From: Carl Weese (cweese@earthlink.net)
Date: 07/25/02-04:37:02 AM Z
Sandy,
My turn to agree. In teaching workshops and analysing students' work I
find that underexposure is by far the most common mistake causing poor
print quality. We all want our film to be faster than it is, and I
sometimes think the human brain is hard-wired to underexpose.
*BUT* --enough exposure is enough. Once the shadows have well-separated
values, more exposure does not make things better. Especially when using
staining developers and films with inherently high fb+f levels (HP5
Plus, Bergger BPF 200) giving more exposure than needed not only can
result in excessively long print times, but may also prevent the
negative from reaching the contrast range required for long-scale print
materials. The negative wanted for these low contrast materials isn't
just dense all over, but rather one that has a wide range of well
separated values from shadows to highlights.---Carl
Sandy King wrote:
>
> Don Bryant wrote:
>
> >
> >Not to beat a dead horse but I've quit post staining with PMK a long ago and
> >I'm still getting too much stain for UV printing. I tray develop and I may be
> >agitating too much.
>
> PMK and tray agitation, especially with the long times needed to get
> enough CI for PT/PD printing, will give a lot of general stain caused
> by oxidation from developer exhaustion, augmented by aerial
> oxidation. Both ABC+ and Pyrocat-HD should give less general stain
> than PMK with long development times.
>
> What about exposure? One of the things I have noticed is that most
> alternative photographers, myself included, overexpose by quite a
> bit. This happens because an increase in time of development to get
> the high CI we need is also accompanied with most films by an
> increase in effective EI. A film developed for 20 minutes will have a
> much higher effective EI, perhaps twice as great or even more, than a
> film developed for 8 minutes, other things being equal.
>
> I have talked to quite a number of alternative photographers who
> pride themselves on their " bullet-proof negatives." Well, you don't
> need bullet-proof negatives to make good Pt/Pd, carbon, kallitype,
> etc. prints, just negatives that have good shadow detail and that are
> developed to the right CI for the process.
>
> Sandy King
>
> --
-- Web Site with picture galleries and workshop information http://home.earthlink.net/~cweese/index.html
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