Managing sheet film on trips

[raathistle]

I know there are a few LF togs on her so though it worth a punt asking.

How do you manage your exposed film when away for more than a day? Obviously the holders need unloading in a change bag but how do you then organise the film and store it until development?

I've seen the method on lfphotographyinfo but it seems a bit prone to getting it wrong

Any hints or tips?

 

[Gandhi]

In scotland this year, I just shot and stored and hoped without any sort of organisation of negs other than outting them back into the boxes they came from (outside of the cardboard stiffener that comes in the box) thus keeoping the exposed and unexposed sheets seperate.

I wasnt shooting two of everything, so it wasnt a problem really.

This year, I'm going to be very careful, shoot 2 of everything and have a box for each type of film, 1 for processing and 1 to hold back in case it needs pushingor pulling. I'm hoping some accurate metering will help prevent the need for this.

As to how I organise the film in each box? Havent got that far yet. I suspect I will just place them into the boxes in some sort of order and just be very disciplined with it so there are no errors.

This will massively increase unload times though

Its either that or Quickloads via fuji for me!

 

[ifotou]

i keep the empty boxes for each (so i have empty provia, velvia, delta 100, fp4, hp5, fomapan etc boxes) when i load i write on the DDS what's in each and unload into the appropriate boxes for taking back to be dev'd.

I like Ghandi's idea of shoot 2 and have the spare for push/pull, but not the easiest to organise without multiple boxes or a way or seperating into, shot 1, shot 2, shot 3 etc as although keeping them in order in the packs could be one option it might get a little confusing.

The other option is to dev on the move? might not be such an option for the colour slide stuff but for the B&W stuff i'm assuming you should have enough space (and time) to do a daily processing of sheet film? not a huge amount of kit or chemicals needed if you have a paterson orbital etc?

 

[Blapto]

I like Ghandi's idea of shoot 2 and have the spare for push/pull, but not the easiest to organise without multiple boxes or a way or seperating into, shot 1, shot 2, shot 3 etc as although keeping them in order in the packs could be one option it might get a little confusing.

I did this recently, but then again I only shot 4 frames in the day so it was quite easy to organise. Fantastic. Deved two at standard times, saw they were both overdeveloped. Deved the next two at N-1. Perfect. Happy!

Now, how to transfer that to a week's shooting in the field? I'm not sure. Especially with regards to not damaging the negs/emulsion on fragile films.

I'm thinking about having two boxes, shoot two of everything, even frames into box A, odd frames into box B. Load/unload the boxes in parallel.

I'm also thinking about just getting it all right first time...

 

[Gandhi]

hmmm, getting it right first time!

Ah well, at least there will be 3 of us to bang heads together and see what happens.

I'm gonna bring the dev tank and chems as they dont take up much space, doubt I'll use them, but might be fun if its raining one afternoon!

How PH neutral is water out of a loch?

 

[ifotou]

How PH neutral is water out of a loch?

likely much better then the stuff from our tap lol

how much film do you expect to shoot? you could always cut little 5x4 card to go into the packet with notches in the long side - one for shot one, two for shot two etc???

 

[Gandhi]

Depends entirely on the weather and how inspired I feel.

About 50 frames in total last time, but light was limited, as was my confidence.

I would expect that to be closer to 100+ this time round, about a 70/30 ratio in favour of mono.

I'm not wet printing the mono stuff and I'm pretty confiodent I have my metering/dev/scan technique down, so bar any major disasters I dont need to shoot back up shots really.

I do need to calibrate my set-up for the adox chs 25, which I havent done yet though. Ho hum, something else to do before I leave!

Slide I will bracket and just be careful with the order pf things in the boxes I think, so will prbably take a box of provia for long exposure stuff, a box of velvia 100f for ***** and giggles and a couple of boxes of velvia 50 cos its cheap on fuji pro shop currently!

 

[Blapto]

likely much better then the stuff from our tap lol

how much film do you expect to shoot? you could always cut little 5x4 card to go into the packet with notches in the long side - one for shot one, two for shot two etc???

Well that's an idea.

5x4 negative archival sheets...

Can code the sheets with notches, and there's 4 sleeves per sheet. Store the negatives in the sheet, fold the sheet up and put that in your box.

 

[ifotou]

that's still a fair whack of stuff to process

i'd agree with the back-up on the slide stuff - that always gets me confused with the negative / positive stuff (over exposing to underexpose etc) and the cost means it's best to make sure you get it as right as possible

 

[ifotou]

Well that's an idea.

5x4 negative archival sheets...

Can code the sheets with notches, and there's 4 sleeves per sheet. Store the negatives in the sheet, fold the sheet up and put that in your box.

great idea - depends on the sheets though i prefer the glassine ones much better and don't seem to attract dust and static like some of the others.

I've also got a whole bundle of little card sleeves that i could probably code up - sure there's some bags etc that could be used similar.

 

[eddo123]

Its easy for me. I only shoot Velvia so i dont have to label DDS to keep different film types seperate. I just put all my exposures into the film boxes and send them away to be done with. Im pretty confident in my metering and usually the film comes back spot on, so no need to make push pull notes for next dev of say same exposure.
It works for me, because I only shoot the one type of file, though i cant see it being overly great if more than one film type is being used, unless you want to spend ages feeling the notches in a dark bag!!