Digital BW, The Print

Tom Baker wrote:
> True.  But, if you really did capture 18 stops on film, the process of converting to digital will necessarily compress the tonal range.  Meaning you are giving up some tonal separation to the compression.  So, it would seem that it would be better to design your exposure/film/developing so that you get the best image on film.  One would have better control over that in the analog process than in the, probably, linear compression that the conversion to digital would impose.  I suppose, however, that you could apply curves in the scanning step to offer some control of where the digital compression would take place.
>  
> It's the same problem one would have when trying to print a negative with 18 stops, or even 12, in the darkroom.  Just different media.
>  
> Tom Baker
>   

Um... I disagree. The SBR and how the SBR is represented in density on 
the film are only distantly related; they are nearly completely separate 
things. The density range you get on film is a variable determined by 
the developer, development time, development temperature, agitation, etc.

This is in essence what the Zone System is all about. How to get a given 
SBR into a given density range on film so that it matches well with the 
photo paper's needs. It was a way to get any SBR, 1 stop to 18 stops, 
into a density range on film of 1.1-1.2 or whatever was required by the 
printing process. So small SBRs were "stretched" and large SBRs were 
"compressed" if you want to look at it that way. But really all you were 
doing is making the density range "right" for the printing process.
--
Bruce Watson