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Dead photo formula



 
 
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  #1  
Old October 19th 08, 12:06 PM posted to rec.photo.darkroom
Jean-David Beyer
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Posts: 247
Default Dead photo formula

wrote:
Hello,
I'm new on this newsgroup, and I'm from Poland.


Welcom to this newsgroup.

For many years I have followed Massive Dev Chart with developing my
films.. until now.


I have never looked at that chart.

Many experienced photography teachers used to say, that one should -
as general - expose for the shadows and develop for the highlights.


If you need a rule of thumb, that is a pretty good one, IMAO.

Isn't this best advise for the lazy ones, who don't want to be
creative in the image creating process and just want to have
a c c e p t a b l e results?


I would not be so critical of this. I do not think it is for lazy people who
mostly cannot be bothered to do even this. Lazy ones use cameras with
automatic exposure that assume what is in front of the camera is an
"average" scene and expose only for that average. Some use a weighted
average, giving more emphasis to what is in the middle of the subject on the
theory that most people take pictures of stuff and point their cameras at
the thing they find most interesting and assume that is where the exposure
should be.

Less lazy (to use your word) photographers use a spot meter and look at
various parts of the subject and decide what the darkest part of the subject
is where they want detail in the image, and likewise, what the lightest part
of the subject is where they want detail is. They then meter those parts of
the subject, determine if they will fit on the film (and later, the paper)
and if they will, they make the proper exposure such that the darkest part
of the subject falls on the film high enough on the H/D curve to get
suitable contrast, and then develop the film so that the significant
highlights also fall on the curve low enough to also have detail on the
print. For many images, this is entirely suitable.

Now some subjects have a contrast range so great that to get the highlights
to fit on the paper, reduced development is required, and, per contra, some
have a contrast range so small as to result in a contrast in the print too
low to be interesting. For the former, reduced development is sometimes used
to control the contrast, and this can be effective sometimes. But in my
experience, when the contrast is very high, this also results in boring
images. I recall once trying to make a photograph in the daytime inside a
blacksmith shop with a window showing outside. I did the expose for the
shadows and develop for the highlights, and it worked, technically speaking,
but I had to reduce the development time considerably to achieve this.
Everything fit on the film (rarely a problem) and the paper; i.e., the
overall contrast was controlled, but the local contrast was so low that it
was an inferior image.

In a case like that, what should be done is either increase the lighting
level inside the blacksmith shop to reduce the overall contrast (not always
possible) or revisualize the whole thing; i.e., make a different image
altogether -- perhaps by omitting the window from the scene altogether.

Where the contrast is too low, one can increase the development time to
raise the contrast. This is more likely to achieve success, but it is not
something I frequently encounter.

For small changes in contrast, I just develop the film normally and use
different paper grades, either by using a different grade of paper, as I did
in the past, or by changing the color of the exposing light when exposing
variable contrast paper.

I can not really comment on this D-3 type of negative method, for I
followed it only twice and got what I was afraid to get: open shadows
and the flat, dull highlights.


I do not know what a D-3 type of negative method is. Is that a kind of
developer? Or do you mean that you reduced development time so that
something that would normally fall on Zone X of the film curve would end up
on Zone VII? In the latter case, it is just the problem I had in the
blacksmith shop. For something like that, either filling in the shadows
somehow might be the way to go, or getting the window out of the image
altogether is a better approach.

Can you explain what you mean by open shadows and flat dull highlights?

It sounds as though the film was not developed long enough.

Wouldn't it rather be arguable to meter and expose, for what's the
most important in the scene (be it the highlight reflection on the
face, pear, melon, wet sand on the beach, graded wall of the building,
or anything we want it to be) and have it tone separated thus? Then
adjust the rest with developing and printing?


All these things should be at the command of the photographer so (s)he can
achieve the results desired.

--
.~. Jean-David Beyer Registered Linux User 85642.
/V\ PGP-Key: 9A2FC99A Registered Machine 241939.
/( )\ Shrewsbury, New Jersey
http://counter.li.org
^^-^^ 06:45:01 up 24 days, 7:47, 3 users, load average: 4.43, 4.13, 4.03
  #2  
Old October 20th 08, 01:39 PM posted to rec.photo.darkroom
Jean-David Beyer
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 247
Default Dead photo formula

wrote:
Lazy ones use cameras with automatic exposure

Geez, I forgot they exist, welcome to the XXI


Where the contrast is too low, one can increase the development time to
raise the contrast


and control the highlights with agitation, I like low contrast range
scenes, since I like that kind of flexibility


I do not know what a D-3 type of negative method is.


Did I write D-3? Oh my, I meant 3-D,
according to this typology
http://unblinkingeye.com/Articles/Mo...Ringaroun3.jpg
3-D is the third example from the left. In this case slightly
overexposed and uderdeveloped (7-D is the opposite)

That is a ring-around. I still do not know what you mean by third from the
left. That would be the one on the right, but there are three on the right.

Can you explain what you mean by open shadows and flat dull highlights?


Technically everything was okay, but the impression of the unmasked,
expanded shadows and compressed highlights wasn't..er refreshing.


If the image was like that in the ring-around, then only image number 5
would be what one would normally want for the final print. (Depends, of
course, on what you actually want.)

If your shadows were "expanded" then it sounds as though you overdeveloped
and overexposed the film. If the highlights were compressed, then it sounds
as though you were so overexposed that they got up on the shoulder of the
film (very rare with modern films: the only film I ever used that had a
shoulder in the useful range of exposure was Kodak's Panatomic-X). Since you
claim both, it sounds as though you severely exposed your film (by three or
more stops, I would expect).

--
.~. Jean-David Beyer Registered Linux User 85642.
/V\ PGP-Key: 9A2FC99A Registered Machine 241939.
/( )\ Shrewsbury, New Jersey http://counter.li.org
^^-^^ 08:30:02 up 25 days, 9:32, 3 users, load average: 4.38, 4.12, 4.04
 




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