[pure-silver] Re: Need help with exposures, please, - Peter

>>>I also pre-soak my film (i.e. before the developer) for two or three minutes.<<<

I'm curious about that. I've never soaked my film more than 10 or 15 seconds. Is 2 or 3 minutes the commonly used practice?


On Oct 19, 2006, at 10:09 AM, Lloyd Erlick wrote:

At 07:33 PM 10/17/2006 , >Janet wrote:

... I've avoided testing forever.  Maybe that's my problem?
...


October 19, 2006, from Lloyd Erlick,

I don't think so. I've never done any official 'testing' in my life. I just
put film in there, do a bunch of pictures, see how it looks, read magazines
and books, talk to people about it, expose more film, find out which
frames work for me and where I seem to have made errors, well, you get the
idea. The key is to keep a personal record of what you've done.

Unless this could be described as testing?

Exposure advice used to be: "f/8 and be there."

Now it's, "Set light meter to half the manufacturer's film speed rating".

Also, keep in mind most negative black and white films have extreme
latitude for over-exposure, but close to no latitude for under- exposure. So
as long as one limits error to over-exposure, prints can be made.
Overly-dense (over-exposed) negatives can yield extremely beautiful prints,
although perhaps with a bit more darkroom effort.

About the most important piece of equipment for a photographer is a
notebook and writing instrument. Call it a diary or Weston's Day Book, it
will come to hold a wealth of personal information and film data. And you
can record the results of all your testing in it...

(Somewhere online I came across the notebooks of Eugene Smith. There are
also the journals of Da Vinci somewhere out there...)

I like medium-speed films, and I have been using Kodak T-Max 400 for years.
I set my meter to 200. I almost always work in shadow-daylight (no direct
sun, that is). My subjects tend to be lit by sky or cloudy sky. I try to
use f8 as much as I can, unless it's bright and I can get to f11. At f8, on
an ordinary weather day, around mid-afternoon, my shutter speed would
likely be 1/8 second. If it's brighter, 1/15 (that's a high speed for me).
If it's brighter yet, 1/15 at f11.

I develop my film in Xtol diluted 1+2, for 12 minutes at 21 degrees C. I
also pre-soak my film (i.e. before the developer) for two or three minutes.
D76 diluted 1+1 works pretty well the same way, or close to it.

So, my help with exposure would be, put in a roll of film and set the meter
to half its rated speed, and develop it as above. Record everything and
make fine-tuning adjustments as you go along.

Maybe the real key is exposing lots and lots of film. Take many pictures!
This gives you what to record in your notebook.

regards,
--le
________________________________
Lloyd Erlick Portraits, Toronto.
website: www.heylloyd.com
telephone: 416-686-0326
email: portrait@xxxxxxxxxxxx
________________________________
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