Digital BW, The Print

There is a difference between the film speed and the print speed.  If you
adjust for the print, your neg will be underexposed.  Directions on the film
packaging tip sheet give explicit instructions about your meter settings, or
at least they used to.  There is an outstanding book about the film,
personally written by Ansel Adams, with two different editions, giving full
exposure advice for all kinds of metering techniques including zone system.

If you have underexposed negatives that you want to print, try this
technique:  have your prints made on color paper with a slight color tone.
(Or scan using similar techniques).  It is nearly impossible to get
underexposed polaroid negs to look good on silver B&W paper.  Gus Van Sant
had years worth of these Polaroids he had taken of famous actors, shot as
film tests, and when he went to make a book the printing problems became a
major issue. After substantial experimentation this is the approach that
worked.  The resulting book was published by Twelvetrees Press.

If you are shooting portraits, adjust your exposure so the print is blown
out in the highlights slightly, but be careful not to overexpose by more
than one stop.  Years ago I had a contract to shoot record album covers
(does anyone remember vynal lp records anymore??) and this is the film I
used, the bands were able to see the shots at once and they literally became
their own art directors with great results. I could have shot a thousand
frames of film and they would not begin to approach what the band was
getting by the end of the first pack of film.  For portrait lighting, keep
the ratio of key light to fill light less contrasty than normal, or another
way to put it is to light as if you were exposing trannie film rather than
neg film. 

The film has extraordinary fine grain and a beautiful tonal range that is
hard to compare with any other B&W film.  I produced 30x40 enlargements that
were nearly grainless.  It has been used by landscape photographers as well,
check out books by Mark Klett which are now out of print, they are
excellent.  

The film is extremely dependent on temperature during development, much more
so than time, and whatever you do, be sure fixing is complete before pulling
your pack apart or else the negative will solarize.  Polaroid made an "arm
clip" which was a flat metal wallet to hold the film during processing, you
would put this under your arm-pit as the film developed to raise the
temperature at the end of processing (to ensure proper fixing).

As a final note (sorry for long post) there is a device called a Speed
Magny, which was a Nikon back containing two mirrors and an enlarging lens
and a polaroid back.  This enables you to use a Nikon F with any lens and
get a good Polaroid pos/neg.  They are selling cheap now since they are not
much used anymore.  I would shoot my film and lighting tests and when the
band was happy with the setup I would rip through a roll of tri-x with a
motor drive as an insurance policy.  The pos/neg film has a very soft
emulsion and accidental damage carrying around wet film does occasionally
occur.  If you can find one of the old Polaroid buckets, it has many
individual slots for carrying the film securely while in the bath on your
way back from the shoot to your darkroom, and is well worth whatever you
have to pay for it if you can find one.

best 

Tom Robinson
> 
> I had hoped to use Polaroid's type 55 film to help me understand
> portrait lighting.  I have never really done these in a serious way and
> hoped to use the positive of the film to see the changes immediately as
> I changed the lighting.
> 
> The problem is that the contrast of the positive is drastically
> different from the contrast of the negative or any negative film that I
> shoot.  So what is in the deep shadows on the positive is barely in the
> shadows on the negative.
> 
> I thought polaroid film was used for proofing all the time -- is type
> 55 wrong for proofing, do people compensate in printing, or was I just
> off base to start with.