Carl,
I don't disagree with you about the importance of tone. And one could
also add that subject matter and lighting are more important than
sharpness. But I would like to have all of these qualities with as
much apparent sharpness as possible. I have never made a negative
that I though was too sharp, though I have bunch of them that are not
sharp enough.
Of course resolution and sharpness don't always go hand in hand.
Adjacency effects and local as well as micro-contrast are just as
important, if not more so, than resolution in creating the impression
of sharpness, which is after all quite subjective.
Sandy
> >Do this test.
>
>Sandy
>
>That's all well and good for testing resolution, but I for one (making
>direct contact prints from large format negatives) don't much care about
>resolution--there's more than enough to go around. I think a great deal of
>time is wasted by photographers chasing around after "sharpness"--almost as
>much as is wasted chasing "dmax". I'm much more concerned with tone,
>especially the ability to distinguish very fine tonal differences in a print
>while maintaining, if needed, a short overall range. For this, I find that
>pyro-stained negatives are better than MQ negatives. Some pyro formulas are
>better at it than others. Not every picture will be markedly better using
>pyro, but my estimate is that maybe 7 out of 10 will be.
>
>Basically I work on the premise of productive laziness. I use large and
>ultra-large format cameras because I'm lazy: they make it easier to get good
>prints. I put on gloves and use pyro negative development for the same
>reason--it makes it easier to get good Pt/Pd prints.
>
>---Carl
Received on Sun Apr 4 14:21:59 2004
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