A collection of LF ideas & discoveries that don't need a whole thread to themselves

[ShannonG]

i use common sence,,,,,and annything i call ,,,,a new skill...

[chris jordan]

I always carried a big gnarly Bowie knife in my LF camera bag. Turned out I never needed it for anything, but it sure was bitchin' to know it was there, just in case, you know, I had a piece of thread that needed cutting or whatever. Or I got attacked by a crocodile (in Seattle). ~cj

[NoBob]

Guitar plectrum to lift film out of the holder. I bought the thinnest type. Someone mentioned using them on this forum I think, but I can't find the post.

[cjbroadbent]

A laser fixed precisely and permanently to a quick-release plus a mirror fixed to a book-end. When the beam comes back and hits the laser, I know the the tripod head is aimed square on to walls, table edges and such.

[David_Senesac]

Most of my work has always been out in the field thus need to be self-sufficient once hiking out. Have always wound a length of construction grade duct tape (now use Gorilla Tape) around the upper wider end of one tripod leg and over years have used it to remedy a range of issues like when a screw apparently fell out from my Wisner's front standard extension levers. Of course there was a time when I would just chuck a roll in my daypack but it had a tendency to leave that location and then I would not notice it was gone until being needed.

I set exposure a bit differently than others who use a digital lightmeter in that I've always set aperture and shutter speed from EV levels. So set my meter to show EV levels without any of the usual f-stop and SS further help. Thus have learned to totally think in EV light levels that at least I think has advantages and that is mostly incident reading so don't use spot modes too often except in situations like late/early light skies. And also have always tended to use ASA 100 transparency film. Accordingly have taped a table on tripod legs for ASA 100 of aperture (X) versus shutter speed (Y) with EV data values on chart body. Thus when shooting for years have used that to set exposure when it is at a setting I'm not familiar with that is usually during dimmer situations of longer exposure. Being right on a tripod leg makes looking at it easy and hand's free while in the heat of battle.