That alone is one of the best pieces of advice for a field photographer. I do it all the time, and I never (ok, almost never) forget a piece of gear. I open my camera back, and mentally go through the process, checking for each piece of gear in the bag. Works for me!Originally Posted by Linhof
[QUOTE=Linhof] 3. perform shutter test before actual fire
I've measured shutter speeds and found that with older shutters it's helpful to fire the shutter several times to stabilize the speed, especially in colder weather. I learned this tip from a now deceased, long time LF photographer.
As for the worst mistake I've made, how does backpacking seven miles into a canyon and then remembering you left the film in the truck rank? It wound up being a very long day.
Last edited by Charles; 17-Aug-2006 at 06:27.
Ok, this wasn't my mistake, but it's bad enough to share with you all.
A good friend of mine took an extended road trip from the Pacific NW down through Utah/Arizona/Nevada, hitting all the highlights (Canyonlands, Arches NP, etc). On his first or second shot of the trip, his Quickload holder jammed and the metal clip got stuck inside. He yanked the film out but didn't notice that the metal clip stayed behind. So, on every shot thereafter when he would insert the Quickload film packet it wouldn't catch or open the sleeve to expose the film - but it felt like it was. He didn't notice that something was wrong until several weeks later (after getting home) when the lab called to say that the stack of film that they developed for him was all blank.
Talk about painful!
That's the worst mistake I've heard of, what a nightmare.Ok, this wasn't my mistake, but it's bad enough to share with you all.
A good friend of mine took an extended road trip from the Pacific NW down through Utah/Arizona/Nevada, hitting all the highlights (Canyonlands, Arches NP, etc). On his first or second shot of the trip, his Quickload holder jammed and the metal clip got stuck inside. He yanked the film out but didn't notice that the metal clip stayed behind. So, on every shot thereafter when he would insert the Quickload film packet it wouldn't catch or open the sleeve to expose the film - but it felt like it was. He didn't notice that something was wrong until several weeks later (after getting home) when the lab called to say that the stack of film that they developed for him was all blank.
Talk about painful!
Then comes a time when you realize you have made many of these mistakes. You have learned much from them. You have practiced and developed procedures. You will make many more, but you will learn from them. Along the way your pictures become better as you practice, improve and practice.
The old cliché comes to mind about measuring twice and cutting once. You still make mistakes, but the ratio of good to bad gets better or you quit and take up golf.
John Powers
Good grief! I've played golf, still own a set of clubs and a pair of shoes, though I haven't been on a course in years; still love the game, but my lifetime best score is 101 (29 over par). Large format is *much* easier to do competently; I *never* made as many "duffer errors" with 4x5 or 9x12 cm film as I do every time I drop a little white dimpled ball on turf.
If a contact print at arm's length is too small to see, you need a bigger camera. :D
having my light metre's battery die leaving me to "guess" the exposures.
making an exposure, being distracted by someone then removing the lens before placing slide back in.
thinking I made an exposure but not quite sure...
exposing four holders of 8x10...literally. (no film inside)
exposing without removing the slide
attaching an umbrella to my tripod to keep glaring sun off only to have a gust of wind "lift" my camera out of position.
Driving 35km to destination with the 4x5 reducer on the back of my 8x10 intending to shoot 8x10
stuffing some of my lenses in my backpack for the Canham forgetting to first remove them from Linhof boards
forgetting to apply filter factors
applying the factor but forgetting the filter
forgetting filter holder and having to hold with fingers...which get in the picture.
Reading this lot makes me think that maybe a 126 camera with 'flower' and 'mountain' symbols would be a good way to go
I can see how it's easy to be distracted when someone talks to you. The problem with LF is that it's not exactly inconspicuous. When I was taking shots at the Gt Coxwell Tithe barn, I was under the focusing cloth and I could feel a presence to my left...to be fair, he didn't say anything when I was under the cloth (I would have jumped out of my skin!), but it was very distracting. Still, I did get the shot, although I now know the limits of my 75mm lens before vignetting becomes a problem. Ho Hum.
The only thing that I can add to this fabulous record of, well, "technical errors" (you just have to pass them off as something!) is - I'm glad its not just me!!
About 10 years ago I was photographing a hotel in Mobile, AL and I needed a long lens to get the view I wanted. I was on the roof of the pilothouse of a tugboat, which was sitting in a salvage yard about a block from the hotel. In between were a street intersection and a railroad track. I had a newly acquired Nikon 360/500 T lens for my Linhof but I couldn’t use it on the company owned Sinar F1 because, at the time, I didn’t have an extension rail. So I used my Tech IV with the 500mm (first time to use the 500) and made several images over about two hours. It was tricky because I had to stop down quite a ways to get adequate DOF and with the resulting long exposure I needed everything stopped. So I made my exposures just as the light changed and cars from both directions were stopped. Additionally, the trains were coming through every few minutes (there were 3 tracks) and the semaphores kept going up and down.
When an opportunity presented itself, I had only a split second to react, so I pulled the dark slide and waited, sometimes for several minutes. I got some really great stuff except for the secondary image from the pinhole in my bellows.I had never had that problem because I hadn’t used that much bellow extension before. I think the worst part was that the Hotel’s General Manager was with me on the tug boat and seamed to be impressed with my equipment and expertise; that is until he saw the results.
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