New to film

[daleeman]

Hello and a warm welcome to APUG. Go to your local library and look up some old books on film.

Jeff

+1 for books. Great photo books at good prices are easy to find at www.abebooks.com

 

[AgX]

It is a relief for me as non-native speaker, to see native speakers being puzzled by their own colloquialisms.

 

[baachitraka]

As I understand it, "chimp" comes from "check image"

My best advice? Take detailed notes, and then compare the notes you take with the results you obtain.

And have fun!

"check image please"

 

[Diapositivo]

CHeck IMage Preview

 

[zackesch]

Matt, Is this your idea of note taking?
I went out last night and picked up a 3 pack of moleskin journals. Along with my normal photography journal of general rules, camera cf functions, ideas, websites, etc, my moleskin will record when where and what my camera was set to for that exposure along with year, roll and frame.

 

[Diapositivo]

I find a voice recorder very practical. I use a digital one but there still are analogue ones if one prefers

My personal use is mainly to record details about sculptures (the sculptor, and if I a in the mood and the statue is in bronze also the foundry) very useful also when I take a picture of a façade or a detail of building so that I can record the address. That's MUCH faster than writing. Extremely useful inside musea as well.

 

[edcculus]

In college, we were instructed to record general details about each frame. At the very least you will need frame number, f stop, shutter speed, and maybe some quick notes about what the subject is. Record keeping really helps too if you decide to bracket even a few shots. Right now, it will help when you are looking back through your pictures. You can look at the notes to see "why" a picture worked, or didn't work.

 

[MattKing]

It is a really good idea to record as well details of your metering - what meter used, what mode (incident or reflected or reflected/spot) you used it in, how you "pointed" your meter (direction, subject and distance), what readings you obtained and what you did with them.

Also, your impressions of the scene - what attracted your interest, how the light appeared, what direction the light came from, what your estimate of the reflectivity of various parts of the subject was (middle grey, two zones less reflective, one zone more reflective).

And when you include the date, be sure to include the year too.

I know that it sounds like a lot, but you will find that you will develop useful shorthand and soon learn what you need to record and what will be self-evident from the results.

You will end up gaining an appreciation about the interplay between your materials, your metering and things like the nature of the light (hard/contrasty vs soft/flat) and the options available to you when it comes to choosing development for your film.

As an example, if the light is contrasty, and you want to be able to see detail in the shadows and highlights, you will learn to read the shadow exposure, increase it a bit from normal, and then develop the film less so that the highlights stay in control. Otherwise your prints lose details at either extreme.

Moleskin is nice!

 

[zackesch]

Its starting to sound like ill write a book to record one photo. I didnt think about adding metering into the info.

 

[MattKing]

Its starting to sound like ill write a book to record one photo. I didnt think about adding metering into the info.

I know it sounds that way, but that is because I was trying to be really general.

If you do it a bit, you'll soon get to the point where what you record is the exceptions, so it will get quicker.

And you add the metering info, because it is the relationship between the conditions you worked in, what you metered, the settings you set, and the results you obtained that will teach you what you need to know.

 

[NedL]

It is a relief for me as non-native speaker, to see native speakers being puzzled by their own colloquialisms.

This made me laugh out loud. Thanks!

I'm in a similar place as OP and am just getting back into film and printing. I will only say that I've been keeping notes about my pictures in a little pocket notebook and I've found it to be extremely valuable in figuring out what's working and what's not and homing in on negatives that will print well with my enlarger setup. The most important thing for me has not been things like aperture setting and shutter speed, but how did I meter the scene and what was I thinking when I determined the exposure. Also if I used hyperfocal, and how much. Also my notes on developing film are coming in very handy.

Have Fun!

 

[NedL]

Matt, Is this your idea of note taking?
I went out last night and picked up a 3 pack of moleskin journals.

Exactly what I'm using.. the little 3 pack where each fits in pocket easily. One for my F3 one for all my other cameras and one for developing notes. Perfect!! They are great.

 

[Poisson Du Jour]

This made me laugh out loud. Thanks!

I'm in a similar place as OP and am just getting back into film and printing. I will only say that I've been keeping notes about my pictures in a little pocket notebook and I've found it to be extremely valuable in figuring out what's working and what's not and homing in on negatives that will print well with my enlarger setup. The most important thing for me has not been things like aperture setting and shutter speed, but how did I meter the scene and what was I thinking when I determined the exposure. Also if I used hyperfocal, and how much. Also my notes on developing film are coming in very handy.

Have Fun!

Many more people should follow your example! This is an excellent way to progress through learning, especially as you note, when viewing the negs/trannies. Shutter speed and aperture are important to note when metering as the meter will doubtless suggest several variations and combinations, filter compensation factors that alter the reading (+/– 2 stops usually), any additional exposure compensation that leads to a different reading to what you started with. If push came to shove, I would rate aperture ahead of shutter speed in the record, but I have recorded both for a good 30 years.

Hyperfocal is widely used with ultra-wide angle (around 45mm) on medium format. I also apply it on the 17mm end of my Canon 17-40mm f4L in MF mode. How much depends on visual assessment and examination of the depth of field/zone of acceptable sharpness.

 

[NedL]

Hyperfocal is widely used with ultra-wide angle (around 45mm) on medium format. I also apply it on the 17mm end of my Canon 17-40mm f4L in MF mode. How much depends on visual assessment and examination of the depth of field/zone of acceptable sharpness.

Well, thanks from someone with less than 30 posts here to someone with over 2000!! I also write down filter info and aperture, but notes about where I put the shadows or the sky or what highlight was important have been the most helpful so far.

What you already know about hyperfocal is what I'm learning...which is actually why I mentioned it because it's been valuable to write down how I focus to evaluate how it's working. A little hyperfocal seems to be fine for my 35mm camera with a 24mm lens, but with medium format even though I've looked up the values in tables on the net, I'm finding the DOF is narrower than I expected... It's all good though, I'm having so much fun and I'm learning all the time.

 

[Poisson Du Jour]

I didn't know I had that many posts!! :confused: