How Many Bracket When Shooting Slides

[chris00nj]

In mine and many opinions, slide film (KR, Velvia) can give some of the best possible shots in photography. However, you have to deal with fickle exposure. Metering off a slightly poor spot may give you poor results. Even the sunny 16 rule may not even be good enough.

So as a result, (and due to my relative inexperience with slide film) I sometimes under or over expose leaving me with crap results, which also leads me to consider bracketing. Do you all bracket often?

 

[David William White]

Yes, it often makes sense. If I'm in studio, or it's a nice sunny day and the sun is behind me, or if the light is even and low contrast, then I'm pretty confident. But if there is anything questionable about the lighting, I'll often bracket one stop on either side just to be safe. That's after center-weighted metering on the interesting bit and then recomposing the shot.

Seems landscapes often benefit from a little underexposure, especially if the sky is dramatic. Sometimes flowers look dreamier to me when they are overexposed by a stop.

Caveat: I don't scan much slide film, and I understand that there are often difficulties with shadow detail being lost and such. A projection would normally represent the material better than a scan.

 

[Papa Smurf]

Exposure is my nemesis

Exposure is my nemesis

It seems that I almost never get the exposure right unless I bracket. That statement is true with all of my cameras (6 currently working) and even if I use a light meter (a Gossen Luna pro). They just never seem to look "right" to me. Therefore, I bracket.

 

[ChrisPlatt]

If I'm sure I blew the first shot I'll shoot a second, but that's not bracketing. 😉

Chris

 

[Rhoyle]

Actually, I've had excellent results scanning chromes.

 

[photogdave]

I chose sometimes because it depends on the camera.
With my Nikon F100, although it has a cool auto bracketing feature, I find the meter is so accurate that I only bracket if it's a very tricky exposure.
Same goes with My M4 and Gossen Digisix meter.
With my M6 I bracket like crazy!

 

[Lilserenity]

I don't think I ever did when I first started, more fool me as I ended up with enough underexposed Velvia 50 for a lifetime 🙂
However as the years have passed I have got to know the foibles and quirks of each film that I use. As a rule of thumb the only slide film that I shoot not at box speed is Velvia 50 which I shoot almost exclusively at ISO 32, this provides me with great results. On the odd occassion I will got with ISO 40 at sunset for drama but not often.

Kodachrome 64 I stick to box speed, ISO 80 results in very contrasty slides but too much so and ISO 50 loses some of the magic that keeps me shooting it -- basically I have shot enough now to know what happened the last time I shot something similar.

On the whole however, I have found the Leica MR meter which I use on my M2 to be fantastic, I'd even dare say that the exposure it recommends is probably that more spot on than even my Canon EOS 3 which could still throw out the odd result now and then -- not sure why, but the MR meter has worked fantastically for me, you just have to know the limitations.

In the end I basically never bracket unless it is a shot that is so critical I can't afford not to, in which case it's a 1/3rd of a stop each side.

 

[Roger Hicks]

Less and less. I used to bracket all the time but then I got better at exposure. I'll still bracket wildly for REALLY difficult shots. I was once photographing a backlit cross in a Greek Orthodox church, sun streaming through the window, no spot meter, no way to get close, and I went from -2 to +2 in half-stop rests: about a third of a roll of film. After all, I'd never see the same shot again. What surprised me was how many of the shots were usable.

When I first started, never. That's why I have lots of overexposed shots from my 'teens. The shutter on my Pentax SV was 'lazy', or maybe the meter was off. Either way, I didn't know enough to re-set the ASA dial to 40 or 50 (shooting Kodachrome 25, then a fairly new film, and MUCH better than the original Kodachrome 64).

There's a module on bracketing on my site:

http://www.rogerandfrances.com/photoschool/ps bracket.html

complete with the pic described above.

Tashi delek,

R.

 

[Michael Markey]

Roger

I have seen that shot in the church and it is stunning. How I wish that I could emulate that ! The truth is that I don`t bracket much but perhaps I should do so more often.

Mike

 

[Pickett Wilson]

Back in the day, when I shot a lot of slides for publication, it only made sense to bracket a lot. With the narrow exposure range of slides, there was no point in taking a chance. It was also common practice to underexpose slides 1/3 stop for more color saturation.

Ah, the bad old days. 😉

 

[35mmdelux]

Been shooting chromes since 1971 and I never bracket. In fact until I attended photog school in 1990 I didn't even know what bracketing was.

 

[Trius]

I only bracket when I'm not "in the zone" or the lighting is so tricky that I'm not able to decipher which type of value placement would give the best results.

Other than that, I trust the meter and experience. Incident is really good, spot as well, and in camera usually doesn't fail. There's nothing to substitute for experience, but it's harder these days with the price of film and processing.

 

[Gary E]

If it's a situation that I can go back to (like if in my city or neighborhood) I take my chances to see if I've improved in my EV guestimations. But if you're on a trip of a lifetime and will probably never go back, definitely bracket. Negatives are more forgiving, but you know immediately that you didn't get the shot with Chromes. YMMV.

 

[wjlapier]

Less and less. I used to bracket all the time but then I got better at exposure. I'll still bracket wildly for REALLY difficult shots. I was once photographing a backlit cross in a Greek Orthodox church, sun streaming through the window, no spot meter, no way to get close, and I went from -2 to +2 in half-stop rests: about a third of a roll of film. After all, I'd never see the same shot again. What surprised me was how many of the shots were usable.

When I first started, never. That's why I have lots of overexposed shots from my 'teens. The shutter on my Pentax SV was 'lazy', or maybe the meter was off. Either way, I didn't know enough to re-set the ASA dial to 40 or 50 (shooting Kodachrome 25, then a fairly new film, and MUCH better than the original Kodachrome 64).

There's a module on bracketing on my site:

http://www.rogerandfrances.com/photoschool/ps bracket.html

complete with the pic described above.

Tashi delek,

R.

I didn't know that was your site. I just recently visited it. Learn something everyday.

I too never bracketed slides when I first got into photography. I was 15 and never took a class on photography so didn't know what bracketing was or why I should do it. Looking over some old Kodachromes from those days, I guess I got lucky, or that old Fujica SLR had a great meter for slides.

My most recent use of Velvia in Glacier National Park I did bracket. Can't say for sure how many stops or fractions there of, butI really want to nail the exposure. I was using a F5.

 

[italy74]

Well.. I could apply to the first three points I guess, but neither in that case I'd be really bracketing, just shooting another picture compensating manually for it.
Regardless of the meter (and I can ensure that a F6 meter is very reliable), I usually tend to underexpose slides of half stop and that's how I get the most pleasant colours to my taste, especially Velvia.

 

[chris00nj]

Less and less. I used to bracket all the time but then I got better at exposure. I'll still bracket wildly for REALLY difficult shots. I was once photographing a backlit cross in a Greek Orthodox church, sun streaming through the window, no spot meter, no way to get close, and I went from -2 to +2 in half-stop rests: about a third of a roll of film. After all, I'd never see the same shot again. What surprised me was how many of the shots were usable.

When I first started, never. That's why I have lots of overexposed shots from my 'teens. The shutter on my Pentax SV was 'lazy', or maybe the meter was off. Either way, I didn't know enough to re-set the ASA dial to 40 or 50 (shooting Kodachrome 25, then a fairly new film, and MUCH better than the original Kodachrome 64).

There's a module on bracketing on my site:

http://www.rogerandfrances.com/photoschool/ps bracket.html

complete with the pic described above.

Tashi delek,

R.

That's certainly a nice shot!

My next question was how much to bracket, but you already make the case for a 2/3 stop.

 

[funkpilz]

When I put the camera on a tripod, I bracket occasionally.
When I have put any thought into the picture before coming to the location my camera is in now, I always bracket. And I'm talking about the 10-frame kind of bracketing.
Can't stand it when promising shots come out underexposed by just one stop.

 

[robert blu]

I vote for sometimes, but it means really a very few times. When I used the F100, the Bessa R or the m7 I 'm satisfied in most of cases the result I get from the lightmeter. Only in very tricky case I do some bracketing, and ...film is expensive !
robert

 

[joachim]

Interesting poll

Interesting poll

Hi,

I find that poll interesting. A lot less people bracket than I thought. Considering the most chosen answer "Sometimes: If it an important shot." I would like to ask, why take a shoot in first place, if it not important? Wouldn't it be better not to take the shot when you know already at the shooting stage that is is unimportant? Saves you a lot of hassle when editing.

 

[sepiareverb]

I used to shoot slides commercially, and bracketed nearly every shot, though not always with wildlife, preferring to set the camera and clip test those. Easier as I'd usually shoot a whole roll or two of the same animal or group.

A small difference in exposure with some high contrast slide films can make all the difference- the 1/3 stop exposure compensation of the F4 & F100 made several images come alive over the years where a half a stop might not have.