Digital BW, The Print

----- Original Message -----
From: "Mark Tucker" <mark@...>
To: <DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Saturday, October 19, 2002 3:59 PM
Subject: [Digital BW] Re: Reflective Densitometer Method


> --- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@y..., "Martin Wesley"
> <mwesley250@e...> wrote:
> So this seems like a good deal.
> > Quite a bit of X-Rite equipment on eBay at similar cost
> reductions if you
> > are interested.
>
>
> I remember going down that path years ago, when getting
> obsessed with those Ansel Adams and Fred Picker books. I
> bought my densitometer and starting doing overly-picky tests
> measuring base fog, etc, and determining my working ASA, etc.
>
> I tested and tested, then I'd get in a real job, shooting a real
> photograph, and the conditions would just never be right. I'd get
> all flustered, and just say Screw It, and just take a meter reading
> like I always did.
>
> Part of me wants to caution you about getting to hung up about
> all this tech stuff. Once you go down that road, something
> changes, or at least it did for me. But then again, I then
> remember that old Ansel Adams quote, (what was it?).
> Something like "Luck favors the prepared mind", and then I say,
> OK go ahead and buy your densitometer. Just don't get too hung
> up about it. I picture Winogrand or RobertFrank doing that, and I
> just laugh. Especially Winogrand.
>
> Sorry for the ramble. All hopped up on Frappachino Mocha this
> afternoon...

Mark,

Ymmm. Sounds good.

Actually I have already been down the densitometry road about 10+ years ago.
I was lucky enough to have access to a MacBeth color Transmission/Reflection
densitometer at a local Camera store (Bear Images in Palo Alto, CA. Great
folks.) and never had to shell out the several thousand dollars it cost. I
did a great deal of film and developer testing as well as papers and toning.
Wound up coming up with my own pyro film developer system where the ability
to measure blue density really helped. Followed the whole AA thing. In the
end I think it was time well spent, in that it gave me a much better
understanding of the whole process, scene to print. Made me think about my
exposures more carefully.

However, after a certain point, on the scene judgment becomes as important
and you have to go,  "Well I have been in a similar lighting situation
before and this will probably need a bit more exposure and a tad less
development than my testing indicates." or whatever. I think the biggest
problem for a true Zone approach to landscape photography is that even with
the best spot meters you are easily going to be off 1/3 or 1/2 stop in your
zone placements.

So I worked out my film speeds and my developments by the book, then as I
have shot over the years I have tweaked the speeds and developments to give
me negatives I liked better than what I could get by strictly following the
system. If I am shooting from a tripod with roll film, I always bracket even
though it is very rare for me to use the "+" or "-" exposures. Film is
cheap. If I am shooting sheet film I almost always expose two sheets, one
for the development I think the scene requires and one for development above
or below. I haven't measured film with a densitometer in a long time.

Mostly I got the 811 for inkjet print densities since my Spectrocam is not
accurate at densities above about 1.7. I have been shooting a bit of Ilford
SFX lately and I might do some Zone density checks but I'll probably never
get around to it. I would have killed to have an instrument like this ten
years back though. <G>

Martin