... but true alchemy is my DIY emulsion making for dry plates... you never know when the pot is to burst !
Of course, IMHO for some scenes it can be simplified, incident metering is a way. Another way is a compensating development, with diafine or EMA. Another way is just using the Nikon F5 matrix metering of the scene, one has to insert a cassette of the same film for DX code reading so the F5 knows the latitude, it knows if it is like velvia or like tmax: it won't fail, never, same exposure will work in the view camera after bellows draw compensation.
But anyway for some jobs an accurate mettering is required, a contrasty night scene with LIRF requires thinking well in what one is doing...
I'm frequently in situations where I need to be very conscious of the specific character of the toe of the film. Neither the Zone System nor speed point nor box speed do that. You need to understand the full characteristic curve with respect to a particular film and development regimen. At this point in my life, it's almost a subconscious process. I rarely botch an exposure unless I try to read the meter in dimlight without a magnifier; and with roll film, there's inevitably going to be a frame or two with different contrast than the others. A lot of things get instinctive and easy with experience.
I almost never rely on alleged latitude or compensating development. There's a trade-off or penalty to both.
The object is to exp & dev specifically enough to obtain your own idea of a target, but still end up with a versatile negative because paper choices do change, and we often change our own minds in the course of printing about what looks best.
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