Digital BW, The Print

...you've advocated N-1.5 whereas my typical roll film negs were N-1

> ...that's cutting things pretty fine  :-)
>
> > ...if you are only going
> > to scan (that would be me)....
> > --

Ya. That's probably close enough that we'd have trouble seeing it if we 
didn't actually make the prints ourselves.

Since you are scanning, there is another side effect. Or more properly, 
a sacrilegeous perversion of the zone system. I know - beat me ;-) That 
is, once I found my optimum average development time, that's all I use. 
Everything gets that "N" development.

I just expose for the shadows and let the highlights fall where they 
may. Because this is what the scanner really does best - take whatever 
density range is on the film and fit it into the numerical range of it's 
output (for 8 bit, that would be 0-255). The scans are great. Life is 
simple - in the field I can concentrate on making the photograph and not 
have my thinking clouded by development issues. A little bit of freedom 
is a good thing!
--
Bruce Watson