Shutterfinger

The Drama of Backlighting

The backlighting in this photo was so severe that even though the highlight area is overexposed, the shadows are still practically pitch-black. I shot this with a film camera; a Leica if I recall. Imagine the result if I used a digital camera or a more flare-prone lens!

Regular readers of this blog know that I have a thing for dramatic shadows and that I don't much care whether they have any detail in them or not. In fact, depending on the composition, the less shadow detail, the better. Dark shadows force the eye toward the highlights, the shapes they form, and their texture. This means the highlights have to be worth looking at, of course, but assuming they are, it can make for a decent photograph.

One of the best ways to get the sort of deep, dramatic shadows I'm talking about is to shoot in the early morning or late afternoon, when the sun is low in the sky and the shadows are long. The challenge, as with the example above, is that the sun can reflect off of dark surfaces such as asphalt or, as in this case, dark gray tile, with a mirror-like intensity. I don't care how much dynamic range your camera has, it's still tricky to find the right exposure balance between washed out highlights and inky black shadows. The one tip I can offer is to remember that it's an esthetic judgement; a matter of taste. The "right" exposure is the one that looks right to you.

The light is softer in this example and my subject is indoors, but the same principles apply: The hightlights reveal form and texture against a background of deep shadow. Anyone whose feelings were hurt by the preceding film example will be relieved to know this one was shot with a DSLR.

Backlighting exists indoors as well. The most common situation is when a subject is positioned with a window immediately behind them. Depending on the size of the room and the brightness of the walls, the room may provide a natural form of shadow fill. The more acute the angle of the backlight, the brighter the fill will need to be to compensate. If you're looking for drama though, skip the shadow fill and just make sure the highlights are where they need to be.

Indoors or out, you may occasionally find that the angle of the light is such that it intrudes into the frame, causes lens flare, protective filter flare, or all three. This too can add drama and character to what might otherwise be an average photo. When you practice "bleeding edge" photography you risk getting cut, but if you're looking for dramatic lighting, the rewards are well worth the risks.

Digital Overhead

Ask this dude in this classic 50s sedan if he'd like to "upgrade" to a shiny new Toyota, Honda, or VW. My guess is his answer would be no.

Is it just me, or is there something ironic about a business that so prominently advertised its ability to finance its customers purchases being so prominently out of business?

Photographers who got into the hobby at the blossoming of the digital age find it hard to understand the attraction that other photographers have for film cameras and darkroom equipment. Many digital photographers find this attraction quaint at best. Others think it’s downright reactionary. How can anyone in their right mind not take advantage of so much obvious speed, economy, convenience, versatility and quality? Is film really all that wonderful? Is it really worth all the hassle involved with processing and printing it?

There is no one right answer to that question. I would like to point out, however, that it’s not all peaches and cream in the land of digitalia. Although you can a lot of wonderful things with a digital camera, these wonders require a certain amount of overhead. The greater your ambitions, the higher this overhead will be.

Let’s start with the camera itself. For it to be of any use to you you’re also going to need a computer. And not just any computer: a computer with plenty of hard drive space for all those digital photos you’re going to be storing on it--and for the photo imaging software you’re going to buy. You might need more RAM too. There’s no such thing as too much RAM when you’re doing digital image processing. Oh, and that LCD monitor the retailer threw in a part of the package? You’re probably going to have to upgrade that to something that provides consistent color over a wider range of angles; something you can actually calibrate. You do have a monitor calibrator, don’t you?

Don’t feel too smug if you’ve already got a smokin’ computer loaded with all the latest and greatest software. The time will come when you’ll feel the need to upgrade. It may be because you bought a new camera that only works with the latest Raw converter that’s only available if you have the latest software running on the latest operating system. Or it could be because Adobe informs you that you now have to have the latest version of Photoshop before you can qualify for the upgrade price on the next version. And since the new version may be released sometime this year, you may have to upgrade twice in less than 12 months. (This is not hypothetical. It is actually Adobe’s new policy.)

Whatever the reason, you’ll upgrade to the latest and greatest operating system or digital imaging software, only to discover that some of your older drivers, profiles, plug-ins, and other miscellaneous bits and pieces no longer work in the new environment. Now you’ve got to upgrade them too; that is, if you can. Not all developers have the time and money to update applications they released years ago. They might not even be in business anymore. I’ve described these miseries in a previous post. So real is this phenomenon that hard-core digital photographers have been known to maintain separate computer systems for the sole purpose of keeping older yet fully-functional software and drivers running.

Contrast this to what life is like if you’re the average film shooter. Forced upgrades are the furthest thing from your mind. Whatever camera you have is already “obsolete” and therefore not a candidate for an upgrade. In fact, if it’s something like a Leica MP, a Nikon F6, or a Hasselblad 503CX it’s pretty much as good as it gets.

The introduction of new film cameras and lenses is unlikely at best. If a manufacturer introduces a new film (admittedly rare these days), you can use it in any camera that accepts whatever size it’s available in. Access to ready sources of film processing is downgrading, if anything, yet if you already have a darkroom up and running then processing and printing is no more difficult than before. Depending on your preference you can practically eliminate computers from your workflow or use them only when you want to display photos on the web. And believe it or not, some people still prefer the results they get with film to digital.

Please understand that I’m not trying to resuscitate the now tired film vs. digital argument. Digital has clearly “won” and I myself have no plans to give up any of my digital cameras and switch entirely back to film. I’m just saying we should all keep in mind that the digital overhead can be heavy at times. Those who opt out of paying it may be more sane—and having more fun—than you think.

It Depends on What You Mean by "Simple."

The top of this Sony NEX-7 mirrorless interchangeable lens digital camera looks wonderfully clean and simple, doesn't it? Maybe a bit too clean and simple... As far as size and weight are concerned, though, the NEX-7 actually weighs about half as much and is 20% smaller than the Nikon FM3A below.

One of the things I have to think about in my day-job as someone who designs and scripts web-based training is user-interface design. User interface is a techy term for “controls.” I generally try to make the user interface as obvious, intuitive, and simple as possible. One of the complicating factors is that simplicity isn't always as simple as it seems.

For example, take a look at the top of the Sony NEX-7 above and tell me if anything jumps out at you. No? Well, let me put it another way: Can you tell by looking at the controls on the top of the camera how to set the exposure mode, aperture, or shutter speed? Do you have any idea how you would find out? Can you tell for sure which one of the two buttons on the top of the handgrip is the shutter button, short of pressing one of them to see  what happens? I've only shown you the top of the camera, but trust me, you won't find any more clues on the back either.

Nothing jumps out at you because this is a classic example of a hidden interface. The NEX-7 has so many features and functions that the designers decided not to “clutter” the camera with dedicated buttons, dials, levers, and switches. Instead, they created dials whose functions vary depending on what mode you’re in. That’s what the button to the right of the shutter button is for, by the way: It cycles you through the NEX-7’s various modes. What to know what mode you’re in? You have to look at the menu on the LCD display. It’s therefore impossible to set anything directly. You first have to be in the right mode, then you need to know which of the dials to turn and in what direction. Keep in mind that I've never handled an NEX-7, so for all I know it's a lot easier than I'm making it sound--but I doubt it.

The dial on the left is for setting the ISO and exposure compensation. The dial on the right is for setting either a specific shutter speed or aperture-preferred mode. The only other controls would be on the lens: focus and aperture. This may look more complicated than the Sony above, but to some of us it's actually a lot more simple.

Contrast this approach to the user interface of an old school Nikon FM3A (or the many other manual film cameras that look pretty much the same). Even if you didn’t know what each of these dials did, it would be pretty evident that each one does only one or two things and they are the same every time. The aperture ring controls the aperture, the shutter dial controls the shutter, the ISO dial controls the ISO. Period. There are no menus, so the interface has to be clean, simple, external, and self-evident.

As for which approach is “better” than the other, well, that depends. Some people like having almost limitless combinations of options they can program into their camera and then let then program run with an occasional tweak every now and then. Others would rather use their brain as the software and exercise direct, real-time control with their fingers. Either interface approach can produce fine pictures. From what I hear, the NEX-7 has been a hit for Sony. The more retro-designed Fuji X-100 and its recently introduced sibling, the Fuji X-10 have been hits too. May they all continue to do well. As for me, well, let’s just say I plan to hold on to my Nikon FM3A for as long as I can still get film for it.

Today's Film Processing Options

Sometimes nothing gets across the gritty feel of a hard-battle won than a 24 x 36mm piece of Kodak Tri-X film.

Today, as always, there are substantial numbers of photographers who still shoot with film. Some shoot film only, others shoot film and digital, but it’s safe to say that as long as film and processing is still available there will be photographers who use it. This doesn’t change the fact that the number of available films is shrinking and, along with it, the variety of high-quality and convenient processing options.

That’s the catch, you see: high-quality and convenient. For example, I’m certainly capable of processing my own film. All it takes is the chemicals, a sink, a tank and reels, and a light-tight place to load them. My problem is that once the film is dry I have no convenient way to proof it. My Nikon Coolscan V does an excellent job of scanning individual frames. Scanning all or even half a roll of 36-exposure film is time-prohibitive. Also, the Coolscan IV accepts only 35mm format, so 120 isn’t even an option.

The next option is a pro lab. Most large metropolitan areas still have one or two or two left. How convenient they are depends on how close one is to where you live or work and how quickly it can turn-around its processing. Here in Philadelphia the only remaining lab in the city itself is Philadelphia Photographics, which is a 45-minute drive (or a $7.00 regional rail ride) from my home and takes an average of 2 days to process and proof negative films. That wouldn’t be so bad if I were processing a lot of film at one time, but for one or two rolls it's time- and cost-prohibitive. Compare this to Los Angeles and New York, where pro labs are still easy to find. In smaller towns custom labs have disappeared altogether, assuming there were any to begin with. If you want pro-quality processing you have to mail your film away to a remote lab and wait days if not weeks to see your results. I suppose that by comparison to this, my Philadelphia situation might seem like heaven.

I imagine some of you reading this can’t wait to point out that major drugstore chains and mass merchandisers such as Walgreens, Target, Wal-Mart, Costco, etc. operate mini-labs that can process C-41 films, scan them, print them, and copy the scans to a CD. That’s certainly convenient. As for being high-quality, let’s just say my experience has been hit-or-miss, with a lot more misses than hits. Walking up to a counter staffed by a sullen twenty-something isn’t exactly confidence-inspiring either.

Being the adventurous sort, I’ve even tried using a lab in Pittsburg, Kansas that provides free film mailers. Here’s what you’ll find prominently printed on the back of the mailer: “Simply mail your film today. We process it tomorrow. Your images are posted online within 24 hours.” That certainly sounds fast and convenient doesn’t it?

The reality is that it took three weeks for them to process the film and upload the scans. They claim the delay was because of the U.S. Postal Service. Regardless, the scans were so high in contrast, low in resolution, and over-sharpened that I had little confidence in ordering anything from them. Worse yet, although it cost me only $6.27 to get the film processed and sent back, a few of the frames were scratched, which adds injury to insult.

No doubt some of you film shooters are feeling my pain. My question for you is, what do you find to be the most convenient, high-quality way to process your film? I’m willing to process it myself if there’s a convenient way to proof it without setting up a darkroom. I’m willing to send it to a lab if there’s some assurance they will process and proof it quickly yet carefully. If you’ve got suggestions that work for you I’d be glad to hear them.

The Virtue of Necessity

Believe it or not, I shot this with a Nikon point-and-shoot film camera and I didn't use the viewfinder. Instead, I simply aimed the camera in the same way you would a pocket-sized digicam. You could say I was just lucky. On the other hand, I find that the more I practice, the luckier I get.

There was a time not too long ago when most experienced photographers--myself included--could do things that by today's standards might seem magical. We could pick up an all-manual, meterless camera and, just by knowing the film speed and judging the level of ambient light, set the correct exposure within a half-stop of perfection, even indoors.

We could estimate the camera-to-subject distance and set that manually too, without looking through the viewfinder, and no less accurately than one of today's multi-point AF systems. Some sports photographers could manually follow focus on running athletes and racing sports cars--although I grant you they had to use the viewfinder to do it.

We could use a waist-level viewfinder and, even though the image was reversed left-to-right, track a moving subject. And let's not forget the view camera users who thought it was normal to look at the world upside-down.

We could load and process film in complete darkness. We could burn and dodge a print using nothing more than our hands and pieces of posterboard taped to lengths of wire--then make ten more prints just like it.

I'm not saying that any of this came easy; in fact, it often took a ridiculous amount of practice. The point is that, as my mother always used to tell me, "It's amazing what you can do when you don't have any choice." It's also amazing how much fun you can have doing it.

These days we suffer from an overabundance of choices. You may find you have a lot more fun and a lot better results if you limit your options. Fewer options result in more freedom and ability to focus your attention, to improvise, and yes, to do whatever you have to do to get the job done.

Kodak Portra 160: User Review

Just because something is called a "portrait" film doesn't mean you can't use it for other subjects. As you can see, Kodak Portra 160 does quite well with leopards pawing at the doors of small boutiques in the Rittenhouse Square district of Philadelphia. The light was from directly above but also quite flat, so I increased the contrast a bit. Even so, you can still see the subtle variations in the tones of the bricks.

A couple of months ago a Kodak field rep asked if I’d be interested in reviewing their newest color negative film, Portra 160. If the name sounds familiar it’s because Portra 160 isn’t entirely new. It’s the replacement for its predecessors, Portra 160NC and 160VC. Portra 160VC (for “vivid color”) featured higher saturation and contrast than the NC (“natural color”) version. Portra 160 has the same color saturation and contrast as 160NC and finer grain than NC or VC. Those who need more film speed may be relieved to know that Kodak still offers Portra 400 and 800, both of which are fine films in their own right.

Interestingly enough, Portra 160 has slightly lower acutance than either its predecessors or Portra 400. That’s because it’s primarly designed to be a portrait film. When you’re taking pictures of people you’re generally looking for smooth tonality rather than biting sharpness and microcontrast. Bear in mind that I'm referring to how the film grain looks at high magnification, not how sharp the overall image appears. That's ultimately up to you.

In these days of declining film sales it’s easy to understand why Kodak would decide to replace two similar films with one. Fewer SKUs (Stock Keeping Units) makes for greater efficiency. What’s admirable is that rather than simply discontinue one of two films they would offer a replacement that features significantly finer grain. Of all the Kodak color negative films now available only Ektar 100 has finer grain than Portra 160. On the other hand, Ektar 100 also has much higher contrast and color saturation and less exposure latitude. This means that even though Kodak markets Portra as a professional film—you’ll only find it in true photo retail shops, not mass-market retailers such as Wal-Mart, Target, drug stores, etc.—you don’t have to be particularly careful with how you expose it to get great results. You can go at least a stop over or under the nominal speed with no ill effects.

As for why you’d want to use film at all, I’m not here to proselytize and convert the confirmed digirati. Suffice it to say that there are still significant numbers of photographers who shoot film and lots of it. Kodak has aimed Portra 160 at fashion, portrait and commercial photographers, which is why it’s available in 120, 4x5, and 8x10 formats. Thirty-five millimeter format was the last to be released, which is why it took a while for me to get a few rolls and test them. Because it’s a portrait film I decided my tests should involve at last one portrait shoot.

The Test

In addition to the four rolls I got for testing, I was fortunate enough to also have a roll of Portra 160NC on hand for comparison. My brother-in-law, a talented guitarist and generally handsome fellow, agreed to sit for a portrait. I lit him with two umbrellas: a small white shoot-through umbrella in front and to my left as the main light and a second one behind him and to my right for backlight. The backlight added “snap” to the portrait. Specular highlights are more noticeable on dark skin than on light skin. It also provided a test of how well either film could hold highlight detail. I shot both films in a Nikon FM3A body with a Nikkor 85mm f/2.0 AIS lens. I shot a few frames with my Nikon D7000 using the same lens for an additional point of reference.

I had both rolls of film developed at Mecca Color Lab, one of the few remaining custom photo labs in the Philadelphia area. They used Kodak C-41 chemistry and printed the photos on Kodak Endura paper with a luster surface. This served as my “control.” If you can’t get great results with an all-Kodak workflow then clearly something is amiss. That said, not everyone has convenient access to a Kodak lab or sees the value in seeking one out so I shot one roll on our famous Streets of Philadelphia and had it processed at a high-end minilab that prints on Fuji Chrystal Archive paper.

The results are presented below, along with my observations. For the record, all film images you see were scanned on my Nikon Coolscan V ED at 4000 DPI and 14-bit color depth (the maximum). I did no curve adjustments and no color corrections, mostly because I wanted to show how Portra 160 reproduced without corrections but also because no corrections were necessary. What you see is pretty much what I got out of the scanner. After reducing the scans to 800 x 500 pixels (approximate) I added a touch of sharpening, reduced the color depth to 8-bits and saved the images as JPEGs.

All this is to say that Portra 160 is easy to scan. I didn't have to go through any contortions to maintain highlight detail even when I overexposed by a stop. Slight overexposure is a common tactic among experience film shooters because it improves shadow detail without causing what digital shooters refer to as "highlight clipping."

The Results

This is a full-frame scan of Porta 160 shot at ISO 125, lit by two Dyna-Lite flash heads bounced into umbrellas. I did no white balancing before or after the scan, yet the grays and blacks are remarkably neutral.

Here's a crop of the same image at 100% magnification of the original scan. Click to enlarge for more detail. This is roughly equivalent to a 20X enlargement of a 35mm frame but the grain is barely noticeable.

Here's a photo of the same subject at the same ISO, using the same lighting and magnification but shot with Portra 160NC (now discontinued). The grain, though fine, is more noticeable than in the Portra 160 shot above.

Here's what the same crop looks like when shot with a Nikon D7000. Yes, there's less grain. There's also less fine detail and micro-contrast but more native contrast. (The contrast can be tamed by adjusting the tone curve.) Also keep in mind that if I had been shooting Portra 160 in a larger format, the grain and resolution balance would likely shift in Portra's favor.

 Observations

Unfortunately, as good as these JPEG reproductions might look, you'll have to take my word for it that they pale in comparison to the prints. Portra 160 is, after all, a print film. You don’t use it simply to gaze at the negatives. With good technique it’s well-capable of producing top-quality 20-inch wide prints, even if you’re shooting the 35mm version. The 100% crops I’ve included should give you some idea of that. To see the grain you see in these crops you’d have to be as close to a 20-inch wide print as you are to your monitor. I can only imagine that if you were to use the same film in a 120 or 4x5 camera the resolution and tonality would be jaw-droppingly good.

Equally impressive was Portra 160's flexibility. It worked equally well in studio and outdoors, recording wide brightness ratios without blocking up in the shadows or highlights. This assumes proper exposure, of course. In all but the most extreme brightness ranges, Portra will easily tolerate up to one stop of extra exposure (otherwise known as reducing the ISO setting to 100) for improved shadow detail without risking blocked highlights. It will also tolerate a stop or two of underexposure while still producing acceptable, though not excellent, results.

Portra 160 is less ideal for shooting indoors in mixed lighting. For one thing, color film has no "auto white balance," so unless you filter appropriately photos shot under tungsten lighting will have an amber tint and photos shot under most fluorescents will look greenish. There's also the obvious fact that a nominal film speed of ISO 160 limits your options in low light. Kodak still offers Portra 400 and 800 for good reason.

The biggest challenge to using any film these days is processing. I live in Philadelphia, currently the fifth largest city in the U.S., yet I can count the number of custom photo labs in here on the fingers of one hand and still have a few fingers left over. Mini-labs are still common in drugstores and mass merchandizers but their quality and reliability are iffy. For examples, the prints produced by Mecca Color were more perfectly exposed and white balanced. The JPEG scans they saved onto a CD were equally impressive. In contrast, the prints I got from PhotoLounge, a popular mini-lab in Center City Philadelphia, were sharp and well-exposed but the overall white balance was a tad too warm. This is pretty much what I would expect. I would have my film processed at a pro lab when I needed pro-quality results and a high-quality minilab when convenience was most important.

So there you have it. I was impressed enough with Portra 160 that it's now my film of choice for shooting outdoors on sunny days or bright overcast conditions. I load Portra 400 when I need the extra 1.5 stop (approximate) of film speed. Given that they're both in the same family of films I appreciate being able to switch between the two while maintaining an overall consistency in color response. If you're interested in shooting Porta 160 yourself I'd suggest using it on your favorite subjects and bracketing exposures to see how it reacts. So much of film processing is automated these days that whatever results you see will be pretty easy to replicate.

If you don't have your own film scanner--and most people don't these days--I'd also suggest testing to see how well your lab of choice does at scanning the negatives and printing the results on a CD-ROM. These days most commercial prints are digitally printed and chemically processed, so it's easy for the lab to save their scans onto a disc for you. The trick is to ask them to use minimal sharpening on the scans and to use a medium-to-high resolution. You don't want sharpening artifacts showing up on screen and you're better off reducing a hi-res to low-res than the other way around.

I invited those of you who've already tried a few rolls of Portra 160 (I know you're out there!) to share your observations with the rest of us. They will find a sympathetic home here and I promise to keep any bigoted remarks from digital-only shooters to a minimum. As far as I'm concerned anyone who loves photography is a friend and should be treated as such.

Back From Holiday Weekend

As I've remarked in a previous post, no one cares how much effort it takes to produce a photograph. They judge it on it's merits, good or bad. I just wish it had been as easy to produce this shot as it looks.

I'm back from a three-day weekend at an outdoor camp in northwestern Pennsylvania. My wife, kids, and I canoed, zip-lined, swam, rop-swung, hiked, and had a generally excellent time. My one regret was leaving my good cameras at home in favor of bringing a Canon Powershot G9 someone had given me. I had been warned that it had come back from repair and, although it worked, produced exposures that were either overly contrasty or veiled with a grayish haze. Lo and behold, this was true. It took considerable effort on my part to produce a decent photo, two of which you see here. The moral of this story is that life is too short to be spent using bad cameras--and by "bad" I mean a camera that can't or won't do what you need it to do.

This took conversion to monochrome and some judicious curve-tweaking to rise to the level of acceptability. The image noise would bother me on anything above a 4x6 print. Also note the clipped highlights on the white chess pieces. Even so, it captures the memory of my 9 and 7 year-old sons playing chess.

I would have gotten much better results and still satisfied my desire for portability if I had brought one of my film cameras; for example, a Pentax ME, Olympus OM-1, or Nikon FM3-A. My film of choice would have been Kodak Portra 160, which the more astute (and sneaky) of you correctly guessed was the source of the photo in my immediately preceding post. There's a reason why so many perfectly rational and highly skilled photographers continue to shoot with film. I will elaborate in my next post, a review of--what else?--Kodak Portra 160.

Gone For the Holiday Weekend

If you don't find anything particularly remarkable about this photo then take a closer look at the dynamic range. The chairs in the foreground are lit by direct sunlight. The gentleman diner on the right is seated inside the restaurant. The waiter, a dark-skinned African-American, is standing in the open shade of the entrance. All this was captured in one exposure and neither the highlights nor the shadows were lacking detail.  Click to enlarge for a closer look. How did I do it? Guess away, but I won't be back to review any comments until Monday.

For most Americans Memorial Day weekend marks the official beginning of summer. Kids start looking forward to time off from school. Adults start looking forward to time off from work. Bloggers like me have little expectation that readers like you will be sitting at home waiting for a major post to appear. Still, because I normally post once a week and the time is neigh, I thought I'd post a little teaser just to tide you over until we all get back from the holiday mindset. I'm preparing a film review of a new summer blockbuster. You won't find it in a theater near you. You may, however, find it at your nearest pro camera shop. That's all I'll say for now. More later.

Shoot a Little or Shoot a Lot?

As soon as I noticed the similarity in pose between the mannequin and this young woman on her cell phone I raised my camera to my eye and snapped this photo. As soon as she noticed me she changed her pose. And as with so many of my photos, I either captured the right moment or I didn't. In this case I did. I would shoot more pictures that day, but not here and not of her.

One of the questions that came up from my previous post, "How to Shoot With Film" (thanks for asking, Paul!) is whether I shoot a higher volume of photos with digital than I do with film. It came up because film shooters tend to be more sparing with their use of the shutter release button than digital shooters because of the tangible and immediate costs associated with film. It's not just the cost of film and processing, it's also the effort it takes to get film, film processing and printing, and in many cases, scanning. Even if you do the processing and scanning yourself, which isn't unusual for those who shoot black and white film, it's no trivial task.

Digital photography has costs too, of course. Anyone who's had to upgrade their camera, lenses, computer, hard drive, software, and printer can attest to that. Still, because it's so easy to shoot hundreds if not thousands of photos at a time without having to pay for film beforehand and processing immediately afterwards, that's exactly what some photographers do. The rationale for the "shoot a lot" approach (or is it a rationalization?) is that it's better to shoot first and edit later because by shooting a lot you're "working the scene" and wringing every last bit of photographic potential from it. Others say that shooting a lot of exposures at one time helps them to get warmed up, or that it helps improve their ratio of hits-to-misses.

That's all well and good, but the "shoot a lot" approach has never worked that well for me. For one thing, I'm more of a decisive moment photographer than one who depends on volume to capture the shot. For me there's normally only one moment when the composition, lighting, and color palette are all in perfect balance. Any additional shots may yield photos that are just as good or better, but if I'm shooting a subject in motion the original moment has passed and will never be repeated.

If the subject is motionless, any other shots once I've settled on a composition are just duplicates and unnecessary in a digital workflow. It may take me 3-6 shots to settle on a composition, but that's it. Dozens of shots would be out of the question and if I absolutely had to I'm pretty sure I could get it right with just one.

The result: On a normal day's outing for personal (i.e., non-professional) photography I normally shoot no more than 72 exposures, the equivalent of two rolls of film, give or take a frame or two. Even so, I eventually delete at least half and sometimes as many as three-quarters of them. I may not shoot a lot at one time but I shoot often enough that pictures have to earn their keep on my hard drives. Life is too short to spend hours sorting through mediocre photos again and again. Better to delete them once and for all and be done with it.

But that's just me. I have no idea whether I'm the norm or not, nor do I care. My approach works for me and that's all I need to be concerned about. The question for today is, what works best for you? What do you consider a normal day's output, and of that output, how many are keepers vs. candidates for the trash or recycle bin? Do you think the best way to improve your hit ratio would be to increase the volume of your shooting or reduce it?

As always, there's not necessarily a right or wrong answer here folks, just food for thought...

How to Shoot With Film

I shot this back in my Leica M4 and Kodak Plus-X days. If it weren't for the overcast sky I would have used an orange filter to darken the sky a bit. That's the sort of thing you get used to doing when you're in a film-shooting mindset: You try to get as much right before you release the shutter instead of afterwards.

True story: I was out shooting one afternoon with my Canon EOS-1n when I decided to step into a coffee bar for a hot latte. A young woman in her early twenties who was seated at a nearby table noticed my camera and asked half-jokingly, “How do you shoot with that thing?
    “Beg your pardon?”
    “It’s a film camera, right? There’s no screen on the back.”
    “Oh. But there’s still a viewfinder. I just look through the viewfinder.”
    “But you can’t see what you’re getting. How do you know if the exposure is right or if you got the right expression?”
        At that point it became clear to me that we were talking across a generation gap. She was a young photographer who had never used a film camera and was genuinely interested in how I managed with a camera so different from what she was used to.
        What follows is a summary of what I told her, which I tried to make as objective as possible. There’s no judgements on good or bad here, just obervations on similarities and differences. Regardless of the imaging medium, the goal is the same: good pictues. (Please refer to my previous post for a discussion of what “good” means.)

Choose your film with the end in mind.
Digital cameras allow you the luxury of converting a picture from color to black and white and back again. You can alter the white balance to match a wide variety of light sources. You can adjust the ISO upwards if you’re in dim light or downwards if you’re in bright light, all without having to change the imaging sensor.
        You can’t do that with film. If you buy a black and white film you get monochrome images. You can convert color film images to monochrome but the result will be different (and not always in a good way) from what you’d get if you had used B&W film to begin with.
        Even within similar types of film, there are differences in how they translate a scene. Some films are high in contrast, others are low. Some have a saturated color palette, others give muted colors. A film that’s wonderful in bright daylight can be a challenge to use indoors under mixed lighting. As a consequence, once you find a film you like you tend to stick with it. It’s not unusual for a photographer to have a favorite portrait film, a different film for street photography, and yet another one for product photography.

Know your film like the back of your hand.
Films—especially transparency films—don’t allow as much latitude for adjusting the ISO as you have with digital. That said, negative films often benefit from a stop or two of extra exposure, which adds to shadow detail without harming the highlights.
        Try this with transparency films or a digital camera, however, and the result will likely be overexposed highlights with lost detail that can never be retrieved. What makes film cameras more challenging to use is that they have no instant feedback feature. You never know for sure whether the exposure was right until you get the film processed and review the results. Film shooters compensate for this with experience. They’ve shot often enough with the favorite films in familiar situations that they know what to expect and when and how to tweak their exposures to make sure they get the shot.

Pay attention.
Long-time Shutterfinger fans are probably chuckling to themselves, “Here he goes again…” but it bears repeating: the ability to Be Here Now is essential to producing memorable photographs. It’s also essential to operating most film cameras. They have only a few controls and few if any menus, but what there is matters a lot. You may have to set the aperture, shutter speed and focus all manually. You may have to use a separate exposure meter or guesstimate your exposures. If you get careless and open the back of the camera at the wrong time you could ruin an entire roll or sheet of film.
        Knowledge of these pitfalls tends to focus your attention and because there’s no preview image to distract you, you’re motivated to concentrate more on what’s about to happen than what happened a moment ago.

You’ll need to develop an analog workflow.
Forgive the pun, but just as with digital processing, you need to put some thought into how to process your film. Will you do it yourself? Will you do it in a rental lab? Will you use a custom lab? Will it be local or mail order? Do you plan to scan your film for reproduction? If so, repeat the previous questions.
        The good news for computer phobes is that if you so choose, you can devise a workflow that all but eliminates the need to use a computer to produce photographs. Just don’t go too far with this idea. After all, no computer, no Shutterfinger, and that would be a crying shame.