Re: [Leica] Weddings/bracketing/35mmvs6X6

[Harrison McClary <hmcclary@earthlink.net>]

Unless I am gravely mistaken Vericolor is a color Negative film is it not?

Those of us who have been talking about bracketing on shoots are shooting 
CHROME, E6, color slide, transparency films -whatever you want to call 
it- where there is NO room for error.  Color negative films have a huge 
latitude compared to reversal films and only a fool would shoot chromes 
and not verify his exposure/processing in some way.  Be that bracketing, 
or getting snips of the film pulled to check things, or shooting a test 
roll.

On the average magazine I shoot for Journal I bang off between 20-40 
rolls of velvia in 2.5 days of constant shooting and I bracket almost 
everything I shoot.  Color slide film is very unforgiving and considering 
Journal, or for that matter who ever I happen to be shooting for, has 
paid travel costs, and is paying for lodging food and other expenses - 
not to mention my day rates - I would be a fool indeed to not bracket or 
perform other tests to verify my exposure.  

I do admit that 9 out of 10 shots are what my meter tells me.  The reason 
for this is that I have carefully calibrated my Minolta meter to my style 
of shooting, my film of choice, and the cameras I am using.  However, 
labs processing varies and can vary from day to day so to shoot only one 
exposure with no verifications would be courting disaster.  Also on 
certain lighting situations there is no "right" exposure.  Shooting a 
landscape at sunset, shooting a building with the red glow of the sun 
right as it dips over the horizon reflecting off the windows are just a 
few examples.  Underexpose and the dramatic colors in the sky/reflected 
windows pop and the other distracting things move into the black and 
create an image far better than the one the meter reads.

I guess what it boils down to for me is that every time I pick up my 
camera I act as if  my reputation is on the line.  People are paying me 
to get the shot they want and there are no excuses or second chances.  I 
guess I am doing something right since almost all of my clients are 
"regulars".  I have a reputation of always delivering and I don't intend 
to ruin that reputation for worrying about how much film I am burning.

Neil Frankish, wrote

>*3* rolls of 120 Vericolour II and if I hadn't
>come back with 30+ sellable exposures every time, that would have been my
>last wedding!
>
>With only 36 exposures to work with, bracketing was only a theoretical
>concept! Every shoot was done according to the same standard formula.
>(although once, I inadvertently double exposed a bridesmade over the
>portrait of the bride. When I saw it, I was mortified, but in fact the
>costomer loved it, and we sold more reprints of that than any other!)


Harrison McClary
http://people.delphi.com/hmphoto