**On a camera in which the film advance is not coupled to the shutter**, do you advance it to a new frame after releasing the shutter, or wait until you're next ready to shoot before winding it on?

If you forget the state the camera is in, on your next shot you risk either making a double exposure or wasting a frame of film, so it seems sensible to be consistent about it.

Which way though? I can see reasons for doing it either way.

With a shutter-coupled film advance, one would normally prefer not to put the camera away with the shutter cocked, for the sake of the mechanism. This would make the practice of not advancing the film in an uncoupled camera consistent with that, and easy to remember for that reason.

On the other hand, advancing the film only when you're ready to shoot makes taking photos slower. Depending on how fiddly the advance mechanism is and whether you need to watch the symbols carefully through the little red window on the back could consume enough time to miss an opportunity.

I'm inclined to the first practice, but perhaps there's some very conclusive reason for doing it one way rather than the other.