Re: thoroughly confused now

[Bill Agee <billagee@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>Depends a lot on how an individual photographer works.  The beauty of
>White's approach is that it gets away from all considerations of
>filter factors, film speed, and whatnot--the factors that are so
>confusing to IR photographers in the beginning--and works directly
>with negative/print quality.  But when you get around to taking
>pictures after having analysed the test roll, you're back to the
>old-fashioned "I shoot this subject at this stop and shutter speed and
>that subject at..." etc.  You have to hunt pictures with an
>encyclopedia of exposures in your head--or your pocket.  If a
>photographer works that way today (and I don't imagine many do), the
>White technique is perfect.
>
>If your basic technique relies heavily on TTL readings with manual
>override for such factors as back lighting, then the TTF technique
>makes far more sense.
>
>Bob Long
>(boblong@xxxxxxxxxxx)

Bob,

	I seldom use TTL myself, but recommend it for people beginning with
infrared or any other film. (I have been teaching photography for that past
12 years and infrared black and white is one of my specialties) TTL is the
most simple and foolproof of approaches, and with the technology available
today with the newer cameras, your exposures will be very close.
Personally, I use a hand held Minolta meter for situations other then
bright sun.  I do bright sun based on experience.  As White seems suggest,
I also have one basic exposure for outdoors in the bright sun and make some
adjustments based on experience given the lighting situations. I tell my
students to use 1/125 between f11 and f/16 as a starting point, and as I
said in my last post, it is only one half stop under what White is reported
to recommend.  Of course, a lot of this depends on how you develop your
film.  I use HC110B.  You may like D-76 or Acufine.

	Unfortunately, a photographers life is about filter factors, film
speed and other technical things like that, but they don't have to be a
burden to creativity.  It certainly doesn't take much to understand that a
red #25 filter cuts the light down by 3 stops.  That is the basis of
suggesting as I did in my last post that you use ASA/ISO 640 as your TTL
film speed setting, using Kodak HIE and metering through the lens with the
Red #25 filter in place.

	See, you don't have to carry "an encyclopedia of exposures" around
with you to get good pictures, but I would disagree with your statement--if
that is what you meant to say-- that a technique with a one exposure fits
all for infrared is perfect.  Twelve years of shooting infrared
conveniences me that one exposure will not work.  Infrared is not that
forgiving a film.


Bill Agee

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BILL AGEE
Laguna Beach, California           http://www.redsilver.com

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