I do not want to get into a ****ing contest with Richard, so I will not argue
with him except to say that most newspapers usually had more than one camera
and/or lens available. I was not there back in the 20's and 30's, but I have
talked with old timers myself. Often what they told me, and what Richard says
was very very different.

On things like grip-n-grins, the mainstay of the old time press, it was usual to
shoot one shot on one side of the holder, and a safety shot on the other. The
safety shot often was never even processed unless there was a problem, such as
someone blinking, with the first shot. However, to the best of my knowledge a
working press photographer never went out with just one film holder, and for
major events they often used pack film, WeeGee certainly did if you can believe
what he said in his books.

Funny thing is folks who seem to never have used the stuff, or who have only
used the 16 sheet packs made in the 70's with the then new untra-thin film in
them, have strange ideas about filmpacks. For one thing you could do just one
shot and remove it in the darkroom with out wasting the rest of the pack.
However, even back in those days film was not so expensive that a working
photographer was afraid to waste the rest of the film in the pack even if he had
only shot only 2 or 3 of the 12 sheets of film. And the film in the 12 sheet
packs was not all that thin, nor was roll film in the 50's and earlier.

--

Rebecca Ore wrote:

In article ,
(Richard Knoppow) wrote:


I've never seen the actual negatives of the
Hindenburg disaster but doubt very much they were shot on pack film.


I thought I'd read somewhere that they were shot by people who didn't
use the second sheet of film, just exposed one sheet per holder under
conditions where every sheet counted and remembering which sheet was
exposed might be a problem.

Thought it was posted here, but I could be wrong.