How many takes do you do during portrait photosession?

[Eric Woodbury]

6 has always been a good number. More as the number of people or animals in the pic increases.

[stehei]

8*10: 4 sheets
4*5 inch with kodak ektar aero: 4-10 sheets
digital: 40-60 shots

[IanMazursky]

Usually 2-4 color sheets of 4x5 and 2 of B&W.
But sometimes more.

Some of my clients can shoot 1-2 full 50 sheet box of Portra 160nc & a 50 sheet box of Tri X on a portrait job.

[jnantz]

it depends ... i usually shoot as many as it takes ...
i have shelves of film so i don't really pay attention to
how much i shoot ( 4x5, 5x7 )
i just load all my holders and shoot until i think i am done ...
usually it is a handful of holders and i am good ...
8x10 + 11x14 is a little different, i shoot paper not film and
don't shoot more than a few sheets.
i have normal holders for the 8x10
but the 11x14 one is hand made and only takes
one sheet at a time so i have to
reload after each one... and the exposures can be pretty long
(sometimes a few seconds outdoors, sometimes 30+ indoors)

[xmishx]

I'm working out numbers as I started shooting 4x5 recently. At the moment, I'm going around 6 to 10 sheets. If I find that the one is closer to the beginning of the shoot, I'll probably stick to 6. If I'm finding the hero is towards the back end of the shoot, I'll stay at 10.

Ted

[Vaughn]

8x10 -- 4 sheets (but I have only shot a portrait of someone else besides my boys once in the past several years).

Field (enviromental) portraits of my boys w/8x10 -- usually two...exposure times up to one minute. After two, my boys are done posing...whether I like it or not!

Vaughn

[Toyon]

I read somewhere that Avedon shot something like 19,000 sheets of 10x8 film for that 'In the American West' project.

Matt

Yeah, and he had several assistants and scouts.

[adrian tyler]

maximum 2, on extraordinary occasions i may do 3.

[Geert]

4 to 6 on 8x10".
I have a fixed price for a portrait session, including 2 prints, so I'm always counting on selling some extra prints outside the package I offer.

G

[Dany]

I shoot:

8x10" 4-10 sheet all as is doublers
4x5" 10-16 sheet +-half as is doublers
6x4.5 3-5 rolls