Controlling contast in slow B&W film

[Roger Hicks]

Thanks Roger.

So all slower films are less responsive to contractions?

Is there a popular recipe for a 100-125 speed film / dev combo that you would recommend?


Gary

Dear Gary,

Para 1: you're welcome.

Para 2: pretty much, yes. In one sense they are MORE sensitive -- you control only the slope of the straight line portion -- but in another, the highlight/shadow balance is a lot easier to control with a fast film.

Para 3: FP4 or Fomapan 200 (200 only in Microphen, and then barely, but trickier because it's loaded with developent accelerators). Dev in a two-bath developer. I have seen convincing studies that weaker dev/lower temps/shorter time can give substantially identical D/log E curves to 2-bath, but for VERY contrasty scenes, 2-bath should have the edge.

Then again, generous exposure (to get all the important material on the straight line, and little or none on the toe) will record a shorter range, but record it more faithfully -- and you should have enogh tonal range anyway, if you don't use a compensating developer.

Remember too that compensating developers 'stretch' the shadows and highlights at the expense of the mid-tones, and that often, the best tonality comes from strong mid-tone separation.

Finally, you might want to look at Mortensen's theory that photography is best suited to short tonal ranges, and revise your style so that you just let shadows go hang anyway. I've never had much success with it, but I know it can be made to work.

I think this is mostly correct but today was the old folks' lunch with aperitif, lots of red wine and a digestif of home-distilled plum brandy, and I'm drinking a whisky nightcap as I write this...

Cheers,

R.

 

[gns]

Oh... You have a home still? Plum brandy sounds good. Only 2:00 pm here, though.

Never messed with 2-bath developers (Actually I haven't messed with anything but D76 1:1 for at least 30 years). Not inclined to start now, I guess.

Who is Mortensen? The only Mortensen I know of is William, EW's old buddy.

Gary

 

[FPjohn]

Roger appears to have discovered why the Plantagenets did not wish to surrender their claims to the Aquitaine.

yours
FPJ

 

[charjohncarter]

Even, Edward the second went there to die. He told his illegitimate son, referencing his legitimate sons, (in England), 'they are the real *******s.'

Count the *s, the word starts with a 'B.'

 

[Roger Hicks]

Oh... You have a home still? Plum brandy sounds good. Only 2:00 pm here, though.

Never messed with 2-bath developers (Actually I haven't messed with anything but D76 1:1 for at least 30 years). Not inclined to start now, I guess.

Who is Mortensen? The only Mortensen I know of is William, EW's old buddy.

Gary

Dear Gary,

Someone else's still.

Completely agree about not starting now with 2-bath. A while back I made some up to a formula I often used in the 60s, and found no real advantages over more dilute devs. etc.

Yes, THAT Mortensen. Mortensen On The Negative, as far as I recall, or it might have been The New Projection Control; I seem to have reorganized my bookshelves and can't find the Mortensen section.

Thouars, 15 miles away, was the last city to fall to the French in the Hundred Years War and the local Donjon I can (just) see from my study was held by the English for about 8 months at one point. The stone catapult balls that form the tops of the pillars water-gate in my garden are, however, from the Wars of Reigion, which were also very busy around here.

('Water-gate' sounds much grander than it is. The garden is a vegetable plot beside the river and the water-gate is literally like a garden gate in the rover-side wall so you can gather buckets of water for the garden. But I'm pretty sure the balls are catapult balls -- there were lots of them lying atound here.)

Cheers,

Roger