Neopan 400- developer for best tonality?

[Photo_Smith]

This is - as already told to you - one of the most beautiful portraits I ever saw.

Too bad there is something looking like a scratch on the negative (might be scanner banding as well).

Not too sure if the "emerging shadow" metering technique (which sounds a bit complicated to use in the field when your subject has no patience or is prone to get away so that you have to meter in a PDQ manner) is mandatory there. Metering on the area between the nose and the mouth would have provided the same results IMO.

Or incident metering by placing the meter in front of the eye which is in focus ?

Yet - again, what a lovely photograph. Congrats.

I scan on a cheap scanner (V500) just for showing on the internet, the scan took just a min or two with no retouching; I print on paper with an enlarger normally Adox.
The scratch is a scanline due to dust in the calibration area.

The shadow meter method is simple in the field I have a spotmeter, I place it on the parts under trees and bushes then stop down 2 stops to place them in the toe so I keep the appearance of grain down in the mid tones it's easy and only takes a second.

Metering from the face (which I also did) would have boosted the shadows and given +4 stops to the exposure which would boost grain in the zone IV to VI) basically the skin tones would look gritty rather than smooth.

Thanks for your words.

 

[Highway 61]

So if I got it correctly this is as if you had spot metered on the tiny area of the foreground cheek which is half in the light and half in the shadow ?

 

[frogfroggy]

So if I got it correctly this is as if you had spot metered on the tiny area of the foreground cheek which is half in the light and half in the shadow ?

I think that is correct by the term "emerging shadows". Thank you Photo_Smith !! That was good info! Oh btw, I have that same scanline error with my epson scanner as well !

 

[Photo_Smith]

So if I got it correctly this is as if you had spot metered on the tiny area of the foreground cheek which is half in the light and half in the shadow ?

I find looking for the mid tone in a subject difficult to ascertain mainly because mid tones in colour confuse the eye, where emerging shadow is easily pinned in seconds without too much evaluation (and little error margin)
Half in shadow? already you have to make a judgement based upon a guess, the danger being you put mid grey too far up the curve and get graininess and harsh tones.

This is all really basic metering 101, some people look for mid tone and meter from that which is fine, the difficulty comes from placing that point in development at fb+fog add 0.6D easy with a densitometer, less so by eye, with all the caveats of increased graininess perceived in the final output.

The emerging shadow is easier to spot in the real world and also a point during wet printing easy to obtain making final tonal evaluation easier.

N.B I am talking about B&W negative, slides are the opposite.

 

[Highway 61]

Thanks for the explanations, that is quite clear and interesting.

 

[Photo_Smith]

Thanks guys what I'm espousing isn't my original thoughts or method its what I was taught by my mentor when I was 15 (many years ago). The blog needs updating but with a busy job, 3 kids and photography....

 

[Highway 61]

Would it be wrong to say that this technique works only under some certain lighting situations, i.e. within a given and known EV range between the highlights and the shadows ? For harsher lighting conditions than in Fiona's portrait, wouldn't this "-2" method burn the highlights out ?

Just an honest question, because this is what I experienced recently on a portrait shot with the late afternoon sunlight hitting the subject's skin through the living-room window (sadly no information in the highlights on the negative).

I wasn't shooting the model's face of course - who would do it - but her back, to get something interesting thanks to the light. So I metered for the emerging shadows following this technique, yet on the right shoulder area the negative is totally black (hence burnt out highlights).

This summer I had shot a kinda similar photo and had frankly metered for the highlights (where the sun was hitting the skin) : as a result those are pretty fine and the shadows are deep but not buried yet, there is still some information in them.

 

[Photo_Smith]

Would it be wrong to say that this technique works only under some certain lighting situations, i.e. within a given and known EV range between the highlights and the shadows ? For harsher lighting conditions than in Fiona's portrait, wouldn't this "-2" method burn the highlights out ?

It works for all lighting conditions especially harsh ones. Thinkabout it you are placing the emerging detail into the toe, the highlights will be placed lower on the curve, all current B&W films will cope with 1.8 DLogE units from the speedpoint.

Just an honest question, because this is what I experienced recently on a portrait shot with the late afternoon sunlight hitting the subject's skin through the living-room window (sadly no information in the highlights on the negative).

No info in the highlights you mean burnt out? overexposed?

I wasn't shooting the model's face of course - who would do it - but her back, to get something interesting thanks to the light. So I metered for the emerging shadows following this technique, yet on the right shoulder area the negative is totally black (hence burnt out highlights).

If you had no shadow detail (where you wanted it) and burnt highlights something went wrong, if you follow the emerging detail method you must have shadow detail--you put it there!
If the highlights burn and you have shadows you have exceeded the range of tones the film can record, could be overdevelopment high contrast-- I'd have to see the negs.

This summer I had shot a kinda similar photo and had frankly metered for the highlights (where the sun was hitting the skin) : as a result those are pretty fine and the shadows are deep but not buried yet, there is still some information in them.

You do the metering for the highlights with slide film normally, its a little harder but meter from white and open up mtwo stops.
With B&W negative if you meter for the highlight (zone 8-9) you are forcing them to be mid tone and unless you compensate you will get blocked shadows with no infomation.

So the issues you describe metering for shadow and getting no shadows and metering for highlights and getting good shadows don't make sense.

 

[redisburning]

I rarely agree with Photo_Smith but he really is right here.

Proper metering is about spotting a value to where you want it on the curve, not hitting some magical scene EV number like an incident gives you. I find incident metering to be wonderful under certain situations (esp. flash) but poor for mixed lighting.

To a large degree, what you place where depends on your film, development, and how you plan to take your negative to a finished picture. If you spot emerging shadow then add 2 EV you are actually likely to get a slightly thick negative for scanning but one that will print beautifully (in fact, probably ideally in that it will give the best results over the largest number of different conditions) but I have found in my own personal scanning using a Dual Scan III and Vuescan that such negatives tend to have too much midzone action for my tastes and I tend to go about 1/3 of a stop lower.

FWIW Ive heard from multiple sources that most in-camera meters assume middle grey to be a bit darker than it really is to protect slide/digital highlights where clipping is the cardinal sin, not empty shadows.

 

[znapper]

It works for all lighting conditions especially harsh ones. Thinkabout it you are placing the emerging detail into the toe, the highlights will be placed lower on the curve, all current B&W films will cope with 1.8 DLogE units from the speedpoint.

As far as I understand, your technique is something that is outlined in a book called "The simplified zone system" (or something similar, can't remember the name).

The technique in the book is very shortly explained as follows:
Zone III is the first zone with shadow detail.
Zone VII is the last zone with proper highlight detail.

For an exposure:
- Measure the most significant shadow area you would like to have detail in, place that in zone III. (meaning stop down 2 stops if you spot-meter it)
- Measure the most significant highlight, to determine if it is VII or higher at this point.

if it isn't, shoot.

If (the most significant) highlights is at zone VIII or zone ix, then do a n-1/a n-2 development, to bring them down to VII during development.

If you have absolutely no highlights at zone VI or VII, the scene must be very low contrast or very underexposed.

Very simple and it works very well, but IMO you need to gauge your highlights, to see if they are within bounds, depending on which shadow area _you_ as the photographer, consider the "last significant" shadow detail you would want to have in your shot.

 

[Photo_Smith]

Not really, what you describe IS the basis of the zone system.
What I'm saying is the most significant part of exposure is in the toe, all current films are capable of recording shadow and highlight in all but exceptional cases. The criterion is film base plus fog + 0.1D thats where the emerging detail is placed. Most films will be able to cover the 1.8 DlogE 128:1 contrast ratio shadow/highlights.
If they don't you need to reduce development to lower the curve, you also reduce film speed so to lower the contrast.
You have 0.3-2.5D to fit this into using normal development.

BTW there is nothing about this being a simplified version of the zone system it is the basis of the photographic exposure system layed down by Dr Jones at kodak when calculating the original ASA standard.

It's not my method, it is the method used by photographic engineers to determine speed.
There is a fantastic paper released by Neiderpruem where he states 'it all happens in the toe'* where he explains this and how it forms the basis for good exposure, low grain and takes advantage of the kinetic of development; I think it was published in 1959.
If you are recording shadows on the correct place on the curve and the highlights blow you need to reduce contrast.

There is an old maxim expose for the shadows (meaning place the emerging detail in the toe) and develop for the highlights-simplistic yes possibly – but true.

*This paper was instrumental in the development of the CI (contrast index) where it is used along with the angle of the average gradient to determine contrast

 

[Highway 61]

So the issues you describe metering for shadow and getting no shadows and metering for highlights and getting good shadows don't make sense.

Well this is absolutely NOT what I have written.

I have written that, under quite the same lighting conditions :

- while exposing for highlights I got unclipped highlights and still very usable shadows (Photo 1)
- while exposing for shadows and not stopping down enough onwards from that, I got excellent shadows but clipped highlights (Photo 2)

You have answered some of my questions yet (yes I may think that I have almost exceeded the range of tones the film can record in the case of Photo 2 because while exposing for the shadows I probably haven't stopped down enough onwards from that).

To a large degree, what you place where depends on your film, development, and how you plan to take your negative to a finished picture. If you spot emerging shadow then add 2 EV you are actually likely to get a slightly thick negative for scanning but one that will print beautifully (in fact, probably ideally in that it will give the best results over the largest number of different conditions) but I have found in my own personal scanning using a Dual Scan III and Vuescan that such negatives tend to have too much midzone action for my tastes and I tend to go about 1/3 of a stop lower.

Absolutely. Yes I scanned the questionable negative using a film scanner and I also think that the negative should print way better than what the scan is showing, even after a very proper post-processing job.

Here is the Photo 1 which looks satisfying to my eyes :

And now the Photo 2 which seems to cause me a few problems with clipped highlights :

And the negatives so that our friend photo_smith can expertize them :

Needless to say but : all the photos from the very roll Photo 2 belongs to, and shot under less contrasty lighting are just perfect so for me this isn't a developing issue obviously.

Actually and after having looked at the Photo 2 "clipped" shoulder twice, it might not be clipped yet. Maybe we should try to not look at our B&W shots through the scanner prism only, even if the scanner is an excellent dedicated film scanner and the scan done in 16bits Tiff so that there is no headroom loss.

For both the two displayed photos : Tri-X in D76 1+1.

Bottom line : I have downsized the originally large neg. photos and saved them as Jpeg files instead of Tiff, unless they wouldn't have displayed online, but this doesn't affect how they look.

Anyway, both those two photos may be a bit borderline as for the lighting if shot without any reflector or fill-in flash. I like razor-contrasty situations like that very much, but...

Thank you all.

 

[znapper]

The secret with this (and any developer) is to meter for emerging shadow and stop down two stops. The toe is the crucial area of the film curve put the shadows there and all will be well, better contrast, tonal range and reduced look of graininess are all benefits of this method.

This (IMO) is excactly what I said, you are here placing the emerging shadows in zone 3, just as I explained with the simplified zone system book. (the complete zone-system covers a whole heap of things not mentioned in the book i red).

I don't have a densiometer and if I had one, I would not know how to use it anyway, log-numbers, although probably important, doesn't really tell me anything at this point, I need to look into my other photography-books to see what it's all about.

I do understand base-fog + "some more" though and I do know how various curves look like, I use the digital version all the time. 🙂

 

[Photo_Smith]

Looking at your negatives if they are a good representation number one has no detail in the hair and noisy shadows, quite low range possibly underexposure very slightly and low value highlights.
Second image I'd say is closer but slightly over developed if you wanted detail in the shadow and the tone under the left arm black there is way too much density.
That's just my professional opinion based upon experience, the second is a candidate for contraction IMHO

Of course you may say these are matching your vision, but if I had to bet neg one underexposed normal development, negative two large DR normal exposure slightly over developed.
I wish no offence I'm just trying to make people understand why its a bad Idea to expose a shadow onto the straight line portion of a curve. Adding density to a shadow with simple +2 EV over the emergence/speed point will add unnecessary grain to mid tones and make the results harsh essentially it means that (especially printing) making the final image will be harder.

What you are doing is putting your shadow where your mid tone should be, which may give you a 'meaty' negative but will push the upper tones to the shoulder (compressing the upper tones) in some cases and increase the appearance of grain as the part that should be nearly black will be on the straight line of the curve.

Correct exposure is key to tonality, lower graininess etc. A denser negative will have grain penalty and runs the risk of crushing the highlights it is the enemy of tonality and sharpness.

But of course you'll have to decide based upon what you want the final result to look like all I'm doing is pointing out the correct way to expose a negative given an average scene, which if I'm honest neither of yours fit.

 

[Photo_Smith]

This (IMO) is excactly what I said, you are here placing the emerging shadows in zone 3, just as I explained with the simplified zone system book. (the complete zone-system covers a whole heap of things not mentioned in the book i red).

I don't have a densiometer and if I had one, I would not know how to use it anyway, log-numbers, although probably important, doesn't really tell me anything at this point, I need to look into my other photography-books to see what it's all about.

I do understand base-fog + "some more" though and I do know how various curves look like, I use the digital version all the time. 🙂

The book I use is called 'The Theory of the Photographic Process' Mees and James.
I don't know about the simple zone system as the zone system is derived from the Jones method I mention in fact the zone system is a simplified system based upon his work.
Film base + fog add 0.1 is the basis of the fractional gradient system which coupled with the amount of tone you wish to record is the basis of the ISO system which most light measuring devices are calibrated too.

The method is basic, but has some very sound science behind it which I can try to explain.
All I'm really trying to get across is how poor for general photography and tonal range the method of inflation (putting extra exposure into the shadows) is and how it will increase grain especially in low process latitude developers like Rodinal, if you want to put extra exposure into the toe and don't lessen development time use a developer like XTOL which will let you 'get away with it' as it has a high process latitude.

 

[k__43]

Are we still talking about Neopan 400 or the zone system .. the only "zone" I use is in zone focusing.
😀

 

[Highway 61]

Are we still talking about Neopan 400 or the zone system .. the only "zone" I use is in zone focusing.
😀

Neopan 400, Tri-X... "White cat, black cat, if it eats mice, it is good cat" as someone Chinese said once... 😀

 

[kanzlr]

Best thread in a while here.

that

and I love HC-110. Develops everything nicely, lasts long, is cheap, etc.
Neopan 400 works really nicely in HC-110.

 

[Nokton48]

Just to throw a different spin into the mix.......

I am getting ready to run eight rolls of 35mm Neopan 400, in my old Honeywell Nikor eight-reel metal tank. My Plan is to use the Freestyle Legacy version of straight Microdol-X (which happens to be listed as a recommended developer for Neopan 400 in the Fuji data).

Been really busy lately but will try to get to this sometime soon.

 

[nobbylon]

Best thread in a while here.

Agreed and thank you Photo Smith for some good explanations. I've found this thread very interesting,
regards j