full tonal range?

[pedrorf]

What a coincidence. Last night I started reading The Print, and Ansel Adams uses the very same musical notes metaphor. Here's the quote: A fine print has been generally assumed to have a full range of values, clear delineation of form and texture, and a satisfatory print "color". But what a catastrophe it would be if all photographs only met these criteria! True, a note of pure white or solid black can serve as a "key" to other values, and an image that needs these values will feel week without them. But there is no reason why they must be included in all images, any more than a composition for the piano must include the full range of eighty-eight notes of the keyboard. Marvelous effects are possible within a close and subtle range of values.

 

[Juan Valdenebro]

Brian Sweeney got the point.

Even if images can be moving with a less than desired (by author) level of tonal range on the final displaying media, it is necessary for a photographer to understand the ways to handle a scene's contrast in the moment of recording it, sometimes it's done by filtering... Of course without the wet darkroom possibilities every negative offers even after a gross under/overexposure, it's slide film -as usual- the media that "teaches" the most.