A common practice among architectural photographers and maybe others is to expose three sheets for each shot. One is developed first, then the development of the other two is adjusted if necessary to assure two perfect chromes. The question is how to store the second and third sheets while the first is being developed. I'm assuming you want to reuse the filmholders, so leaving the film in the numbered filmholders is not an option. One possibility is to put each pair of exposed sheets in its own film box, labeled appropriately, but this only works if you have sufficiently many film boxes. Another idea I had was to use the Light Impressions 4 x 5 envelopes. These are not light tight, so they would have to be numbered in a way that could be read in the dark. Like most photographers, I don't read Braille, so this seems problematic. Has anyone come up with a better solution?

-- Stewart Ethier (ethier@math.utah.edu), February 08, 1999

Answers

Yes, Fuji QuickLoads or Kodak Readyloads. It is very easy to write on the sleeves what the latent contents are. Also they take up much less room to travel with.

-- Ellis Vener (evphoto@insync.net), February 08, 1999.

I agree that preloaded film solves the problem. If for some reason you are not using this system (like you work in damn 5x7), then you can put several sheets of film in a single film box, and write on a notepad their order. Then you just need to be able to count sheets of film in the dark. It begins to be difficult to count accurately after a while, so in addition, what I do is to use dividers for each 10 sheets. The dividers have a number of notches do identify then.

I have been told that stacking film without paper to separate sheets might cause surface damage (and indeed i have these problems), however i don't really understand how interleaving would help if the sheets of papers are not perfectly dust-free.

Aside from that problem, the system has worked relatively well for me for quantities as large has a hundred backup sheets. I must warn you that the upmost focus is required not to make a counting mistake.

-- Quang-Tuan Luong (luong@ai.sri.com), February 08, 1999.