out a suitcase I image myself getting dressed and pull out however many socks, shirts, etc., I will need plus a spare or two. I do the same dance with the LF camera gear bag. It is a list, but it is in my head.

I use a stop watch in the darkroom and out shooting long exposures. After the umpteenth time I forgot to move it from one place to the other, a friend loaned me his watch. Then in embarrassment I watched him counting seconds for a long exposure. I bought a second stop watch, one in the bag and one in the darkroom.

The nice thing about getting old is that pretty soon you forget that you forgot.

John Powers

[photographs42]

One thing I learned to do is test fire my shutter before pulling out the dark slide. If it does not fire, you did not close the preview lever. Do that every time and no more wasted sheets of film........................

This is a pretty standard recommendation. It not only tells you that the shutter is closed, it tells you if the shutter is working smoothly. Even with newer lenses, I usually cock and fire the shutter two or three times before pulling the slide. It only takes a couple of seconds.

For your center filter issue, why not write “Center filter +2” on a piece of tape and attach it to the lens caps of your wide angles? This would remind you to add it and compensate at the same time.

As for the dark slide, mine seldom leaves my hand. If it does, it is usually because the film has been rotated to a vertical position and I place the slide on top of the holder to help block light. Probably does little good but…..

Repetition of a routine is probably the best way to remember but if you are a check list type then use that. I’ve made plenty of mistakes over the last 25 years but I’m sure many of them would not have been prevented by using a list.

Jerome

[Leonard Metcalf]

So I don't forget to change the film speed between the two films I am carrying, I use two light meters, each one set for each film. The spot is set for my black and white, while my incident is set for my colour film.

[Patrik Roseen]

I have developed a routine lately when using several filters at the same time, say a polarizer and a red filter which makes it easier for me to work out the correct exposure settings.
Before doing the spotmeter reading I set the filmspeed on the spot to the type o film I am using say 400. Then I adjust the filmspeed on the spot by going though the various filters, polarizer=>200->100, redfilter=>50->25->12.
Then I spotmeter and decide which time/aperture combination I want to go for.

I found this procedure to work very well in situations with changing light since the filter factors have been dealt with once and for all and can be forgotten about...

[Vick Ko]

I was shooting my 4x5 for the 2nd time yesterday, and left my loupe at home.


...Vick

[David_Senesac]

When I started using my view camera my main problem was incorrect exposures and light leaks so I tended to continue shooting 6x7 several years and just dabbling. When Quickload came out I saw that as a way to simplify the process and started uses those while at the same time brainstorming the process. I stopped using my old spot meter SLR for metering which had needed a ridiculous amount of math to translate in my head for each shot and bought a digital meter. As soon as I began using Quickloads I ran through the various ways to screw up most of us probably experience. Each time I did so I brainstormed a way to remedy such. I created a checklist and within a short time had a well documented comprehensive process for using my own gear. Errors became less frequent and in time I didn't need to use the checklist except when not shooting for long periods. To be less expensive I then started using sheet film and brainstormed problems working with film holders until they also became few.

Large format isn't for most people because besides modest knowledge and experience, one also needs to be rather methodical and careful. In my real life job I do electronic testing and debug often having to connect up dozens of tiny logic analyzer probes to barely visible points on circuit boards. Probing about on boards where one mistake can be a disaster for a project such that many design engineers would rather have me do so even on their own creations. So I learned how to be exacting long before I took up working a view camera which is rather simple in comparison. ...David