That's a ludicrous argument, John. I sell a lot of very expensive wooworking machinery among other things. Sure, there are guys out there that can take those things and build
a kitchen that looks like it was made with a chainsaw, double-bit axe, and horse rasp.
But there are plenty of other guys who routinely do splendid work. Don't blame the tools.
Incompetence is not the fault of the film or the printing paper.
For what it's worth, I used a lot of transparency film when I was 13-14-15 years of age, in the early 70s. It was cheaper than color prints( I didn't have a darkroom); I could project the images. I was using a Kodak 35 with an f 3.5 lens and a pre WWII Weston 735(?) meter.
I still have those slides, Kodachromes and High Speed Ektachromes indoors. There are very few bad exposures, 5% or less. Moving forward to 1998, when I spent a month in Germany with a Nikon F and a LunaSix... maybe 3 or 4 bad exposures out of the 7 36 exp. rolls of Agfachrome I used.
Meter carefully, think about the lighting and you get a properly exposed chrome. It really is that simple. I don't bracket unless for some reason I cannot meter the scene, regardless of what film I am using. I really don't see what's so difficult; if you are properly utilising B&W film there's no latitude either. Maybe y'all are just a bit sloppy?
One man's Mede is another man's Persian.
If you don't know what it was like to shoot professionally for publications back in the days of optical color separations, or even early PMT scanning, you may never have felt the pain of rudely discovering just how exacting the needs of the print industry once were, versus what looked good--or amazingly good--to the hobbyist and slide projectionist.
We shot chromes because they were the only acceptable form of submission to publications, agencies, and print pre-press shops--that's why pros used the stuff. It wasn't particularly because we enjoyed the challenge of getting it right to within 1/3 or 1/6 of a stop of middle gray (bracketing), neither blocking up shadows nor blowing highlights with emulsions that might hold 10 stops on the light table but that couldn't/wouldn't be printed.
Print-house requirements, depending on the final use in print, sometimes meant as few as 3 or 4 stops to a maximum of 5 stops range. And the printshop wasn't about to eat the considerable added pre-press expense of USM masking. No, unless it was a once-in-a-lifetime or unrepeatable shot, you were expected to provide very tightly controlled exposures on transparency film. (If you submitted >5-stop transparencies, and particularly if the publication had a monthly deadline, you could expect your shadow detail to be lost when printing to a 133 line-screen web press).
But even among amateurs it was also a mostly unspoken canon that you could only shoot in near-perfect light with chromes. Much of the learning curve for proper exposure was spent discovering what range of subject brightness was best scrupulously avoided. Or conversely, how to turn these scenes into opportunities for silhouettes of your subject ;-)
Originally Posted by Drew Wiley
It's not about being able to do it first time or not. It's about having a safety. If you're hired to do a job, you had better do it well. Bracketing is very cheap insurance compared to pissing off a big client by needing a reshoot.
In the studio there were ways to easily balance the lighting ratio, and if you were still paranoid, you could do a Polaroid proof. Garden-variety magazine work did require tight lighting ratios, and I learned that lesson the hard way early on. Reflectors and diffusion tents simplify that for some outdoor work, or else you timed the natural light correctly.
Interior arch shots were more about lighting setup than the final shot itself. But in my
little niche, clients simply demanded me to supply the print - that's what I charged them
for, not the shoot per se. They didn't want anyone else printing it. Nowadays people just
don't have time for that kind of quality and want everything yesterday. You either have
to have quick access to a drum scanner or shoot digital to begin with, and the result is
mainly shared either on the web or on a laptop presentation. Fortunately, I can forget all
that nonsense now and concentrate on printing my personal work.
Ivan - you just stated it yourself. Aren't you a wildlife guy? Just how many retakes or
brackets do you get on a roving or running critter? Probably zero. You anticipate the light
and composition intuitively, and generally with the luxury of only a key meter reading or two. That's it. Shutter speeds and meter checked and calibrated in advance. Forget gray
cards - none of them are even close to 18%, except perhaps the correct patch on an
unfaded MacBeath chart. In fact, with lots of non-studio applications there is no second
chance. The lighting, clouds,or shadows change quickly.
The most difficult task for anyone considering shooting large format color transparency film outdoors is setting exposures. Especially dimmer landscapes. It is not a mechanical process as some make it sound. Film and developing is too expensive to usually bracket unless one is stupid rich. Many outdoor landscapes have a rather wide range of exposure values often with extremes beyond the dynamic range of film. And only grays are accurate as zero exposure metered even values with other hues balanced at either higher plus values for light colors like yellow or minus values for dark colors like blue. Decifering all this standing in front of a complex landscape is more intuition than again a mechanical process. One thing for sure, I don't ever have to worry about many photographers ever being able to do it well.
Preston posted good advice. My background before shooting sheet film was similar to Alan G. During 80s into 90s when most 35mm SLR camera users had moved on to autoexposure metering, I stayed with a manual spot metering system which continued to teach me how to expose film by evaluating outdoor landscapes. Although I have 5 degree spot metering on my Shepherd Polaris Dual 5 Flash Meter, probably 90% of the time I use the incident dome sensor. Cost is much below 1 degree meters and the latter overkill since large format is really not telephoto oriented where that has more value.
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produc...l_5_Flash.html
When I first began exposing sheet film, the ratio of acceptable to mediocre exposures was poor. Finally after a few years preferring to continue shooting 6x7, I got serious, took a notebook with me I religiously recording information and in surprisingly short time synchronized the skill I already possessed evaluating exposures to results.
Other than making Cibas or some other dead print process, what advantages are there to making transparencies? Please educate me because I only see negatives to using chromes, pardon the pun.
I mean after shooting large format professionally for going on 29-years perhaps I missed something?
Right now we are finally at the peak of being able to make, control, and print color photographs thanks to the excellent films and workflows developed within the last 5-6 years. And it ain't got anything to do with using 1990s-era transparency films.
And yes, the notion that shooting outdoors is somehow more critical than studio work is laughable and a disservice to any newbies who stumble upon this thread. Some people declare themselves experts - check their work out before assuming verbiage equals results.
Same here. My Sekonic L-558 has both incident and 1° spot capabilities. I normally use the incident function.
I use the spot meter if there's an unusual situation or subject, or to confirm my assessment of the SBR.
- Leigh
If you believe you can, or you believe you can't... you're right.
As a zealous proponent of field notes, I’ll use a spot meter whenever I can, which is by far most of the time.
And not just for the specific readings – varied or flat, steady or changing, easy or difficult – but for the deliberation it inspires. Call it a personal psychological issue. Overall, slowing down allows me to “catch-up” to more good shots than speeding up. It’s the opposite for some, and I understand and appreciate this, but it’s difficult for me to believe.
Besides, the spot meter readings I write down usually surprise my expectations. As we all know, the relationship between light and surfaces is tricky. Especially in the forest.
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