How'd they used to do it?

[Pawlowski6132]

So, based on my self-taught technique, whenever I'm taking a picture with my Calumet 4s5, I get out my spot meter, meter, focus, adjust for bellows extention compenstation, decide on a filter, etc.

Then, develop appropriately (N+1, N-1, N, etc.), print etc.


Now, I just flipped through one of WeeGee's collections and began to wonder, what was technique from capture-to-prints like from 1930's to 1970's???

Did photographers really go through all that or, did they have really stream lined techniques???? Did they process their own fim? Did they print their own negatives? Did they use the zone system? Did they even use meters?????

[Mark Sawyer]

They knew their own tools and techniques. Weegee knew his flash. There wasn't much for flash meters at the time; he just learned what to expect, what worked, what didn't. The same for every good photographer in every age, learn the materials, the tools, the light.

Yes, Weegee developed his own negatives, and made his own prints.

[Frank Petronio]

WeeGee could set up and shoot in seconds. So could thousands of lesser-know photographers. And while most of their film got processed by rote, sometimes they would push or pull it for extreme lighting conditions. But this was always based on intuition and rules of thumb, not precise measurements.

It was only with the advent of Ansel Adams, deciding that he could make a steadier income from teaching than by doing, that he gave us the Zone System and spot meters and fancy development schemes. And even now, not that many people, most obviously the pros, follow the Zone System consistently -- the real zealots, for some reason, are advanced amateur photographers... with a lot of extra time and money.

[Gordon Coale]

Weegee had a darkroom and office in the trunk of his car (http://www.mdrails.com/wordsweegee.html). Shoot at night and get everything in to the newspaper for the morning edition.

[jp]

Having looked over some various old cameras, I think there were various methods of getting it good enough without zone system or special skills.

The old brownies might have had one shutter speed and the users knew it was OK for certain types of scenes and others situations would end up too dark, too blurred, etc... So after some time with that, they knew what it could do well and used it for that.

Then some of the old cheaper folders and such might have 2-3 aperture settings and 2 shutter speeds. They were more versatile comparitively, and might have had a chart where you used a certain combination for a certain type of scene.

Old rolleiflexes had a chart on the back showing different suggested exposures to help you make educated guesses as to exposure.

The studio photographers knew what worked and didn't mess with it. So many seconds on certain types and times of day.

Film was more forgiving in those days compared to todays color digital or slide film, and film is suited to this type of exposure reckoning. Witness the limitation of Holgas and film P&Ss and the excellent photo exposures people still make with them if they choose the right film for the light.

As far as darkroom goes, I think it's always been a case of rote consistency means predictable results.

Some of the aesthetics many people like now in modern B&W photos were different 100 years ago. Soft focus and pictorialism often meant clumped masses of light and dark, diffusion ruining the crispness of shadows, some grittiness and lack of proper exposure made it more unique. Different lenses were good for different shooting contrast levels, and made for different results.

I would posit that zone system didn't really become popular until the later revisions of Adams instructional books.

That's probably also about the time accurate exposure for slides became a more widespread concern. While small format shooters had 3d matrix metering on their F4s to make perfect slides, LF users shooting transparency film had polaroids and meter+brain.

While understanding the zone system teaches one to consider carefully exposure, development, and it's effects on contrast, results, etc... I would say it's useful, but not in any way necessary. I don't use it as a "system" and have pleasing results using a incident meter, normal consistent developing, and multigrade paper. My way is not without limitations, but it's easy and works for me. If my negative is 90% perfect, I can make the corrections when I print it. I don't really need a 100% perfectly exposed and developed negative. It's pragmatism and having fun for me. I find that bad negatives are more apt to be caused by bad development technique than by small decisions at metering.

[Sevo]

Sheet also meant that you could correct development iteratively - smart photographers would mark the holders they had the greatest hopes in to be developed last, so that eventual corrections to the dev time would have been established by the time they (or their lab assistant) got to the marked holder(s).

[Harold_4074]

You might get a sense of how it was done from the fact that my father was trained in 1939 by the U.S. Army Signal Corps to always A) use a flashbulb, and B) set the aperture to f/8. This was with a Speed Graphic, probably ASA 50 film and most likely about 1/50 second. This will get you, in almost every case, a negative that is at least printable. (Most of the non-civilian combat photography in WWII was done the same way.)

Newspapers were not picky about image quality (subject matter, yes, but not image quality) and as long as the highlights were not totally burned out, the guys in the process camera room could work wonders.

By the time I was involved in news photography (mid-1960s) the formula was "f/11, 1/250 second, and always use the strobe". We developed the Tri-X in D-76, and printed onto #1 paper so the prints looked like dishwater. But the pictures in the newspaper were just fine; those camera settings will pretty much guarantee a usable image under any conditions between full sunlight surrounded by bare concrete to complete darkness (in which case we focused by scale) as long as you were not more than 10--12 feet away. The reproduction quality of the printing was poor enough that anything smaller than a house fire would be too small in the final picture if it was more than 12 feet away anyway.

For "feature" work (as opposed to breaking news) we became quite skilled at estimating exposure so that we could exploit depth of field and lighting other than electronic flash. To this day, I feel no real need for a meter when taking snapshots outdoors with black-and-white film, and I have to say that I was never even in the same league as the real press pros.

Of course, if things weren't pressing, we would use the distance and the flash guide number to

[Ben Syverson]

The truth is that you don't really need to be so meticulous about spot metering, bellows compensation, etc. It's important for E6 color, but not a big deal for color negative. And of course B&W is even more forgiving.

Bellows compensation is usually rounded anyway, so there's no sense in breaking out the tape measure for every shot. For most lenses you can boil it down to a rule of thumb like "1 stop for head and shoulders, 1.5 stops for headshot." Spot meters are way overrated, and so is the zone system. If you know how to use and interpret an incident meter, you can meter in 2 seconds. If you're outside, you can use Sunny 16 and leave the meter at home. If you're already carrying a DSLR, you can think of it as an overpriced light meter with a full color LCD preview.

Of course, some people really enjoy taking 10-30 minutes thinking about and calculating the exposure for a shot!

[Vick Vickery]

Don't know how they did it in the '30's and 40's, or even in the first half of the 50's, but from there on I did it just like you outlined it! :) And still do. Actually, I don't meter until after the shot is fully composed.

[Daniel_Buck]

exposures aren't really all that difficult to guess. Every time I have a meter with me, I darn well use it. But the times I've not had a meter with me, (including a speedgraphic with flash, before I got my flash meter) I've actually done pretty good, you pick up on patterns pretty quick (especially with a flash, distance versus aperture, and how strong you want the flash to be, flash lit, or flash fill). And I imagine if I were to rely more on my guess as the exposure, I'd be even better at it. It's not that hard, we just get used to using a meter :-)

It's the same thing with most things really. Many folks today would wonder, how did people drive cars without automatic transmissions, and cruise control? Neither of my cars have an automatic, or cruise control, but I do just fine. I prefer it actually! (actually, cruise control I sometimes wish I had, hah!). And even those who drive manual transmissions today might say, how did people drive manual transmissions before there were synchro mesh gears? As technology gets better and new techniques are developed, we just don't have to rely on the old ways of doing things, unless we want to. But it's just because we're out of practice, and there's not much of a necessity to do so, and the older ways are just considered an inconvenience nowadays. You can still shift a manual transmission as if it didn't have syncro mesh gears, but normally don't have to, so we wonder how the heck people used to do it when they had to double clutch and get the engine and transmission all spinning at the same speed before shifting.

Kind of interesting to think about that sometimes, what it would be like if we had to go back to older ways of doing things, things that we take for granted every day :-) Like if my light meter busted on me, and I had to resort to guessing ALL of my exposures for a while. At first I'd freak out (and I did, when I was without it for a while!) but then it just becomes ok once I'm in the practice :-)

[al olson]

So, based on my self-taught technique, whenever I'm taking a picture with my Calumet 4s5, I get out my spot meter, meter, focus, adjust for bellows extention compenstation, decide on a filter, etc.

Then, develop appropriately (N+1, N-1, N, etc.), print etc.

Now, I just flipped through one of WeeGee's collections and began to wonder, what was technique from capture-to-prints like from 1930's to 1970's???

Did photographers really go through all that or, did they have really stream lined techniques???? Did they process their own fim? Did they print their own negatives? Did they use the zone system? Did they even use meters?????

Many of your questions are answered on this thread:
http://www.largeformatphotography.info/forum/showthread.php?t=63094&page=3

For press work most of the small town photographers did their own darkroom work. I handed my assignments to the photo editor on 8x10 glossies. I had heard that some of the big city papers had darkroom staffs, but I never had this kind of support.

Weegee was also known to do his own darkroom work. A story is told about his developing film in the subway cab on the way to the newspaper. No explanation as to how he was carrying his chemicals or how he kept the developing film in the dark. It is also said that he developed film from the trunk of his car.

As far as N-1, N+1 etc. processing was concerned I always stuck to N using the manufacturers development recommendations. I made my prints on grade 2 1/2 paper.

Most of our exposures were determined by using the rangefinder to find the distance and then dividing this into the guide number based on film ASA and flash power to set the aperture.

I don't recalling seeing any press pros use a light meter, even for outdoor events such as football games. Kodak and the other manufacturers included a flimsy tissue sheet with development instructions and recommended aperture and shutter settings for different conditions such as bright sunlight, partly cloudy, overcast, and on down to interior lighting. This is what we used if flash was not our main lighting source.

Exposure meters were expensive. In 1958 I bought a new Super Graphic with lens for $350 and a new Strobonar for $150 plus $40 for six film holders. My budget was tapped out. A new Weston would have cost around another $150.

Studio photographers also worked to a canned formula with studio lights always placed a certain distance from the subject for a standardized aperture. Again they used flash.

I don't recall the films of the 50s as being very forgiving. They were contrasty and grainy and had a SBR of around 7-8 EV (on the straight line portion of the characteristic curve) whereas modern films have a SBR range of 11-13 EV. We were willing to give up details in the shadows to avoid blowing out the highlights. [Because of the slower film speeds, when we weren't using flash our films were likely underexposed. When first introduced, Tri-X was 200 ASA.]

It was photographers like Weston, Adams, and Strand who worked outside the canned formula. Weston experimented with his still lifes of the peppers, varying light, shadow, and exposure. For consistency Adams developed his zone system. An interesting question would be when did these photographers begin using light meters? It is my belief that they were a scarce item up until the early 50s. Wynn Bullock refused to use one and threw his in the trash.

[Mark Sawyer]

BTW, people doing wet plates don't use light meters. The material is sensitive to UV lights, and there's no UV meter. Besides, the collodion changes sensitivity significantly as it ages. The system is "guess, and develop by inspection accordingly", which seems to work fine.