Terry I still know you are wrong and if you actually go and do it you will
see that you are wrong (or that you are in urgent need of a visit to the
opticians.) Unless you restrict yourself to very limited subject matter
there is always detail in either or both shadows or highlights that you can
see but will not be recorded on film. The eye may not instantaneously have a
particularly long scale (I'm not sure on this), but certainly it can look
into shadows and adjust to build up the 'picture'. So we can and do see
the highlights and the shadows you talk about with ease.
This inability of the photographic process is indeed one of the basics that
one has to teach in learning to photograph in black and white. It is also
enshrined in the zone system where you have to learn to judge 'significant
shadow detail'.
Adams in one of his books was talking about negatives. I imagine you still
use them. Of course you will get exactly the same sort of message (but with
more math(s)) from any book on sensitrometry.
In a monochrome print we may discern a hundred different shades of grey -
but these could be between densities of 0.3 and 1.3 or between 0.05 and 1.9
and the results would visually be quite different.
Would you like me to lend you a copy of Eggleston's 'Sensitrometry for
Photographers'? It claims to be a comprehensible and practical book for
photographers!
Peter Marshall
Pictures on Fixing Shadows: ----------- http://fermi.clas.virginia.edu/~ds8s
Future Press and elsewhere... E-Mail: petermarshall@cix.compulink.co.uk