This subject has been throughly discussed here (at length) at least a couple times over the past couple of years... Please go through the archives and find it...

No matter what, even if you photograph something on a black background, it will build-up base and overall density differently than a single exposure, and not the same (much flatter contrast etc), and I really don't understand why so many exposures would be needed on a sheet of film, when other sheets could be shot, and combined later somehow... (Limited subject matter/choices & overall density problems...) There are times to split exposures (CC filter changes/color, movement, adding elements, montage, etc), but without masking, the image gets terribly complicated, and harder to print every step of the way...

I like to put problems before solutions, instead of solutions that are looking for a problem (but that's just me)... And try not to hold technical concepts as "koool", and that being the underlining reason to do it... (Or I could be printing epic photographs on the heads of pins... Cool, right!?!!!)

(Don't mind me, I'm in a weird mood today...)

Steve K