[pure-silver] Re: Hubert Grooteclaes
- From: Eric Nelson <emanmb@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: pure-silver@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2011 09:45:56 -0800 (PST)
That was my thought as diffusion on the camera would have had more effect on
the
highlights.
Sorry about the dial-up! I can empathize as I'm typing from the 'land of
kernel
panics & bad ram' presently. It's taking up my time from my toning tests!
Eric
________________________________
From: Richard Knoppow <dickburk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: pure-silver@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Wed, February 23, 2011 9:50:05 AM
Subject: [pure-silver] Re: Hubert Grooteclaes
I am on my dial-up right now so looking at the images is really not
possible. However, FWIW, soft focus lenses and diffusers tend to spread out
bright areas of the image. When used on a camera they diffuse the highlights
mostly, spreading them out. The exact effect depends on the mechanism of
diffusion, i.e. whether from uncorrected spherical aberration or straight
diffusion from some object in front of the lens.
When used on an enlarger, and enlarging from negatives, the effect on the
print is the reverse: the lens is still diffusing the bright areas but these
are
now the shadows so the effect in the print is to spread out or blur the
shadows.
While this kind of diffusion has been used to good effect it is quite different
from the effect on a camera or when making a reversal enlargement. I find it
mostly leads to rather murky images where the effect on highlights leads to a
glowing quality.
Without seeing the photos I have no idea of what Grootclaes was doing but
it
should be fairly obvious.
OTOH, if he was able to make sharp print later than the diffusion or
whatever it was, had to be on the enlarger.
There are a great many materials which can be used for diffusion, those
with
simple geometrical patterns, like cheesecloth or window screen, tend to have a
directional diffraction pattern (typically star- or cross-shaped) where a soft
focus lens does not.
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