Re: zone system and large format film

Thanks George, Steve, Etienne, and David for your answers! I knew this list
would pull through for me.

I should have made myself clear here, David. Yes, I do meter shadowss to
Zone III, and let the highlights fall where they may. I have been using the
Zone VIII for highlights. If it doesn't fall there, either too low or too
high, I address it by development N+ or N-. That's a given.

However, my question was if modern papers (I'm tallking straight print,
filter 2, condenser enlarger) are able to handle the zone III to VIII
without burning in, or have most of you chosen to go with a tighter zonal
range? That would affect my dev time to start my N- one zone lower. Steve
answered that one--test :) George, too--5 stops seems to be his range.

I know I can address this through filtering, but I am more interested in the
actual capability of modern papers given a standard 2 filter, so it is a
theoretical question as well as a practice one, too.

I think Etienne answered my Minor White question if I may recap: first of
all, Minor White didn't get it. Second, in practice Etienne is using lower
filters and a denser neg. Third, the dmin and dmax of papers hasn't changed,
but the curve could have. And George is using a denser tonal range, too
(George, I assume you meant III to VII, not VI?).

I printed a Stouffers on my paper of choice, at every filter to see if the
amount of stops (zones) a paper can express changes with filter, and that
was a very interesting experiment--not necessarily logical. Then I toned
some in selenium--Forte split tones incredibly in 1:9...

Keep on talking...the more info the merrier. Altho I am offline now for a
few days...
Chris

From: "davidhatton" <davidhatton@superonline.com>
> Christina Z. Anderson wrote:
>> When you all are out in the field, do you generally place your shadows on
>> Zone III and highlights on Zone VII or Zone VIII??
> Hi Christina,
> You can't do that. You can only select one zone then let the others fall
> where they may based on that selection. The phrase often used is
> 'important detail' in the scene. Modify your selection of zone by
> developing the negative appropriately (either to expand or compress the
> zones to fit your 'vision'.
> I know, grandmother, eggs etc., but I hope this helps :?)
> David H
Received on Thu Sep 29 07:50:45 2005