Jonathan R
Well-known
Alex, looking at those examples on the other thread, I see nothing much to worry about. They look a bit grey, but that's because the tonal scale is rather compressed. You get more intensely black shadows with simple tweaks of Levels and Curves to make full use of the dynamic range of your screen/printer, although it's probably better to set Levels when you scan.
If you mean that after such tweaking you don't see enough shadow detail for your taste, then your answer has to be more exposure, ensuring the shadows lie not on the toe but on the straight-line portion of the film's characteristic curve. You may then need to under-develop, as gns suggests in his last paragraph.
You seem to imply that one can discern shadow contrast from looking at the histogram. I don't think that's the case, please explain if I'm wrong?
If you mean that after such tweaking you don't see enough shadow detail for your taste, then your answer has to be more exposure, ensuring the shadows lie not on the toe but on the straight-line portion of the film's characteristic curve. You may then need to under-develop, as gns suggests in his last paragraph.
You seem to imply that one can discern shadow contrast from looking at the histogram. I don't think that's the case, please explain if I'm wrong?
Tuolumne
Veteran
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/T
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/T
40oz
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alexz said:
histograms don't show "contrast at the shadows." They show the volume of data at each value in a scale from black to white. They simply show the distribution of tones.
You adjust a scan for contrast for the same reason you change paper grades/filters when wet printing - not every image is an even spread from light to dark. There is nothing that says that an even distribution of tones is required for a nice photo. There are scenes that might work better that way, and scenes that would be poorly rendered as such. The logic behind the zone system is to get the maximum range of tones, not to guarantee an even distribution of such. Exposure and development go hand in hand to capture the specific range of tones you desire - retain shadow detail in the subject's hair while letting highlights in a window blow out, for example. Which you did admirably, I'd say.
One might even say that exposure is used to select the range of tones you wish to capture, and development dictates the constrast between the highlights and shadows - more development whitens whites. But longer development cannot darken shadows because of the way development works. It's a chemical reaction, whereby the longer it is let run, the more silver is freed, and the darker the exposed regions of film get. So any stray detail in a shadow darkens on the negative during development, while the unexposed parts remain unaffected no matter how long they sit in the developer. Regions of more exposure - the highlights - continue to develop until there is nothing left but silver.
Shadows won't change much as development is extended, but highlights will keep getting darker on the negative. If let go too long for the exposure, you get more regions of pure black on the negative as exposed regions reduce to opaque silver, but regions of unexposed film won't get any more unexposed
When you run it though the fixer, the silver stays, but the unexposed shadow regions clear. So you end up with pure black in any highlight and bare film in the shadows. You won't lose any detail in the shadows, but you'll lose all detail in the highlights. The goal with development is to stop development at a point when the highlights that should be completely opaque on the negative are completely opaque, and no more.
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M
mojojones
Guest
This discussion (and the theories in the links) bring to mind the mantra we learn in Photo 101 back in the 70's: "Overexpose and Underdevelop". This was primarily for shooting 35mm BW. Rate your ASA (old school) a half a stop slower and subtract 10% from the the development. This was a general method to insure good shadow detail without blocking up the highlights. It worked well generally and gave you smooth negatives which could be expanded in the darkroom. The problem was that if you wanted the classic look of documentary photographers (Life, Magnum, etc.) the highlights were a little too compressed. You could of course work to bleach back the highlights like Eugene Smith. Today negs like this scan well and can be controlled to get the classic look in photoshop quite easily. Or you could shoot XP2 and slightly over expose. It won't block up because it's dye. These days I like to start with a bit more highlight separation so I develop my TX in HC110. I still pull the development but since it's an active developer it pulls out the highlights a little.
40oz
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mojojones, that's great advice as long as you have a source for infinitely fast film
What I don't understand is, since photography as a hobby is about personal vision and satisfaction, why a person would resign oneself to not get the look one likes in the photos of one's heroes simply because someone teaching the basics of shooting didn't teach it? It's an advanced subject, perhaps. The Zone system was a teaching method, I don't think Ansel Adams and Fred Archer ever intended it to become a stricture.
What I don't understand is, since photography as a hobby is about personal vision and satisfaction, why a person would resign oneself to not get the look one likes in the photos of one's heroes simply because someone teaching the basics of shooting didn't teach it? It's an advanced subject, perhaps. The Zone system was a teaching method, I don't think Ansel Adams and Fred Archer ever intended it to become a stricture.
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