Dear Larry, do you have measured the film with a densitometer?
No, you have not.
Otherwise you would not have written your last posting......
Those who do 'the real BW craftmanship' - evaluate the characterisctic curve with a densitometer and test the optimal film-developer combination - and then print optically with an enlarger on silver-halide photopaper, have been very dissappointed with this film.
Again, I would like to draw a distinction between what I have said, and what I have not said. I have consistently tried to make clear that I would agree with the assessment, coming from people I respect, that the “charts and graphs” pertaining to this film, are not “ideal” in the charts and graphs world.
I have also made it clear, several times, that I do not do “the real BW craftsmanship”, as you helpfully remind me. I lack the darkroom facility, the talent to wet print, and the time at this point in my life, to take it up again. So, I use a hybrid technique, which I also made clear.
Nothing you have said, as accurate as it is, in any way invalidates anything I posted above.
For wet printing, using traditional techniques, P30 would not be a good choice, the fact of which I have been fully aware for some time for exactly the reasons you bring up, reasons which other people who “do the real BW craftsmanship” have previously elucidated.
The real world situation however, is that most people using film today are using a hybrid technique, out of necessity if nothing else, they are not wet printing. It’s a different world, requiring a different skill set. (Which is “better” is another topic, but many people will never be able to realize with wet printing the same quality they can already achieve using a hybrid technique.)
The curves you describe are not totally irrelevant with a hybrid technique, but are largely so, as images made with this film conclusively demonstrate.
From the standpoint of esthetics, a densitometer is not an arbiter, it’s just a tool which tells us some things, but not everything. I have used one, and I know how to use one. If every film stock available to us had the same mathematically perfect curve, would that be artistic Heaven or Hell? Our answers to that question likely differ, and that’s fine.
P30, developed a certain way, then scanned a certain way, gives me a file having a grain structure and, yes, tonality, that makes it one of my favorite films. It works because I make it work, and gives me things I can’t get elsewhere, as easily. The endlessly repeated position that this film is “useless”, just seems a bit over the top to me, given the existing photographic evidence.
And there’s this:
“If you only have subjects with about 3-4 stops contrast range, you will of course not have a problem. That is basic knowledge"
You can say the same thing about Kodachrome. That’s not a determinative fault. Being successful with anything requires living within the given parameters of your materials. Do that, and you can be extremely successful. Use anything wrong, and it will turn out wrong. Pretty sure.
Having said all that, P30 is not available anyway, so there’s that.
