Learning to shot Chrome film??

[vinny]

Frank - anyone who has to bracket a chrome is what I'd call an amateur. I've never bracketed in my entire life, and I've shot chromes in all kinds of cameras for decades in all
kinds of conditions, with almost never an exposure error. Who would want to hire a "pro"
who guesses exposure, or who racks up the budget machine-gunning LF film? I've never even wasted 35mm film like that. Maybe a backup chrome in a real dicey commercial shoot
if you didn't trust the E6 lab. But there were plenty of reputable E6 lines around here to
choose from.

I've never known of a "pro" commercial photographer who DIDN'T bracket chromes. I guess you are the exception. Congrats.

[Drew Wiley]

Gosh ... must have been regional customs. Kodak must have loved you guys. Mr Brother
did commercial photog and graduated from Brooks. At that point, if you couldn't bag a chrome you didn't graduate from the program... and that was when gear was pretty primitive compared to now. I don't know what all the fuss is about. I mainly printed on
Cibachrome, which is itself high-contrast and intolerant of bad originals. Never occurred to
me that there's anything difficult or spooky about exposing chromes. Maybe everything
is intimidating to the cell phone generation (but then, I've never taken a photo with a
cell phone, nor do I know how to!). Check you shutter speeds and light meter for accuracy (true for all types of film, unless you're deliberately sloppy), don't trust gray
cards either unless tested ... then just go shoot and practice. Find a reliable lab for the
E6. No sasquatch or polar bear is going to come eat you just because you want to shoot
chrome. It's not all that difficult!

[Frank Petronio]

Drew, I got curious about your authority on all of these color matters, given your professed expertise with making Cibas and Dye Transfers and other challenges... so I looked up your website at http://www.drewwiley.com. After looking through your galleries, I agree, it would be pointless to bracket chromes, your images convinced me, Kudos.

[Drew Wiley]

Thanks Frank, but I'm really a beginner at dye transfer - that will be a bit of a retirement
hobby with thawed materials. In the meantime I'm going to be doing big poly C-prints from
the newer Kodak neg films, mostly 8x10 Ektar. Ciba days are mostly over. It's just that when I grew up one could buy Kodachrome in every little country store and bait shop around. Every farmer's wife knew how to do a slide show of their vacation. And the best seat in the house was way back in a dark corner where you could snooze thru the ordeal!
My older brother was selling Pentax, Linhof, and Rollei to pay his way thru school and got
me a very early Pentax SLR with an outside-coupled meter, and it just never occurred to
me that there is anything difficult about chromes. I've even got an old dye transfer pamphlet from even earlier days touting how easy the process is for home darkroom hobbyists! Then Ciba made it even eaiser. There was never a question about how to obtain
a good chrome itself. Early Agfachromes were higher contrast than even Kodachrome and gave lovely color, if very grainy by today's standards. Ektachrome 64, by comparison, was
a piece of cake latitude-wise.

[Greg Miller]

Nice one Frank Is that the response you were expecting?

[vinny]

Drew, I got curious about your authority on all of these color matters, given your professed expertise with making Cibas and Dye Transfers and other challenges... so I looked up your website at http://www.drewwiley.com. After looking through your galleries, I agree, it would be pointless to bracket chromes, your images convinced me, Kudos.

someone hit the nail on the head.

[Drew Wiley]

So what "exactly" is the implication? I'm not interested in knucklehead web surfers trying to compare cell phone and DLSR images. There's a world of difference between a web JPEG and a real Cibachrome when someone is nose to nose with it. And if some of you think I'm bluffing, I could care less. Your loss. I give good throroughly tested information. And I never have bracketed anything. And I still don't understand the value of discouraging
anyone from shooting chromes by making them sound difficult. Outdoor photographers have
shot LF chromes for decades, under conditions much trickier than in the studio, and probably damn few of them could afford to duplicate shots, even if the wind and lighting allowed it. After awhile one just understands what a specific film is good for, and what it
is not, and begins to subconsciously select appropriate compositions and natural lighting
ratios. It becomes second nature.

[Preston]

Outdoor photographers have shot LF chromes for decades, under conditions much trickier than in the studio, and probably damn few of them could afford to duplicate shots, even if the wind and lighting allowed it. After awhile one just understands what a specific film is good for, and what it is not, and begins to subconsciously select appropriate compositions and natural lighting ratios. It becomes second nature.

This statement gets my vote. I rarely shoot more than one chrome of a scene--I can't afford to. In rare circumstances I may do a second shot if there's wind, I accidentally bump the camera, or the light changes for the better, but bracketing is out of the question for me.

Using chrome film is not rocket science, in my opinion. It simply takes a considered approach (like all photography) and having a mental and physical system in place that reduces the margin for error.

--P

[Drew Wiley]

I like the fact that I learned chrome even before black and white. That taught me not to
be sloppy or to rely on "latitude" even when using color neg or b&w. Now that I'm edging
toward geezerhood it gets even more important not to waste an extra shot - I lugging
around an 8x10 and Ries tripod most of the time, often on steep hills. How many film holders can I also carry? I might have three or four holders at the most for an outing -
two for b&w film, one with color neg, and one with tranny film. I ration myself one color
shot a week at most. Sometimes I do have to use my reserve sheet - it get's real windy
around here and once in awhile a gust shakes my camera at exactly the wrong moment,
or I might see a better composition and kick myself for needing the extra sheet. Of course
the lighting can suddenly change with a cloud moving over the sun etc - but I'm more likely
to gamble with that scenario with less expensive black and white rather than color.
or maybe I've done

[John Brady]

Shooting chromes is simple, just load it in a film holder and pop the shutter. Not having the finished image look like vomit is another story...