18 stop Subject Brightness Range on Tmax400

[BetterSense]

I haven't found anything I did in a darkroom that can't be duplicated digitally

No doubt. There's little that can't be duplicated, relicated or mimic'd digitally. But just because a process in the darkroom has a digital analog, doesn't mean the digital version is the same. Thats' not to argue either one is better than the other. The main thing you cannot dodigitally is make traditional darkroom prints. If you made a darkroom print with the computer, it wouldn't be a darkroom print anymore, see? It sounds like a silly argument, but it's actually a very important one, I think. You might say that you can do everything with acrylic paint that you can do with oil paint, but you would be wrong, because you can't make oil paintings with acrylic paint, quite by definition.

[Steve Gledhill]

Steve, I notice that your PDF only showed 14 stops and not 18 stops as advertised. Maybe I was missing something when I looked at it.

Stephen,
I'm at a loss to understand - the PDF shows from the top a Blank strip (black) + a Zone -2 strip + a Zone -1 strip + a Zone 0 + strips for Zones 1 to 14 making 18 in total. If you can't see them all then something must be happening to truncate the display of the pdf on your monitor. If you can see the words but not distinguish the tones for the 4 zones at the top of the pdf then that's a problem with the calibration of your monitor.

I am curious, has anyone taken density readings of their film test strips and plotted a characteristic curve for your different developers and processing methods. It is one thing to get 14, 18 or 22 stops of dynamic range, but if the curve has a pronounced toe and shoulder, then perhaps the claims are really not what is actually happening. There is a big difference between a 18 stop straight line curve and 18 stop curve with exaggerated toes and shoulders. The form is much preferred because the clarity of detail in both the shadows and highlights is far superior.

I personally haven't taken density readings but it is clear that there is a toe and a shoulder. I didn't suggest this is all linear. I'm not sure what you mean by "perhaps the claims are really not what is actually happening".

[Ken Lee]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but we view density curves on a logarithmic scale. So what we loosely call "linear", is not really so. I wouldn't be surprised if the human eye itself, responds logarithmically, rather than arithmetically, to light.

According to my (limited) studies of music theory, the human ear doesn't respond to sound in a linear manner, because the sensor mechanism involves a logarithmic spiral. Hence all the effort and compromises involved in making "well-tempered" musical instruments, which will play nicely in different keys.

That aside, the tests you can see with Divided Pyrocat HD, show that the visual data is readily available, and doesn't need to "decompressed" out of a compressed shoulder area.

[ronald moravec]

Digital has provided something wonderful called HDR. Nothing prevents you from making 3 to 7 negs with correct exposures for the shadows to highlights on differing neg. Scan and assemble with HDR software. Note you do not have to make things looks like a cartoon. Be tastfull. And scan them all as a neg with normal exposure.

thelightsright studio has a digital digital darkroom tab underwhich ther is a nice video of extented range where you combine files with the luminescent mask and not HDR.

http://www.thelightsrightstudio.com/tutorials-video.htm

See the one on blended exposures. Remember you can work 4/5, then 3/4 then 2/3 and finally 1/2 in steps

This is a really nice procedure I use for night shots.