Thank you Bernard, glad you appreciate the photograph. Let me see if I can answer your questions adequately.Originally Posted by Bernard_L
I don’t think there’s so much a “main factor” as much as a “happy recipe” of combined ingredients. You’ve referenced the main ingredients: a good film choice, plenty of exposure, a compensating developer, and the lighting conditions all combine to make the image I want.
Yes, the light was dim; late afternoon on a very grey, wet day. This led to a very long exposure (at 32ASA, I metered 20 seconds at f11.5, and with reciprocity this came to about 70 seconds - Adox’s reciprocity values). A 70 second exposure amplifies contrast in a flat lighting scene, but the 2-bath development suppresses the lighter values somewhat, keeping them in check. I’d say that the long, ample exposure revealed lots of poorly illuminated shadow information, but in spite of the dim light, it was still mostly visible to me - I just wanted to make sure it was available on the negative to work with.
I have yet to use any other developers, to compare their performance with CHS 100 II, but I plan on exposing a roll and cutting it in half: one will be processed in FA-1027, and the other in Mytol (home brew a tool equivalent) and see how that looks. I like working with Barry Thornton's 2-bath developer, but its not the most subtle: it tends to produce harder looking grain structure, which isn’t suitable for every image. I’ll probably give CHS 100 II in PMK at some point as well.
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