How do you get the shot in 4 frames or less?

B-9

B-9

Devin Bro
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How do you get “The Shot” in 4 frames or less?

Bracket?

Meter your batteries dead?

Trust your gut?

We are addicted to these threads. Fall in your place.
 
Watching Svengoolie, Buck Rogers. Tune in with me!

Drop your Reddit let’s real time chat.

Rare I have this kind of free time.

Devin@RFCo @ Reddit
 
First is the film. I just exposed most of a roll of Tri-X at 100 ISO, in error. It gave me some lovely very useable dense negatives, and some shadow detail I would otherwise not have had. With colour negative it’s even better for overexposure. We’re warned how bad underexposure is, but I like Fuji Superia under-exposed by one stop for dense blue skies and strong colours. I don’t risk that with Ektar. Slides, like digital, I don’t risk over exposure. I meter in changing light and indoors but often I trust my experience with each film. I was a great fan of the Kodak box-end exposure guide. I shot slide film for a month with only that. Hardly one was bad.
 
Practice. If I take two photos of the same scene, it's because I'll do one in portrait, and the other in landscape. Most b&w films have plenty of latitude, so that always helps. Got to be spot on with Ektar though.


PF
 
I've been making photos for 56 years - most of it all manual, no meter.

With the films I use (no transparencies), I already know what my shutter speed and aperture is going to be for the situation. I can either pre-focus or focus quickly with a rangefinder or SLR microprism. All I really need to think about is composition. That's all you need to deal with: shutter speed, aperture, focus, composition. That's all of it.

I'm also cheap - I shoot one frame and don't waste film. Usually I get what I intended.
 
Kodachrome 25 was expensive. I always only took one frame.

U27021I1475752110.SEQ.0.jpg
 
I love digital for taking many many more than 4 when exploring something interesting and new. Conversely, when out with my wife any delay is very very unpopular so I have to get one shot, in a hurry. Interesting how often that works well for me, the pressure to do it quickly without too much unhelpful thinking.
 
madNbad said:
When you start using the Mamiya and have ten exposures from a 6x7 back, you’ll figure it out.
Click to expand...

You caught me!

To play into my own pandering,

I’ve always used a combination of meter your batteries dead and trust your gut.

Killer shot Lynnb!
 
Devin and Larry, thanks. OM1 with OM Zuiko 200mm f/4 wide open, so it must've been about 1/125 metering for Cheryl, who'd fallen asleep (not while waiting for me to take the shot lol).
 
Why 4 shots? What am I missing? The Magnum Contact sheets book shows some people used a whole roll to get a shot and some one frame. Neither is the wrong way to do it.
 
Only a pro must get the shot.
Us amateurs need only try our best.

FWIW I usually lose interest after a couple frames.
If on reflection I feel I missed something important
I can go back another day.

Chris
 
Nothing really significant about 4 frames. So nothing missed JSRockit!

I use all three of the methods in my OP as I am sure most of us do.

Chris... but I soo badly want to get the shot lol :D
 
ChrisPlatt said:
Only a pro must get the shot.
Us amateurs need only try our best.

FWIW I usually lose interest after a couple frames.
If on reflection I feel I missed something important
I can go back another day.

Chris
Click to expand...

I often find that if I haven’t tried hard enough with the framing or point of view, when I go back it’s not the same time of day and the shadows are different or it’s a month later and the light no longer hits that face of the building or there’s scaffolding or they’ve repainted or a tree has more foliage. Or it seems in every way the same, but now totally uninspiring and I go through the motions and try a few more shots but I know the magic is gone.
 
madNbad said:
When you start using the Mamiya and have ten exposures from a 6x7 back, you’ll figure it out.
Click to expand...
Or go 6x9 with a Texas Leica and bring that number to 8 frames/roll!


I am very mindful when using medium format and try to make each frame shot count as good. Not always happens. I find myself rarely taking portraits and what I think is the best I took of the year was a quick last frame.
My friend on the beach against a background of darker forest shortly before we boarded our canoe back to town again. HP5 guesstimated worked wonders. Perhaps a slightly thing negative but it has printed great in the many prints with time/contrast variations I've made.



Lynn's Kodachrome shot reminds me of my mini project last decade (so long already?). I had only 4 rolls of Kodachrome, was a teen, so I tried to bring the best out of all those 36 exposure rolls.


I'm much more trigger happy with digital, and 35mm allows room with the length of film. Digital is a blessing for telephoto and fast photography.


But no meter or camera at all if batteries are dead then. :D
 
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