Digital BW, The Print

> And I'm  
> surprised: his method of exposing for the highlights just isn't how
> b&w photography works, as far as I know.  His rationale is to, in
> musical terms, fix it in the mix.  The whole concept of exposing for
> the shadows and developing for the highlights is really a weakest-
> link thing: the shadows have the least light reflecting from them,
> therefore make sure that you have adequate exposure to record.  Then
> keep the highlights in line with development.  To expose for the
> highs and let the shadows fall where they may doesn't make sense to
> me.  Of course, he's right that one size does not fit all when
> dealing with roll film; the zone system works best one sheet at a
> time.  Ironically, his advice might work out better today, with
> scanning.  Scanners far prefer thin negs to dense ones.
> 
The reason why exposing for your highlights with black and white as you
would would transparencies makes sense is not all that obvious in theory and
when I first heard about it I figured it was too way off based to be
believed.
I sure work that way now.
It works out very logically in practice.

The way film works is not the way YOU work it turns out.
The way film works is shadows are determined by exposure and highlights by
development.
Which would make you assume that that¹s the way you work.
But it ain't necessarily so.

And if you check Ansel's ³Examples² book you¹ll see in effect he¹s doing a
lot of starting out with the highlights.

In practice if you start out reading your important shadows and then expose
for them placing your highlights with development you can run into trouble a
good deal of the time.
Unless you are shooting 8x10 with lots of water baths and Pyro I don¹t know.
But not with roll film and even 4x5 to normal humans.
Part of the reason is what defines the look of most images is the highlight
separation. The highlight ³glow².
If you¹ve overexposed your highlights placing them into the higher shoulder
of your curve then developing less doing a N-1 or N-2 is not going to help
any. It¹s still in THAT PART OF THE CURVE. And with less development you¹re
getting even LESS separation in those areas.
It¹s not as if graded papers are a new thing. Or Multigrade papers a thing
of the future.

Your eye goes right to the highlights when looking at most images.
If your important stuff is in the shadows you eye might have to move away
from the non important high tones to get there anyway.

It turns out that the lesser of two evils in putting together an image....
Loosing some shadow separation or having crushed highlight detail....

Loosing some shadow separation is seldom going to ruin an image.
But having crushed highlights ALMOST ALWAYS WILL.

That¹s why starting out with your highlights is not as dumb as it sounds.

Putting them exactly where they should be.
THEN checking out what you¹re loosing in the low end.
And thinking about can you live with it or not.
....If you have the time because in the end there isn't any option.
If you do brackets with more exposure you¹re never going to get prints with
that ³glow² that you need with those ³overexposed² negs.
And that ³glow² comes from well placed highlights.
Not highlights which are well ³fallen².

It¹s where theory and practice collide.

Mark Rabiner
Photography
Portland Oregon
http://rabinergroup.com/





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