Working notes on exposure, film storage and composition, laid out like a contact sheet.
Read a frame, mark what holds up, and use the sunny-16 selector before the meter batteries die.
Frames 01–03
Three guides
Exposure: one budget of light, three ways to spend it
Aperture sets how much light passes the lens and how deep the zone of sharpness is. Shutter speed
sets how long the film sees that light and how motion records. ISO is the film's sensitivity, fixed the
moment you load the roll. Each full stop doubles or halves the light: f/8 to f/11 halves it, 1/125 to
1/60 doubles it. Trade one against the other and the negative comes out at the same density. That is the
whole idea behind the equivalent exposures in the selector below.
Negative film forgives overexposure far more than underexposure. Shadows that received no light hold no
silver, and nothing in the darkroom brings them back. When a scene has a wide range, meter for the shadows
you care about and let the highlights look after themselves. A reflected-light meter, in the camera or in
your hand, assumes the world averages to a middle grey: point it at a white wall and it will try to make
the wall grey, so open up a stop or two. Slide film is the opposite. Its highlights clip hard, so expose
for them.
Pencil: write frame number, aperture and shutter in the notebook.
Nothing teaches exposure faster than reading your notes against the developed negative.
Film storage: cold, dry, dark, and fresh
Film is a chemical product with a date on the box. Heat and humidity age it: colour balance drifts, base
fog rises, and fast film loses speed first. Unexposed film keeps best in a refrigerator at around 4 °C
(40 °F) inside its sealed canister; a freezer at −18 °C (0 °F) all but stops the clock for slow and
medium stock. High-speed films of ISO 800 and above are also slowly fogged by natural background radiation,
which no freezer prevents, so buy them fresh and shoot them within a year.
Let cold film warm to room temperature before opening: about an hour for a 35 mm cassette, two to three
for a 120 roll or a bulk pack. Otherwise condensation forms on the emulsion and leaves marks. Keep film out
of the sun in the field; a closed car in summer can pass 60 °C. Exposed film is more fragile than
unexposed, because the latent image fades slowly. Develop within a few weeks, or refrigerate the rolls if
you must wait.
Pencil: at airports, ask for hand inspection. The CT scanners used
for carry-on bags can fog any film in a single pass, and checked-baggage scanners are worse.
Composition: the frame is an argument about what matters
Before pressing the shutter, ask what the picture is of, then remove everything that does not serve it.
Step closer, change lens, or wait. Edges count as much as the centre: check all four for half figures,
bright patches and poles growing out of heads.
Place the subject off-centre when the scene has a direction to move in, and centre it when you want
stillness or symmetry. Lines such as roads, railings and shadows lead the eye; use them to pull the viewer
toward the subject, not out of the frame. Light is the material: side light shows texture, back light
makes shapes, flat light lets colour and gesture carry the picture.
With 36 or 12 frames, hesitation is a gift. Work a scene in three: one wide frame for context, one at the
subject's own scale, one detail. Later, at the contact sheet, mark with a grease pencil which of the three
actually held up. Most of learning to compose happens at that table, not behind the camera.
Frame 04 · working tool
Sunny-16 selector
On a clear sunny day, set f/16 and a shutter speed of 1 over the ISO. Pick your film and the
light you are standing in; the sheet gives the base setting and the equivalent pairs that expose the same.
ISO 400 · clear sun · EV 15
f/16at1/500
Base setting. Shutter speed is the nearest standard step to 1/ISO.
Rating ISO 400 film at 800 is one stop under; ask for a one-stop push in development and note it on
the canister. Push increases contrast and grain, pull reduces both.
Handholding rule
Keep the shutter at or faster than 1 over the focal length: 1/60 for a 50 mm lens, 1/125 for 90 mm.
Brace against something solid to gain a stop.
Reciprocity failure
Below about one second most films need extra exposure; check the data sheet. A metered 10 s may need
20 to 30 s on the negative.
Contact sheet marks
Circle the frames worth printing, tick the crop, cross out the misses. A grease pencil wipes off
the glossy side.