I can't understand why, if the contrast (white level) is set up to give peak white without clipping on side 1 for example, side 2 is then about 5% too dark, then when you adjust again side 3 has overblown highlights due to clipping, and the level needs to be dropped even lower than side 1 was.
Or do you capture everything with a marginally reduced tonal range then expand during post-processing as necessary?