Exposure Worksheet

[Doremus Scudder]

Doremus, we come from different directions. I respect yours. Perhaps you could respect mine. It's hard to imagine a more ridiculous analogue vs digital debate than one about making exposure records. I spent some time explaining the worksheet in case others are interested in making one. In fact it's quick to use, contains the information that I want to record, is a snap to duplicate, and there's an immediate backup in the cloud. Several of the fields can be populated in advance. You made our own with Microsoft Word, but you prefer printing it out and using a pen and paper. Good for you.

I especially don't appreciate this: "I spend a lot more time walking around composing and metering... Sometimes less is more. "

I realise that many people practice photography the way you describe. I do it for street photography with a 65 years young Leica M3. In other cases, I do my walking around and most of my metering as part of scouting and planning. I've already explained that, responding to an earlier post of yours.

I don't doubt that you've read post #6, but apparently you've decided to ignore it. I scout and plan, in part using Artist's Viewfinder and PhotoPills, precisely because I don't want to walk around with large format camera gear looking for spur of the moment inspiration. Both of those apps are quite successful, which suggests that I'm not the only person who works this way. My approach is strongly influenced by making videos, where planning saves a lot of time, as well as trouble later. I don't expect you to take the same approach as me. Perhaps you could recognise that not everybody wants to work the way that you do.

r.e.,

No offense intended. I should have added some kind of emoji to indicate friendly tongue-in-cheek banter. From our past exchanges on the forum, I feel (felt) that we had a friendly and joking conversational style going on (the whole "convoluted" thing).

And, the comment about spending time walking around composing and metering was meant to be in comparison to the time I spend recording information in my exposure record; in no way was it meant as a comparison to how you work.

I don't know how much time you spend entering information about exposure with your system, but I'm certainly not disrespecting your methods.

I was really just obliquely commenting on the effort and detail you went to in posting all that information. No criticism intended; if anyone can get verbose, it's me.

The only reasons I post are to a) learn something or b) offer something. I realize you're doing the same. Between the two of us, other readers have a larger selection of options/ideas.

Again, apologies for any misunderstanding.

Doremus

[r.e.]

I've made a new version of this worksheet that I think will document a photograph from planning through exposure through processing. Many of the fields can be completed in advance and, like the previous version, a good number are just a matter of choosing from a drop-down menu. I think that this image record will also work with my 6x7 and 35mm cameras.

This is a single document. However, I've split it into the three screen captures to keep the text at an easily readable 13 points. Uploading a screen capture to the forum noticeably degrades its sharpness.

The three screen captures in the next post do the same with an example showing how the form works.

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[r.e.]

Further to the above post...

I'm using this form for a photograph that I plan to make next week. These screen captures reflect some planning for the photo and several fields are now filled in. Note that a number of fields in the template, and some text, have simply been deleted because they aren't needed for this photograph. I'm happy that I was able to figure out how to include a map showing the location, and a sun path image, in what is basically a spreadsheet.

The form works well on my iPhone in landscape orientation, and of course on an iPad. It takes no time to make duplicates covering as many sheets of film as one wants. In the field, duplicates can be made after a first exposure when there are only one or two variables left. The document is automatically backed up to iCloud as I make additions to it, and a folder of these records will be easily searchable on my computer. I may add a keywords field, and I'm considering how these records might work alongside Photo Mechanic and its IPTC metadata.

I imagine that a Zone System photographer could use an iPad mini, an Apple Pencil and an image field on this form to make a Zone System sketch of the kind that @Greg talks about in post #18.

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Re the "Quality of Light" field, Wikipedia has an entry on oktas if you aren't familiar with the term. They're taught as part of pilot training and are an important part of airport weather reports, issued every 30 minutes, called METARs.



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[Alan Klein]

r.e. You certainly have everything covered. The problem is the sun might set before you finish filling it all in.

Just a couple of questions. Is this on your cellphone? Is there a way to copy the data from one sheet to the next easily so you don't have to type in repetitive things like camera, film type, location etc.?

[r.e.]

r.e. You certainly have everything covered. The problem is the sun might set before you finish filling it all in.

Just a couple of questions. Is this on your cellphone? Is there a way to copy the data from one sheet to the next easily so you don't have to type in repetitive things like camera, film type, location etc.?

I made this form with Apple's spreadsheet programme, Numbers. One could do the same thing with Excel. Numbers and the form are on my computer, iPad and iPhone. In the field, an iPad mini would be ideal, but the form works fine on my iPhone when the phone is in landscape orientation.

As the screen capture below shows, I've saved the core document (post #22) as a Numbers template. Once loaded, the template can be duplicated at any stage of completion using Numbers > File > Duplicate. If you make more than one duplicate, Numbers adds an identifier so that the copies have different names: copy, copy 2, copy 3, etc. Duplication is instantaneous.

As shown in posts #22 and #23 above, my first step with the template is to delete fields (e.g. Artificial Light and Annex 3) and text within a field (e.g. references to reciprocity failure for HP5ᐩ and Portra) that I don't need for the shoot.

The following fields don't need to be filled out manually. I select from drop-down menus that I've already populated:

Moonlight phase
Camera
Film
Lens
ISO
Aperture
First Filter
Second Filter
Third Filter
Sheet or roll number (actually a counter, not a drop-down menu)
Processing lab (options are two local labs and "Me, tray processing")
Processing instructions
Developer

Drop-down menus are a standard feature of Numbers. Most of the ones that I've made are shown in posts #10 to #16 above. For this new version, I've added Moonlight Phase, Camera, Processing Lab, Processing Instructions and Developer.

You aren't the first person in this thread to question how much time it takes to use this form. I wouldn't bother if it didn't save time. In fact, it's very efficient and collates a lot of information that would otherwise be cumbersome to manage. The ability to duplicate the form at any stage, including in the field, means that in many situations (e.g. when shooting variations) there may be only two or three fields to populate. I have my phone with me anyway, so it doesn't even require additional gear, such as a pen and notebook. If I'm within range of WiFi or a cellular tower, additions to the form are backed up to iCloud contemporaneously. A collection of these records built up over time is fully searchable.*

Numbers Template Screen
See My Templates, Photo Worksheet template highlighted in green.




* A caveat about searches... I haven't confirmed, but suspect, that searches can be done down to specific fields. Deleting fields that aren't needed for a shoot, as distinct from deleting their content, changes the row numbers unless the row numbers can be locked. This might affect the ability to make an accurate field-specific search. If one wanted to include, for example, a keywords field, this issue would require a bit of research.

[Drew Bedo]

Kodak used to put an exposure worksheet inside each box of film.
then they just printed s condensed guide on the inside of the box.
\Don't know what they do now.

I have made "Sunny Sixteen" work when without a light meter (for some reason).

[esearing]

I have a 3x5 card for Capture info on one side and Develop/process info on the other. the 3x5 card size also allows me to print instructions or ideas on other cards and just keep them all together. I even have shutter actual speeds, ev exposure chart, reciprocity calcs, filter details, and bellows factor instructions on 3x5 cards. I thought about putting it all into a database for research purposes and help for finding negatives quickly that I want to reprint.

[r.e.]

I thought about putting it all into a database for research purposes and help for finding negatives quickly that I want to reprint.

I got interested in the question of records for analogue photographs when I was doing some research in an archive that I expect will eventually include some of my own photographs. I came across negatives and prints that I wanted to know more about, but there was very little information about them.

I made this form to get around the limitations of applications like Photo Mechanic, Adobe Lightroom and Capture One when it comes to recording information about photographs made with film. I think that Photo Mechanic is the best of the three when it comes to metadata, but the reality is that the app's core client base is photojournalists, and they are all using digital cameras that natively record EXIF data.

I was also attracted to the idea of using a computer (desktop, tablet, phone) and digital storage, instead of pen, paper and boxes, notebooks or binders, to input and store the information. For me, the former is more convenient, and it’s clearly more efficient when it comes to searching for, and retrieving, information about the photographs in the future.

I’ve decided to use a spreadsheet application, but this could also be done with a word processing application. The two versions attached to posts #8 and #22 differ in how much information is recorded. The post #8 form covers exposure. The post #22 form adds planning, shoot details and developing.

[Update: The template is now available for download at GitHub. See post #31 below.] If anyone’s interested in looking at, or adapting, the form, send me a personal message with an e-mail address (attachments can’t be sent via personal message). It’s an Apple Numbers template. I believe that it can be opened and saved in Excel. Indeed, I've used Numbers to export it as an Excel document just to see what would happen. The conversion was pretty good, but not perfect. A few details were not carried over, so one would have to make some changes to an Excel copy to make an identical template.

[Alan Klein]

Here's an idea for whatever it's worth. I scan my logbook and store the images as a jpeg in the same folder where I put the associated scanned image files. That way, when I import the folder and files into Lightroom, I have all the logs available to see there as well.

Is there a way you can create an image file and do something similarly?

[r.e.]

Here's an idea for whatever it's worth. I scan my logbook and store the images as a jpeg in the same folder where I put the associated scanned image files. That way, when I import the folder and files into Lightroom, I have all the logs available to see there as well.

Is there a way you can create an image file and do something similarly?

I think that this would work fine if you're importing a folder and its content into Lightroom in order to process the photograph. I assume that if you want to search for, and retrieve, the photograph from your Lightroom Catalogue, you apply the same IPTC and keywords metadata to both the scanned photograph and its associated scanned image of your log entry. That way, both images would come up in a search.

Recently, there was discussion on this forum about using a phone to make basic scans of negatives. Someone who processes negatives in a darkroom rather than with Photoshop/Lightroom or Capture One (which is currently the case for my 8x10 photos) could use a cheap desktop scanner or a phone to do a variation on what you're doing. A basic scan of the negative or of a print would stand in for the original. Lightroom would only be used for its database function. Of course, this assumes that the photographer uses Lightroom or Capture One for digital photography: iPhone -smartphone - scanning of 4x5 and 5x7 negatives

My intention is to use Photo Mechanic in exactly this way for 8x10 negatives, which is why I was interested in the thread about using an iPhone as a scanner. I developed the worksheet discussed in this thread because it does things that I can't easily do in Photo Mechanic or Capture One.