full tonal range?

[Sonnar Brian]

Maybe you own too many lenses.

HA! I laugh in your general Direction! (which is South, about as general as I can think of for Florida. )

If I owned TOO MANY lenses, obviously I would not be able to open the door to my house without them falling out!

 

[dap]

Funny you should bring this up...just yesterday I read a rant written by David Vestal on this very subject. Quick summary - he said you don't judge composers based on whether they include a full range of notes (the highest to the lowest and everthing in between) in their compositions so why would you judge a photographer on whether or not they produce work that displays a full range of tones. Sounds good to me (I love Vestal's writings - he is full of common sense and he does not hesitate to rip down any of photography's sacred cows).

 

[back alley]

where did you read that?
does he write on the net?

i never thought to search him out on the net but i used to love his magazine articles and books.

 

[craygc]

Is the discussion really about full tonal range or a disproportionate distribution of tones - ie. no significant midtone areas. The previous image from Marek is quickly accepted as an example of not have a full tonal range, where in practice it actually does (see my inset), albeit a very thin midtone response.

This image is one that does not have a full tonal range. Its brightest point is a little above midtone. In the main, not having a full tonal range has the effect of reducing overall contrast, not increasing it.

 

[Chris101]

where did you read that?
does he write on the net?

i never thought to search him out on the net but i used to love his magazine articles and books.

Vestal writes a monthly column for Photo Techniques magazine.

 

[notturtle]

A full range is not always desirable at all, but the consistent absence of a good/full range no matter the image can look awful. I actually find getting the simple balacing act of density and contrast the hardest thing in printing such that the fullst possible desirable range of tones are visible. Its amazing what tiny changes can do to an image. I normally try for a full range of tones and personally find prints consistently missing highlights fairly awful. Shooting in contrasty conditions print flashing is a fact of life. I bought the RH designs flasher and it is worth its weight in gold. I like good blacks, but not if it leaves shadow detail leaden. I often print without truly solid blacks and sometimes know from looking at a print that i is bets printed that way and then hit with selenium to drag those deep greys over to solid black leaving the rest of the image untouched. One has to use every tool to get the scale you want and I will be honest and say I sometimes cannot do that with a straight untoned print. Maybe a better printer could, but selenium does allow clever things to be done right at the base of the scale so I can get things how I want them at the toning stage. Then there is bleaching back etc (especially after partial sepia) which can allow bright glowing highlights that have no right to be anything other than dark and muddy. So yes, a full range is often important, but sometimes not desirable at all. however, I see a lot of images from people explaining that they like the high contrast look with awfully blown highlights and feel the images would look so much stronger with highlights. Often that perspecitve comes from lack of experience in the darkrom and the belief that they would have to compromise somewhere else on the tonal scale. This is rarely the case. You can still have high contrast and highlights in the same image. Thats what good printing is all about.

 

[pedrorf]

Which is better? - depends...

I don't think I ever posted on this forum, though I've been lurking for quite a while. This was such a useful post to me that I just had to log in and thank mfogiel. The second photo has exactly the light and the look I prefer on black and white photography. A pity I can't use agfa scala. Are there any negative films with a similar look?

 

[back alley]

Vestal writes a monthly column for Photo Techniques magazine.

i have not read that mag in years but i will start again now, thanks.

 

[dap]

where did you read that?
does he write on the net?

i never thought to search him out on the net but i used to love his magazine articles and books.

In my continuing quest to have a clutter free basement (currently I am on week three of what will no doubt end up being an entire summer long project) I happened to come across a box of darkroom books. Vestal's two books were in there. As often happens, I became side-tracked and sat down to read them (much to the detriment of the cleanliness of my basement). It was his second book (the art of black and white enlarging) that questioned the practice of demanding a full range of tones when printing. In fact the last chapter of this particular book might be the best writing on photography that i have ever had the pleasure of reading (the last chapter is a sort of polite rant on various topics having to do with darkroom printing/photography...he takes on "fine prints", limited editions, the ideals of originality and spontaneity, print size, etc.). I might be biased due to the fact that I am a big David Vestal fan, but I think it is a crime that his books remain out of print.

 

[mfogiel]

@pedrorf
I would say most slow films, slightly underexposed and developed 10/20% longer will get you a similar look. You can also obtain it through the manipulation of levels in PS.

 

[David William White]

In defence of full tonal range:

The loveliness of contrasty, grainy, punchy photographs notwithstanding, the medium is capable of rendering long tonal ranges that astound. And sell forever. Most commercial work, including wedding and portraiture, demands this. A photographer must be able to accomplish this look when required. Having the finest cameras, glass, film, and paper and then consistently producing images with next to no midrange is like buying a Mercedes and driving it on the rims.

Again, many types of imagery benefit from a 'bathtub' tonal curve, and in some conditions that is the best we can hope for, but if that is all you can ever acheive, then something is terribly wrong with exposure or development, and the full effects of the medium are being shortchanged.

You may not agree with the following justification for this attitude, but here goes anyway: A primary point of photography is to render a scene as it was observed, as accurately as possible. Now look through the gallery here today, especially at the street scenes, and ask yourself if you are seeing less than the tonal range the human eye could discern at that same moment. Most likely you'll notice many examples where the shadows are blocked up and the highlight detail is next to non-existent. Then ask yourself how life would be if your eyes could only discern the tonal ranges presented in these photographs. I'm taking a 'naturalist' or 'journalistic' approach, so if you are a 'real artist', feel free to sneer at me -- the photographic world needs a few artists here and there too.

On the other end of the scale are those photographers playing with HDR techniques (mostly dreadfully cartoonish, if you ask me) in a roundabout attempt to get what the film medium already is capable of, in skilled, experienced, and capable hands.

At the end of the day, a high-contrast, grainy print can be made from any gloriously smooth negative, but not the other way around. Sure, it's difficult to consistently acheive what the medium is capable of. An Adams or a Weston print will continue to have commercial (and artistic) value precisely for delivering right to the limit of the medium. The great portrait photographers as well.

Yes, of course, you bring your vision and your selectivity to the subject, but don't throw out the baby with the bathwater is, I guess, what I'm saying.

 

[shadowfox]

At the end of the day, a high-contrast, grainy print can be made from any gloriously smooth negative, but not the other way around.

Exactly.

Another important consideration is the final outcome of the image. Will it be a print, on monitor screen, or book/magazine.

There are times that you know exactly what it should look like in the end (super high-contrast, or very "grey"), that way you can prepare when shooting/developing.

But a lot of times when you do not know ahead, so it's best to aim for a negative that has a fuller tonal range.

 

[Svitantti]

I just have to comment about this comparison, because I think it is not suitable:

Actually usually when talking about music, the dynamics mean quiet and loud.. Not low and high notes.

In most or maybe huge majority of works of classical music there is a certain range of notes present in. I dont mean there should be, but maybe that is something most composers wanted...

In pop music, the notes often are more or less from a narrower range. The melodies or lyrics often repeat the same note.

These days there is much talk about the mastering of CD's. Many people who know better, are frustrated because most CD's are mastered so that they could have better chances to be played on the radio, which means loud all the time...

 

[Svitantti]

There is a full tone print with just the full tones... Then there is a full tone print where the local contrasts and tones are controlled to be just what the photographer wanted. The latter can be of course done also without using all the tones.

So the presence of full tonal range is unimportant. It is just something that certain people, who love rules etc. love to repeat over and over without thinking creatively.

This is a fact D) that is easily understandable and I dont get it why would it be even interesting to discuss it . But I guess it is good if these discussions open someones eyes on this matter...

 

[Papa Smurf]

Well, sometimes you want it, sometimes you don't, the problem is, that if it isn't there in the first place, you cannot create it, it is like with the highlights in digital... I find, that if I really want to be able to play with tones in 35mm, I tend to use the old Leica glass, Tri X @250 and develop in Prescysol EF (pyro type developer). This way I get a huge histogram to start with:

When I do not want it, I use the modern glass, with a high contrast film, and shoot against the light with AE, here's one with the 50/2 Planar ZM on Agfa SCALA:

Which is better? - depends...

Great post! Like they used to say in the Army, "smoke 'em if you got 'em". What the photographer was trying to accomplish would determine what 'full tonal range' would mean for that picture. To start the post processing with a very contrasty negative when the success of the image required a full range of white to light gray to medium gray to dark gray to black in order to reproduce the detail would take true darkroom magician to save the image. The opposite is also true when dark and moody or even gray hazy look is desired. A lot can be done with postprocessing on a computer, but, starting with a negative (scan) that is somewhat close to the look that one was after brings more satisfactory results. IMHO, correct exposure is still a very important aspect of any image. How the photographer wants to present the subject determines what is "correct exposure " and "full tonal range". Only a totally white or totally black image would not have a full tonal range.

 

[ChrisN]

I'd like to see the histogram for these two shots. I think the full range of tones is represented in both, but the tonal distribution is very different, with the first image displaying a greater proportion of mid-tones, and the second image biased towards the top and the bottom of the scale with far fewer middle tones.

But that's just being picky - I know what you mean!

 

[Sonnar Brian]

Chris- you can do a "Save Image" by right clicking, then run the Histogram if you have Photoshop. They are VERY different. Lots of pixels clipped in the second image, very few pixels in the mid-range. First image has very few clipped pixels.

 

[ChrisN]

Thanks Brian - was planning to do that in about 10 hours when I get home from work!

 

[notturtle]

A full tonal range is only important if the scene has a full tonal range or (in some cases) exceeds the ability of the medium to capture the full tonal range -- then you'll have to make a decision about which part is important to capture. That's if you're trying to depict something that more or less represents the scene. There may be artistic reasons you wouldn't necessarily want a full range of tones. I'd say it's one of those things that's a guideline but certainly not a hard-and-fast rule.

Its perfectly possible and at times desirable to stretch the tonal range of a limited scene. Its the old N+ development or through printing. I do use this when shooting beige sand, brown people, brown buildings (all under an overcast sky). I need to push down the shadows and bring up some highlights otherwise you have a scene that looks hidesous and not as we percieve it (because we see colour of course).


I feel that the second mfogiel shot would be much stronger with better separtion in the lower values to separate the backlit people from the shadows. IMHO there is a MUCH stronger print/image to come out of this neg and it could be achieved while retaining specular backlit hair and good blacks. Same extreme/outide range, but with better separation. I know this thread was not about critique of images, but it is about tonal ranges and desired imaging characteristics. I feel the second mfogiel images is a good example of one that could have the best of both worls - punch and balance. A full tonal range does not have to mean smooth and grey!

 

[Svitantti]

It is just this simple:

You use the tones you want in the photo. You choose them by the vision you have of the scene.

You can have a full tone negative and print it with less tones, all that matters is the final result.