Contact/Proof sheet: A necessary Evil?

I sometimes make contact sheets, but only for the victims of my photography. Evaluating the negative is more valuable. Ansel Adams said something like, "The negative is like the score to a piece of music; the print is the performance." If someone can't read the score or the negative, they probably can't do a good job of the music or the print. Remember, deafness began to afflict Beethoven halfway through his life. He could still compose, and read the scores of others, and hear the music inside his head. What grand music he wrote while deaf! We should learn to previsualize our prints even before tripping the shutter. Contact sheets may be useful in cataloging, though.

Jim Jones said:

I sometimes make contact sheets, but only for the victims of my photography. Evaluating the negative is more valuable. Ansel Adams said something like, "The negative is like the score to a piece of music; the print is the performance." If someone can't read the score or the negative, they probably can't do a good job of the music or the print. Remember, deafness began to afflict Beethoven halfway through his life. He could still compose, and read the scores of others, and hear the music inside his head. What grand music he wrote while deaf! We should learn to previsualize our prints even before tripping the shutter. Contact sheets may be useful in cataloging, though.

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Evaluating a negative is an important thing, especially when determining paper, grade, and light source. Previsualizing the negative on a proof sheet is even clearer, for content and composition. I have fallen way behind in making contacts, and as a result spend far too much time digging through neg files to drop sheet after sheet on the light table. While I appreciate the gospel according to St. Ansel, I have found dropping the image of of a chosen negative on an 8x10 #2 proof sheet tells me more than peering at through a loupe on a light table. Each to our own, yes? Sort of like 1001 ways to use the same dilution of Rodinal with the same film...

Thank you All for your response.

Quite facinating to see how you all work. It seems that making contact sheets slightly edged ahead, though the reason for making them differs from person to person. Horses for courses as they say.

Incidentally, I had a great and very productive printing session last night. I feel my work is coming on leaps and bounds. It makes me look and think just that little bit harder when printing, knowing that my work will probably have an audience of APUGers when complete.

I made only the one contact sheet, and that was to decide the best composition that suited what I had in my mind at the taking stage. So I think I will be a 'When needed' type of Guy. I'm certainly not going to beat myself up about not making them anymore.

Thanks again

Stoo

P.S What does Kahlua mean Nikki?

I am wondering what size paper you guys use for proof sheets for 35mm. I am now using some agfa paper at 8.5 x 11 since 8 x10 is just too small to fit in 6 rows 6 strips negative page. My stock is running out and it is really hard to find paper at that size. What do you people use for that?

I use 9.5x12", or really 24x30cm paper for contact sheets. One whole page of 35mm or 120 negatives fit nicely, with a small margin for comments (and holes for the ring binder).

Contact sheets every time. For quickness, I do them on a flatbed scanner with the negs still in their greaseproof bags, I am interested only in subject matter and lighting. not grain, sharpness, etc. I could use transparent storage sheets but I don't trust these not to scratch the negatives.

Talk about skill in reading negatives is all very well, try finding a sheet of negatives from among 500 films with no contact sheets and then figuring out which of six or seven virtually identical negs you finally decided to print. I need contact sheets to look at quickly and scrawl on, and I know from bitter experience that if I don't make them right after processing the film, I never will and I shall have total chaos!

Ilford makes some 8 1/2 x 11 RC paper that works great for contact sheets. It is large enough to get the entire Print File page including the file number on, and the RC paper is faster to process that FB. Of course, it looks different too, but as a previous poster wrote, use contact sheets to help find images later, to evaluate overall composition, lighting, etc. and use the negative (or a work print) for the finer evaluation.

I never did contact sheets, even though I have makers for both 35mm and 120 sizes.
I can read a negative just fine. A good photo usually grabs me from the negative because its not about details but the whole composition. For detailed viewing I use a lighttable and a lupe but that's more to check on problems.
Last night I printed six contacts of 35mm film for my cousin with my new HR Analyser Pro. It was very easy and very quick to do so. Were they needed? For him maybe but I had spotted good shots for enlarging from the negative. A particular shot didn't give much more detail in positive than it did in negative before we printed it large.
With the Analyser I find it even more pointless to print contacts for my 6x6 negs unless its for cosmetic and filing reasons.

May I also just comment on the humour in some of the answers, intended or not, it's good to see that we can all sometimes laugh at ourselves as we go about our pastime/hobby/job.

Threads can be taken all too seriously sometimes. There is never a right way, just the way that is right for you. But it is nice to give someone elses way a try, and who knows, it could be better!

Regards

Stoo

I have found that 35mm contact sheets are worthless. They are too small to really see the subject and I can judge everything else by looking at the negative. I use a light box to select negatives to print and make a trial 5x7 before printing anything larger. I note on the back of the 5x7 all exposure information so its easy to make additional prints later.

I agree with c6h6o3 big waste of time and chems and paper. for color resounding YES

lee\c

FirePhoto said:

I will probably get pounded and regret admitting this, but I make contact sheets digitally...

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I do the same now mainly because I have no access to a darkroom anymore! I bought a cheap (£160) epson flatbed film scanner and it is great. You can scan 14 frames of 35mm in one go and then view/mess around with them full screen. Way less hassle.

Since I send my negs out to be printed, I can send a CD with the (edited) film scans so that the printer knows how I want each print to look like.

I usually do a contact print on Rc paper (I work in 35mm and 120 (645) and just looking at a set of contacts brings back the memories of taking the shots - I then remember what I 'saw' at the time. Photography for me is as much a product of the emotion as the 'thinking' bit of the mind and doing a decent contact is part of the mental process. having said that, my wife (not a 'silver' photographer) often looks at the contacts where I've carefully marked the ones I want to print and say's something like "I wouldn't do that one - it's awful, what about that one!" When I follow her advice it usually turns out that she's right!

Rob

I have been making contact sheets for a very long time. First with 35mm then 6x6 and once again 35mm.

I fill out a developing sheet with each tank of film(s) going through. It only takes a few seconds to fill out and during this stage I carefully work out just what developing time(s) solution dilution, etc, etc,. At the end of the developing stage I write comments about the negatives. Later on when I do enlargements, I will sometimes make a notation or two, regarding any important points that may be due to the developing. These short notes are held in a large ring binder and currently go back 18 years. It is surprising how often I will look back to find the last time I developed a certain film after shooting under certain conditions, to look at just how the film came out. It really does help in deciding on what developing technique may be best

All films are contacted and the sheets then studied under a loupe. My wife often makes certain suggestions that I would have missed, as I'm looking to see if the shot I was after worked and miss the one that is good but I only glanced at.

Every contact sheet is numbered, dated and filed in an old 8x10" paper box, with the year number marked on the outside.

Having done a reasonable amount of professional work in which I sold enlargements of my films, every negative has it's frame number and if it's enlarged, that number goes on the back of the print and in any notes. I used to do this before I ever sold any work and even though I don't sell any work anymore, I just kept it up.

The best reason for doing a contact sheet without any manipulation, is that it is an invaluable aid to density when doing enlargements of a roll or rolls from the single session. One can instantly see if one negative is equal in density or perhaps an 1/8 or 1/4 of a stop different. For working prints it makes life really, really easy, especially if you have only an enlarger timer and your brains instead of analysers and probes.

Mick.

I'm always thinking to myself, I should be making contact sheets, but I never get around to it. Too anxious I guess, its the light table for me and then I start printing.
Heck, sometimes I dont even get around to sleeving my negs for a while.

We've discussed it before and my opinion remains the same--I can read a negative better than a contact sheet. But whatever works for you is what works.

seadrive said:

Every negative gets a Fred-Picker-style "proper proof", which gets filed along with the negative.

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I also make Fred Picker Style proper proofs. Initially, I used Fred's method to come up with my film speed, development time and proofing time. So, my proofs for 35mm and MF are a precise fixed time. It takes me no time at all to do a contact proof. For a recent show, I had about 10 rolls of film to develop. I spent one day developing them. I cut them, and placed them into negative holders after they were dry. I then went to the enlarger and set it for the proofing level (which is marked on my enlarger). I set up my proofing frame and ran them each for 21 seconds (my standard proofing time) and placed the exposed paper in an old box.

The next time I went into the darkroom to print, I developed all 7 of them at once... No trouble at all ... to me.