In a recent thread Steve Simmons suggested that he was concerned because some people insist that densitometers are necessary to make great photographs. I personally have never heard anyone make that statement and don’t really believe there is any great reason for concern on his or anyone elses' part. Most people who use sensitometry don’t care at all how others approach their photography, and by the same token we don’t need the KISS patrol to tell us how we should work.
However, I thought it might be interesting to point out some of the reasons many photographers, especially large format workers, find that sensitomery helps us in our work, so I started to jot some idea down. Them I remembered that Phil Davis, creator of BTZS, had already set forth some good reasons in his book Beyond the Zone System, so I say to myself, why invent the wheel? Here are the reasons set forth by Davis to explain the advantages that sensitometry offers over the trial-and-error approach. Most of the language is directly from Beyond the Zone System, 3rd edition, pp. 3-6, but I have added a sentence or two, in parentheses.
1. It is standard industry procedure so you will become familiar with the methods that manufacturers use to establish their published film speeds and paper contrast numbers.
2. It is objective and efficient.
3. The procedures provide much more data – and more accurate data, than can be discovered by trial-and-error testing. It also provides working information for all conditions of use, not just the specific conditions of the test.
4. The use of sensitometry results in a dramatic saving in time and materials. (This is of tremendous importance if you print with very time consuming processes, such as carbon, or very expensive processes, such as Pt./Pd.)
5. Sensitometry will add to your knowledge of the photographic process and suggest new way of controlling the image for your personal creative process.
6. Contrary to common prejudice, sensitometry does not impose any technical restrains on your creative efforts. The notion that the more you know the less you can image is simply fallacious. If anything, it’s more likely to be true that the less you know, the less you can imagine.
7. And finally, knowledge of sensitometry provides you with the knowledge to distinguish between good and bad information. If Joe Fool Blow reports that such and such developer/film combination provides an increase in film speed of 500%, or some other such absurdity, you know how to test for yourself and determine if this is right or wrong. This kind of knowledge is liberating because it provides the tools to make your own determinations without having to pay homage to the gurus and their authority.
In my own work I have found most of the above to be true. But if for any reason you don’t care to embrace sensitometry, before you criticize it consider the fact that many of us who have worked both ways find many advantages in this approach, not the least of which is that it actually saves a lot of time. Bear in mind that we “rocket science photographers” did not began our lives in photography with a densitomer stuck to our hip and logarithms rolling off our tongues. In fact, I only started working with sensitometry about 10-12 years ago, and have hundreds of nice negatives that were made long before I ever measured a negative density. In fact, many of them were made just by dutifully following the manufactures directions for speed and developing by the charts. But I spend a lot less time today testing film than in the days when I used the trial-and-error method, or even later when I worked with the Zone system.
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