In case there's still anyone out there following my trials and tribulations, and, more importantly, who still cares about what happens, I did the Film Speed Test again and I think this time it worked. This is what happened.
After trying to figure out what could have gone wrong and arriving at the conclusion (by me) that I had followed all the steps accordingly, I suggested a new set of shots (I think
I said this in post #113). These shots would take me one more zone in either direction (it didn't much matter in the lower zone as the previous test had already taken me to zone 0; I went ahead and closed my aperture one full stop more anyway just because I'm obsessive about this sort of thing and I wanted to be damn sure about this). The previous test started at Zone I and stopped at Zones 0 and II. Well, this time I went to Zone III. My shot list and results looked like this:
My Zone V was f/5.6 @ 1/125. I kept the shutter speed constant (i.e., I didn't change it for any of the shots), only changing the f stop.
Shot 1: not exposed; just developed (my base) = 0.09 density (d)
Shot 2: f/22 = 0.1 d = 0.01 net density (nd)
Shot 3: f/16 2/3 = 0.1 d = 0.01 nd
Shot 4: f/16 1/3 = 0.11 d = 0.02 nd
Shot 5: f/16 = 0.12 d = 0.03 nd
Shot 6: f/11 2/3 = 0.14 d = 0.05 nd
Shot 7: f/11 1/3 = 0.16 d = 0.07 nd
Shot 8: f/11 = 0.09 d = 0 nd
Shot 9: f/22 1/3 = 0.09 d = 0 nd
Shot 10: f/22 2/3 = 0.09 d = 0 nd
Shot 11: f/32 = 0.09 d = 0 nd
Shot 12: f/45 = 0.09 d = 0 nd
The results I had shot before (shots 1-5 and 9-11) are pretty comparable. Shot 12 was to be expected and so I didn't shoot in thirds of an aperture stop after shot 11 (again, I wanted to be damn sure). As someone pointed out, though, the fun happens in shots 6 and 7, where my density starts going up and gets much closer to 0.1. The head scratcher is shot 8. Why, all of a sudden, did the density go down here? From (shots) 3 to 7, the density was climbing, then, on 8, it dropped. There was nothing different done while shooting this. They were shot in the number I described above, so I expected the number to be higher and therefore, much closer to 0.1. I really don't know what happened there. Maybe shot 7 shows this particular film at its highest density? I don't know. In any case, shot 7 brings me to an ASA of 32. Rounding this number to the closest lower ASA number (if I understood Ansel Adams correctly), this means that with this particular film-lens-film combo, I have to shoot as though it were a 25 ASA film. Is my assumption correct?
What do you guys think?
Thanks.
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