[pure-silver] Re: fence row project negatives
- From: "Richard Knoppow" <dickburk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <pure-silver@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2007 18:40:17 -0700
----- Original Message -----
From: "Shannon Stoney" <shannonstoney@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <pure-silver@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, September 21, 2007 6:04 PM
Subject: [pure-silver] fence row project negatives
My only comments are that the visual impression of
contrast is mostly right. Also, for B&W one must learn to
ignore color contrast because it will be lost in the
picture. Old time photographers used a viewing glass to help
the eye seen scene contrast. About a two stop neutral
density filter will do or looking through a scrap of fogged
and processed film. After a while you will be able to see in
B&W and won't need this.
Metering can be tricky. You can meter shadows and
highlights separately and find the range but the setting in
between is mostly a matter of judgment. This is where an
incident light meter can be helpful since it assumes uniform
distribution of gray values in the scene and will give you a
read out based only on the light. This can be way off for
some scenes but will give you a good middle value for most.
I don't know what to suggest for the undeveloped film. If
you are getting full detail in all parts of the image going
to higher grade paper may be a better solution. As far as
negative contrast simply increasing development time will
increase contrast but there is a limit because at some point
the fog will begin to come up. I think the same rule that
applies to pushing film probably applies here. When pushing
the increase in contrast is about one paper grade for each
stop you push. About three stops is the most you can get.
Higher contrast developer might help but I think might cause
other problems. One can use a print developer like Dektol on
film or a medium high contrast developer like Kodak D-19.
D-19 was originally formulated for microscope images and
metalurgical images. It is higher contrast than a normal
developer but much lower than lith or process type
developers. Dektol will give you higher contrast but is very
fast in action on film. In the days of yore newspaper labs
often used the same developer for both prints and negatives.
Speed was much more important than quality, nonetheless the
stuff works.
Try high contrast paper before you modify the negative
processing. Also, decreasing the dilution of the print
developer may help a little. For Dektol, for instance, try
1:1 instead of 1:2. It won't do any harm and will last
longer.
---
Richard Knoppow
Los Angeles, CA, USA
dickburk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
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