Undeveloped Film: The use of the press Camera with cut film is important in news coverage because you often send in negatives, sometimes undeveloped, for fast processing in the newspaper's own darkroom. Most such darkrooms are equipped to handle only cut film with any efficiency. In the case of features, you can count on making your own prints in your own darkroom, and you can produce them in any way you see fit with the Camera you like best. This might influence you to use a twin-lens reflex camera, the favorite tool of the magazine photographers, rather than a press camera. An Automatic Rolleiflex, equipped with flash, is just about the ideal all-around picture taking device for journalistic purposes.
i
Speedlights flash, the picture is taken, the film automatically advances, the shutter is cocked, and all is in readiness for the next child in the line. Similar cameras are available which operate with 35mm film. The smaller film cuts costs a bit but naturally the contact prints are not so appealing as those from the larger film.
Sometimes, if the pictures are particularly hot, the editor may want you to rush the undeveloped film to him. In other cases, he might prefer to have you develop the negatives and then send them in or to take time to make prints for his consideration before he decides whether to buy your pictures. You should not try to decide, on your own initiative, whether to send in negatives or prints. Call the city editor and ask him. He might be desperately in need of even a mediocre picture and want you to rush in something which you consider of meager news value. It is the editor's job to decide these things, so let him do it.
|
|
Photography
