RE: shadow density in zone III

Tom, I don't think that you have gotten away from confusion in the digital
realm.
> Digital negs certainly simplify much of this!

There are many different ink sets, substrates and printers, drivers,
software - rips etc. There are colorized, B&W, and...

I asked Cone/Ink jet mall if they had done any testing with their ink sets
for UV blocking. Came back a blank! What! Each ink set, printer, substrate,
will provide negs that differ enough to make some say, but I'm using X, Y
and Z and you're using X, Y, & Z. Subtle but different.

There is a somg by Paul simon.. Kodachrome just give me one more roll!!!!!

That's all the news that isn't

Happy print making, and making, and making, and...

Eric Neilsen Photography
4101 Commerce Street, Suite 9
Dallas, TX 75226
214-827-8301
http://ericneilsenphotography.com
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Tom Ferguson [mailto:tomf2468@pipeline.com]
> Sent: Friday, September 30, 2005 7:46 PM
> To: alt-photo-process-l@sask.usask.ca
> Subject: Re: shadow density in zone III
>
> Some thoughts:
>
> The zone system is all about (or should be about) matching your
> film,
> scene contrast, film development and printing system. That way
> you have
> less to "worry about" while shooting and more brain cells to
> actually
> "look" at the scene and compose :-)
>
> We alt printers get a MUCH tougher variable in the "printing
> system"
> part of that sentence. The classic AA zone descriptions don't
> fit most
> alt processes well. Generally the middle AA descriptions (zones
> 3 to
> zone 7) transfer to alt. The extremes of AA's descriptions
> (Zones
> 0,1,2,8,9,10) vary depending of the alt process/paper/style.
>
> For ME with MY paper and MY chemistry: Cyanotype loses the
> extremes. I
> fall from zone 3 (well detailed dark tones) into featureless
> dark very
> quickly. With in camera film, that is just a "fact of life"
> with MY
> materials. AA's zones 0,1 and 2 are really "incorrect" for ME
> and MY
> version of Cyanotype. Alt doesn't always "take away" from the
> AA
> descriptions, in platinum I get a wonderful extended set of
> closely
> placed high zones.
>
> Find ONE "thinking/testing/visual" version of the zone system
> and do
> the work. You will need to do it for each process / paper combo
> :-(
>
> As an example of why I capitalized ONE above: Many years ago I
> had a
> long zone system discussion (I "think" here ?maybe? with Kerik)
> and it
> was quite confusing. The other fellow and I were using the same
> film
> and similar development and had both done real testing. But he
> insisted
> with this film you needed to put shadows on zone 4, I had real
> good
> luck using zone 3 or even 2 (if I wanted dark shadows). Turns
> out I was
> shooting the film at EI 125 and he was shooting the same film
> at EI
> 320. Our shadow density "on film" was identical. Only our
> "system" and
> "words" were different.
>
> Digital negs certainly simplify much of this!
>
> You can read (perhaps more than you want) about my in camera
> film/zone
> system for alt here:
> http://www.ferguson-photo-design.com/alternative/index.html
>
> Tom
Received on Fri Sep 30 19:01:40 2005