Too shadowy on the flower and you lose the details and too exposed and you lose wave features. I usually shoot the flowers first and try to blow out the background as much as possible which is insanely difficult to meter. “Like any double exposure you want to create some dark areas so using flowers that have darker tints usually work best for me. When doing this technique you need to use the same camera and pay close attention to putting the film in the same way so your frame lines match. Meaning, he shot all the flower shots first, removed the film, then reshot all the wave shots, overlapping them. The first six double exposures were shot all with a double exposure setting but these two examples by Aaron Checkwood were shot at separate times. Keep this in mind: anything that is white/bright will destroy information and anything black/dark will maintain information for the next exposure. In the end, it all depends on the results you want and the framing of your shots. The best way to master metering for double exposures is simply to go out and try it.
With that being said since black & white and color negative film do so well with overexposure you’re still likely to get great results if you shoot each exposure normally. Yes, a double exposure literally means you’re exposing the frame to light twice so you’ll want to underexpose by cutting the exposure in half, so the double-exposed shots equal out to a fully exposed image. The good news is, with the right film selection you can pretty much meter normally without blowing out your photos. Meteringįor most people, metering correctly is the most intimidating aspect for double exposures. While you can capture double exposures on E-6 slide film, you will need to pay very close attention to your metering since it has less exposure latitude and is much less forgiving when overexposed. Between the two, we highly recommend black & white since its lack of color simplifies overlapping images and has the best exposure latitude. It’s a lot to remember so you may want to take notes of the images you shotįor the best double exposures, we suggest using black & white or color negative film as they have good exposure latitude which means they handle over-exposure well, making metering much less intimidating. Also, keep your first set of images in mind. This will let you know that you shouldn’t pull your film beyond this line when you reload the film for the second pass. Use a marker to mark the film’s position at the mouth of the cartridge. The only trick with this technique is being careful to align your second set of frames. Shoot over it again creating double exposures.Reload it into your camera for the second pass.Pull the leader when the roll is finished.Load and shoot a roll of film as you normally would for your first pass.If your camera does not have a multiple exposure setting, you’ll shoot the entire roll (first pass), Unsure if your camera can shoot double exposures? Do a quick Google or YouTube search on your camera’s specs and you should be able to find out quickly. To keep it simple, we recommend getting a camera that has a dedicated setting for multiple exposures.
Some older, fully manual cameras allow you to stay on the same frame between shots making it very easy, but other cameras have to be “tricked” into doing so. Not all cameras can shoot double exposures.