Large format cheatsheets

[GeorgesGiralt]

Hi !
I'm making a small pocket "book" of all information I will need while on the field.
What do you bring with you ? The reciprocity tables for your favorite film, filters factors, and what else ?

 

[argus]

And a zone dial (sometimes I'm to lazy to compute f-stops), a quickdisk...
Filter factors are written on the box I keep the filter in.

G

 

[k_jupiter]

I always have a note book with me. But it's filled in the field, not before. I don't usually use times that require reciprocity factors, and the filter factor for my one yellow filter is on the side of the filter if I hit my head on a rock and forget.

The notebook takes note of: date, time, film, how many stops from shadow to highlight, what the Luna pro read incident, and what fstop/time was used for any marked sheetfilm holder/side.

Not very BTZS but it'll do.

tim in san jose

 

[phaedrus]

Hi !
I'm making a small pocket "book" of all information I will need while on the field.
What do you bring with you ? The reciprocity tables for your favorite film, filters factors, and what else ?

Mike Walker's Vademecum on an old Palm Pilot. No reciprocity tables, I'm using Acros ;-) . A small Olympus voice recorder for my exposure notes.
I carry enough as it is ...

 

[timparkin]

How close my closest focus for each lens is with bellows fully extedended and also without the final extension. This also tells me magnification factor at that distance and how far across the 'frame' is. This allows me to choose the right lens for a macro shot very quickly.

I also have a scale of mm of focus depth vs f-stop vs diffraction effect as taken from the large format photography article on diffraction. This lets me work out the distance between my two desired end focal points and translate that into an f-stop and also, from diffraction effects, how much I could enlarge the picture.

I've also got a table that tells me the amount of coverage that a grad will give me for each lens I own (e.g. a hard grad on my 80mm lens has 13% of the frame covered by the gradation - however my 240mm lens has 55% of the frame covered by the gradation - not so good for hard horizons.. These are the calculations that convinced me I needed some extra hard grads (which singh ray and lee make on a custom basis) - see Dead Link Removed for details.

The rest of my sheet is for my own data..

Dead Link Removed

p.s. if you are wierdly OCD like me, feel free to copy the sheet for your own use..

 

[Ian Leake]

My cheat sheets have bellows extension, magnification, focusing distances, and bellows factor for my favourite lenses.

 

[Struan Gray]

I wear a tag on my duffle coat that says "Please look after this bear."

 

[pwitkop]

I use a laminated cheat sheet with my tested shutter speeds (a couple of my older shutters are off by nearly a full stop), a table with my filter factors, recprocity tables. I don't find that I refer to it all that often (sometimes not all on a whole shoot), but when the light is right, and I'm exited, things I know well slip right out of my mind...

Peter

 

[JOSarff]

I have the filter factors laminated to the filter file pockets. Then I have a card (slip of paper 4.25 X 5.5") I designed 20 years ago with space for title, date, film holder number, development, metered exposure, recommended exposure, bellows factor and filter factor . Then I have check boxes for camera & lens.

On the back is a table of reciprocity numbers for TMX, TMY, TXP, FP4 and HP5.

This prints out 4 on a page and I run it through twice to get both sides printed, then cut into quarters.

Joe

 

[rmann]

I have the filter factors laminated to the filter file pockets. Then I have a card (slip of paper 4.25 X 5.5") I designed 20 years ago with space for title, date, film holder number, development, metered exposure, recommended exposure, bellows factor and filter factor . Then I have check boxes for camera & lens.

On the back is a table of reciprocity numbers for TMX, TMY, TXP, FP4 and HP5.

This prints out 4 on a page and I run it through twice to get both sides printed, then cut into quarters.

Joe

Would you like to share by posting a sample copy?

 

[NavyMoose]

How close my closest focus for each lens is with bellows fully extedended and also without the final extension. This also tells me magnification factor at that distance and how far across the 'frame' is. This allows me to choose the right lens for a macro shot very quickly.

I also have a scale of mm of focus depth vs f-stop vs diffraction effect as taken from the large format photography article on diffraction. This lets me work out the distance between my two desired end focal points and translate that into an f-stop and also, from diffraction effects, how much I could enlarge the picture.

I've also got a table that tells me the amount of coverage that a grad will give me for each lens I own (e.g. a hard grad on my 80mm lens has 13% of the frame covered by the gradation - however my 240mm lens has 55% of the frame covered by the gradation - not so good for hard horizons.. These are the calculations that convinced me I needed some extra hard grads (which singh ray and lee make on a custom basis) - see Dead Link Removed for details.

The rest of my sheet is for my own data..

Dead Link Removed

p.s. if you are wierdly OCD like me, feel free to copy the sheet for your own use..

Thank you for allowing us to copy your sheet. I came up with a design, that was less elaborate and didn't have filter factors.

Sincerely,

Navy Moose

 

[MurrayMinchin]

I have a wooden ruler that has the bellows extension factors of my two lenses written on it. Hold one end of the ruler on the lens board, and read off what factor is needed at the film plane.

Murray

 

[JOSarff]

Photo Record

I've attached a copy of my record. However, I don't have reciprosity numbers for FP4, it's Delta 100.

 

[GeorgesGiralt]

Hi JOSarff !
I can't open the Exposure.doc file. I gave a blank page.
I wonder if it was made on a Mac ?
Do you have any means to convert it into a PDF or anything else than Word ?
Thanks !
P.S. it may be just me and my computer ;-)

 

[rmann]

JOSaff - Thanks for sharing and posting, but I also can not open the attachment.

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

Here's my table to determine bellows factor by magnification. It's small, so I have them taped to the backs of all my LF cameras, on my light meter, and in my notebook. To determine magnification just estimate the width of the scene at the subject position and compare to the width of the format, and then use the table to find the bellows exposure factor--works for any format with any camera. For instance, if you're taking a headshot with an 8x10" camera, the distance from one shoulder to the other will be around 24", and the format in portrait mode is 8" wide, so the magnification factor will be 1:3, and you'll need about 2/3 to 1 stop additional exposure. For the same image on 4x5" the magnification factor will be 1:6, so you would need about 1/3 to 1/2 stop additional exposure. If you want to be more precise for higher magnification factors, you can put a ruler in the scene.

 

[jp80874]

Having had an ambulance ride a couple of years ago I learned the benefit of carrying a sheet of paper in my wallet and pack, identifying myself, an emergency contact, my doctor, allergies to any medications, the medications I am currently taking. Each hospital station from the emergency room on that information like that allowed them to get to the problem quickly and avoid additional ones. The only difficulty I had was that each station wanted to keep the sheet of paper rather than make a copy and return the original. Had I been unconscious only the first station would have benefited.

A policeman friend has since told me that they are trained to look at cell phone databases searching for emergency contacts. Someone invented the concept of listing these with the letters ICE in front of the name. ICE = In Case of Emergency. Most people just list the names and the emergency people can't tell your wife from your pharmacist.

Hope this saves someone some time when seconds count.

John Powers

 

[JOSarff]

Take 2

I tried saving the file as a .txt and .pdf so lets try again.

Joe

 

[rmann]

Thanks - both of these opened up fine - I do like your idea of putting reference information on the back side of the exposure record.

 

[mark]

A policeman friend has since told me that they are trained to look at cell phone databases searching for emergency contacts. Someone invented the concept of listing these with the letters ICE in front of the name. ICE = In Case of Emergency. Most people just list the names and the emergency people can't tell your wife from your pharmacist.

Hope this saves someone some time when seconds count.

John Powers

Yep, I got three ICE numbers in my phone and three in my wallet. It is good advice.

These are all good cheat sheets. Thanks folks.