Ansels The Negative

[darr]

I've given up and don't care and embrace the idea that perfection doesn't exist and since I did that photography has become much much easier. silver bullets vanish, together with all the mind boggling technical stuff others get bogged down with, to me at least none of it matters. I let the camera vignette, black in the print or max black on the film. without the tech stuff it allows photography to be photography. like I said to the OP in another thread, different people have different reasons for making photographs and memorializing moments of time, for some it's to conquer all the obstacles of the gear and materials and put their flag up as their own, for others it's just to enjoy the moments and make stuff.

+1

[Vaughn]

No such thing as a "perfect" negative - only a negative that does what the photographer needs it to do.

True, but if someone says on this forum they just want to make a negative that is 'good enough', they get criticized for not trying hard enough. It's a tough world.

IDK seems perfect negative would just need a simple light, and exposure and no burning and dodging at the printing stage.

That is what I aim for...no crop, no burn, no dodge...all that is taken care of in the scene selection, and the exposure and developing of the negative. The craft comes in with making and using the printing material to match the light I experienced and the qualities the negative.

[Michael R]

Making negatives is relatively trivial. People reading Adams would probably do better starting with The Print.

[paulbarden]

True, but if someone says on this forum they just want to make a negative that is 'good enough', they get criticized for not trying hard enough. It's a tough world.

I don't know that I've experienced that here, but I can imagine it happening. There are always going to be those who think "perfection" is the only goal worth pursuing, and they're happy to tell others when they fall short! I guess that's human nature.
Me, I don't care if I meet the standards of others. I'm just doing what I do to make ME happy.

[Michael R]

Ouch. Boy has this gone off the rails.

[Ulophot]

Tim, better lay off the wine, or check that the waiter doesn't slip a mickey into your drink. For some reason, you're telling it all backwards, or upside down, if you prefer. I have no doubt you know much better.

[Vaughn]

... I'm just doing what I do to make ME happy.

Perfect!

[Drew Wiley]

Joseph - light meters can be very consistent, and should be. I've currently have four Pentax digital spotmeters and they all read exactly the same over their full scale. I once had a Minolta Spotmeter F which read identically too. I periodically test them for match. If there was any drift I'd send it off for recalibration. That happened only about once a decade. And some of you can go on and on about how careless one can be with black and white film and still get results. Well, I cut my teeth on color chrome film and Cibachrome prints, and there was damn little wiggle room for error. My first use of sheet film was for masking purposes where high accuracy was necessary. I'm glad I started out that way. Try calibrating a color process with a gray scale target out of whack, and that will make you think twice.

But no, The Negative does not address any of that, because the Zone System is in fact quite elastic. Ansel tried thinking in Zone terms with color film too, but the shoe just didn't fit.

As far as invoking Ansel this/Ansel that, and what he did; well, some of his negs were hell to print, and the resultant prints miserable to retouch. "Moonrise" was particularly a nightmare - one of the reasons he later intensified the neg and printed the sky ink black - to hide all the blotchy unevenness due to water bath development. It certainly wasn't an ideal neg.

[Joseph Kashi]

Joseph - light meters can be very consistent, and should be. I've currently have four Pentax digital spotmeters and they all read exactly the same over their full scale. I once had a Minolta Spotmeter F which read identically too. I periodically test them for match. If there was any drift I'd send it off for recalibration. That happened only about once a decade. And some of you can go on and on about how careless one can be with black and white film and still get results. Well, I cut my teeth on color chrome film and Cibachrome prints, and there was damn little wiggle room for error. My first use of sheet film was for masking purposes where high accuracy was necessary. I'm glad I started out that way. Try calibrating a color process with a gray scale target out of whack, and that will make you think twice.

But no, The Negative does not address any of that, because the Zone System is in fact quite elastic. Ansel tried thinking in Zone terms with color film too, but the shoe just didn't fit.

As far as invoking Ansel this/Ansel that, and what he did; well, some of his negs were hell to print, and the resultant prints miserable to retouch. "Moonrise" was particularly a nightmare - one of the reasons he later intensified the neg and printed the sky ink black - to hide all the blotchy unevenness due to water bath development. It certainly wasn't an ideal neg.

Hi, Drew

Thanks for the kind note. I have read your posts, as well as the back and forth with many others, with interest and appreciation.

Yes, I've heard that about Moonrise and some other shots that AA did. Of course, there were likely a number of extenuating circumstances back 80+ years ago.

I agree that the Pentax and Minolta spot meters are usually right on. I have a digital Pentax, a Pentax V, and a Minolta F and in fact those three meters do agree with each other within a small fraction of a stop, so I use those interchangeably as my calibration standard.

However, I also use a number of other meters in lightweight carry-in-car LF kits, including a Sekonic L-438, two Luna-Pros, etc. Even after adjustment and fresh batteries, some of these can be off enough that I adjust exposures to compensate for the meter.

The Zone System is a great approach, but for serious consistency, my own belief is that everything in the process needs to be calibrated to everything else, from start to finish. So, I doublecheck my meters periodically along with verifying continued shutter accuracy at all speeds ( I have a Calumet tester), verify that apertures open to the correct noted size, and all the rest.

Over the decades, initially in experimental physics and then over the past decades as a trial lawyer, I have worked hard to develop "OCD" regarding attention to detail as a "survival skill" <GG>. The trick for me, at least, is to avoid letting attention to detail squelch creativity. That's in the eye of the beholder, I suppose.

[Drew Wiley]

Well, I'm glad I learned how to accurately shoot and print color chrome film first, and necessarily had to explore and refine a number of tight parameters to do that well.
But actually, my learning curve was fairly quick. After that, something like the Zone System was simple. But even the ZS is in the rear view mirror for me now. After awhile, exposure and processing decisions are second-nature and almost subconscious, but not forgotten. That frees one up to indeed give precedence to the matter of composition and esthetic feel itself, without encumbering mental complication.

My first Pentax spotmeter is almost 50 yrs old, and still reads correctly, even though it's such a battle-scarred veteran that it's now held together with electrical tape! I'll probably give it to a grand-nephew who just acquired a Pentax 6x7, along with a couple of older duplicate lenses.