Determining film speed in a hybrid workflow

[Laminarman]

I understand well enough about development and zones with shooting/developing. It's when it comes to scanning that it falls apart for me. I found with my Rodinal and Delta 100 I get a good Zone 1 with shooting ISO 80 and my method of development, in my tank, at my temperature, and agitation. How do I translate this to scanning instead of printing test strips in an enlarger? I scan in Silverfast on an Epson 850 with exposure set to "0". Any help appreciated.

[Jac@stafford.net]

You must experiment while keeping in mind that with digital recovering shadows is more successful than trying to do the same for highlights. That suggests under-development.

Best of luck!

[Laminarman]

You must experiment while keeping in mind that with digital recovering shadows is more successful than trying to do the same for highlights. That suggests under-development.

Best of luck!

Thank you. What I did was shoot at ISO 80 and cut down development and agitation a bit, so will do the next roll with a little longer time and same agitation. Thank you. I want to be out of the negative as clean as possible, if possible.

[Laminarman]

I should also quantify that by saying scanning these test negatives gives more of a zone lower than I anticipated for higher zones, without any exposure or shadoow/highlight adjustment in Lightroom. So in other words, straight out of the scanner, the highlights I placed on zone 9 with my Sekonic were zone 8, zone 8 more like zone 7 etc after printing. A bit muddy up there so I assume I should try a bit more development. Shadows look about what I expected.

[jp]

Sorta like taking a digital photo, you want the negative to scan within the bounds of the scanner's histogram range produced by the preview. Exact shape of curve is easily adjusted in computer.

[Doremus Scudder]

If you ever anticipate making traditional darkroom prints from your negatives, you should strive to make them easily printable on silver-gelatin paper (or whatever you plan on using) as well. Digital likes less-dense negs and you could end up with negs that won't print well on traditional materials. There are densitometer guidelines for Zones I and VIII in most Zone System literature. If you can get your negatives read by someone with a densitometer, you could use those guidelines. Or, you could find someone with a darkroom and have them proper proof a test negative or two for you. Others with more knowledge will surely chime in here on this.

Best,

Doremus

[Laminarman]

Thank you Doremus, good advice. I always get a bit confused about messing with the histogram in the scan preview. Seems the more I mess with things, they worse they get. I can always send a few negatives out to a lab for printing to see how they turn out as I don't have access to a darkroom around here. The local high school went all digital. Go figure.

[Ken Lee]

In my humble experience the same basic film speeds and development times for darkroom printing work well when scanning.

You might find this helpful: http://www.kennethleegallery.com/htm...g.php#scanning

[Pere Casals]

I understand well enough about development and zones with shooting/developing. It's when it comes to scanning that it falls apart for me. I found with my Rodinal and Delta 100 I get a good Zone 1 with shooting ISO 80 and my method of development, in my tank, at my temperature, and agitation. How do I translate this to scanning instead of printing test strips in an enlarger? I scan in Silverfast on an Epson 850 with exposure set to "0". Any help appreciated.

Scan a shot (with all image enhacements disabled) alongside an Stouffer T2115 calibrated transmission wedge.

Now you have an accurate densitometer. By comparing the grays in the image to the also scanned calibrated wedge steps you may know what density has every spot in the image.

Measure density in the not exposed areas, there you find the Base+Fog density.

If your EI speed is correct and development is Normal then:

> Spots in the scene metered at -3.3 will have 0.1D over Base+Fog,

> Spots metered +1 will have 0.9D over Fog+Base. (Also an spot metered at -/+0 should have 0.72D over Fog+Base)

These are your main reference points (metered -3.3 and +1) to know if contrast is Normal and if true Speed is ISO, following ISO rules.

With that you can check if your process is ISO normal.

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Let's see what you have to do if your process is not Normal and you want it Normal.

1) Make tests: Adjust exposure until spots metered at -3.3 have 0.1D over fog+base

2) Make tests: Then develop more or less until until spots metered ar +1 have 0.9D over Fog+Base

3) If you modified development time then repeat from point 1)


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You don't need to use the Normal processing and ISO exposure, but you may want to know the ISO Normal development/exposure as your reference point across different films/processings

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If you want powerful skills about practical senstometry then read Beyond The Zone System book, me, I've learned a lot thanks to it.

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Hybrid processing allows to deal with high densities that would be a problem for darkroom printing. So for Hybrid you mostly need to ensure that you expose enough to record the shadows. For darkroom printing you may also need to develop the right amount to not have excessive densities.

[Laminarman]

Pere and Ken thank you very much. This is about the 10th recommendation for that book so it looks like I'm ordering it. Very helpful, and Ken, thank you for the link.