Digital BW, The Print

I've spent last days trying to figure out secret of Mr. Berts (by the way pictures of Ansel Adams have similar quality).
First of all - it's not dynamic range. If anything he uses smaller dynamic range then I do, only the left part of it, no clipped pixels.
He actually uses all dynamic range on the left (dark tones) very carefully approaching the edge without loosing dark pixels. And he uses right part very little so his pictures don't have a lot of light tones.
Zone 10 he may not use at all (the lightest tones), so he doesn't use all dynamic range.
I think what make his pictures are amazing details in the black. He uses big camera and tripod, low grain film and long exposure, exposed by shadow and under developed. This all gives amazing resolution in the shadows.   
We can also use tripod if situation permits, low ISO but avoid long exposures. What we also can do is try different plugins to enhance details. One of them was mentioned in this thread - lucis. 
Yes it may work. After the picture is prepped in Lightroom I've exported it on PS3 and enhanced details with lucis. The picture got very nice details in blacks looking much nicer.
So may be this is it?
We shoot picture exposing by shadows which I believe moves histogram to the right (which is common technique because the right side of the histogram preserves more details). 
In Lightroom we move histogram to the left, usually I add fill light and darks and clarity, convert to black and white, adjust colors as needed
Export to PS3 and add details with lucis - very carefuly
Print without loosing details in the shadows

Jacob Mann
http://www.photo3dart.com