Re: negative density


Altview@aol.com
Wed, 16 Jun 1999 03:30:10 -0400 (EDT)


Being fairly hostile to the overly technical aspects of our beloved
procedures, I have arrived at a completely nonscientific, but amazingly
accurate form of evaluation, one I teach to my students in my platinum
workshops. It is simply to look at your negative floating in a white tray in
normal roomlight. Assuming this is not a night scene but an image of normal
contrast range (whatever that is), if you can make out clearly the image, it
is not dense enough. I rate my negatives at half their ISO, place shadows on
Zone 4 and highlights to Zone 11 and give the negatives between one to two
stops extra development. My negatives print in my 8 tube 48" printer
averaging 10 to 20 minutes. As I am sure you will be inundated with pounds of
sensitometry data, this little test does indeed work well. Try it. Its
cheaper then a densitometer.

Patrick Alt



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