Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1997/05/22

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Subject: Re: Leica R6 flash fill & books
From: Jim Brick <jim@brick.org>
Date: Thu, 22 May 1997 14:18:34 -0700

At 11:34 AM 5/21/97 -0800, you wrote:
>Jim,
>
>Have you used flash fill with the R6?  If so, is the compensation effort
>an awkward challenge?
>Thinking about getting one eventually for backup and for a polaroid back
>to live on.
>
>BTW, was in large bookstore (SuperCrown) the other day with a little
>free time and scoured the cooking section for one of your books.  I went
>hungry.   Is your name on covers?  
>
>Donal Philby
>San Diego
>

Donal,

About five years ago I shot a wedding (a very very close friend... it had
to be for me to do a wedding!) with the R6. It was outside in Pacific Grove
CA, mid-day, bright sun. I used a Mecablitz 60CT-4 potato masher. I set the
R6 shutter on flash (1/100th) and took a generalized incident meter
reading. I set the f-stop at what the meter indicated opposite 1/100th. I
think it was between f/11 & f/16. I should have been... The R6 is on
manual. I used an Agfa print film, something like "Portrait," asa 125. I
set the Metz flash to TTL and started shooting. Generally I didn't touch
anything. For close-ups of faces, I was going to change the camera asa to
250 and for large groups change it to asa to 50. This was to fool the TTL
system. Most of the time I forgot to change the asa. I just shot. I shot 10
rolls and I have to tell you... the pictures were absolutely stunning! The
lighting, the quality, everything was right-on. My friends couldn't believe
how good they were. Neither could I! Not a single bad exposure or bad fill,
in 360 exposures. We (my wife & I) gave them an album and the negatives for
their wedding gift. I don't know if it was dumb luck, the R6 TTL flash
capability, the Metz TTL ability, the film, or what... perhaps the
combination of it all. But the formula sure worked! Yes... I tested it a
week before the wedding and saw that it had the potential for working
properly. I was just blown away that I got 100%.

About our books. Up until just recently, we have been doing the
distributing ourselves, mainly to book and gift stores is the Carmel,
Monterey, & Pacific Grove area. We haven't started distributing our San
Francisco books yet. Some of the Carmel stores sell the SFO books. A few
weeks ago, Sunbelt Publications asked if they could distribute our books.
We said yes and signed a contract. We really don't know yet where the books
are going via Sunbelt. These books are 6" X 9" (landscape) format, case
bound, 4C full bleed covers, 30 pages of regional area 4C full bleed
photographs opposite recipe pages in the cookbooks and opposite address
book (diary) pages in the Address books. My wife and I are publishing a
series of books, "for the love of ..." The four books we have already
published are:

for the love of CARMEL, MONTEREY, and PACIFIC GROVE,
a Scenic Natural Cookbook
a Scenic Address Book

for the love of SAN FRANCISCO,
a Scenic Natural Cookbook
a Scenic Address Book

And we are currently working on "for the love of WINE COUNTRY..." Wine
Country, for these books, is Napa Valley, CA. Our names are on the covers.
The Cookbook and Address Book of a particular area have the same pictures
inside. The covers are different. In the near future I will have our web
site ready which will show the books for those who are interested. In the
books, I give credit to Leica as the camera system I used for all of the
photographs. In the address books, on the last page, I also list the
camera, lens, filter, and film used for each photograph.

I'm sorry you went hungry Donal... Books are hard to digest anyway! The
Tofu ink might be OK but the cellulose will give you gas!

Jim

ps. I just picked this up from the stockphoto list. Geographic fans, check
it out... very interesting.

http://www.latimes.com/HOME/NEWS/CUTTING/t000045064.html