Retain highlights with Tmax 100

[Pere Casals]

So you rate it at 100 and put the shadows in zone 3? Is there any difference, in practice, versus rating at 50 and under developing?

You rate it 50 you will record more shadow detail, exactly one stop more.

Then highlights would be overexposed one stop more, but if you develop N-1 then you obtain the same density for the highlights than you had when it was rated at 100.

So your negative will take one stop more of dynamic range in the scene, but that negative will have a lower contrast.

So you'll need a higher contrast for the paper to print the same, as Larry pointed, this won't print the highlights/shadows better, but you have recorded more dynamic range of the scene, just one stop more, so you may dodge in the shadows or burn in the highlights to show that detail.


If you scan then you may bend curves in Ps like you want, and you may easily show the highlight detail, if you pull then you simply get more shadow detail, edition it's easy anyway, and BW high densities are not a problem for scanners.

To print in the darkroon is a different matter, there is a controversy and a YMMV. Darkroom prints are great, but a challenging scene may require a master printer on command.

[Larry Gebhardt]

But I don't think Pere or Larry have understood a single word so far of what I'm implying. No crime. There are far more famous people I'd like to see in jail.

Drew, I think I understood you fine, up to now. It now seems like you are implying disagreeing with you is a crime worthy of jail? I'll assume you're making a joke that fell flat. Either that or I really can't understand you.

[Larry Gebhardt]

Another note regarding very flat negs -- I have found that the flatter the negative, the more likely any processing or coating problems are to show. When customers expose films in a way that makes them very flat, films from "second tier" film companies, i.e. not one of the big three, tend to have more problems with irregularities in the film showing up. This can be if they did not store the film correctly, if it is too old, if it was x-rayed, or if it is just not a great film. With those films I find that being vigilant about getting a standard, generous exposure that does not blow the highlights is especially important. Maximising the tonality on the negative is better than trying to compress all the information into flat neg.

Stuart, that's an effect I hadn't considered, but thinking back it may explain some issues I've encountered but couldn't pin down.

[StuartR]

It is very often an issue with color negs, where you are compressing a huge dynamic range into a small range of colors on the the negative itself. Basically a signal to noise ratio issue...when you take that relatively narrow range of contrast and expand it to a full contrast range, you also amplify any of the variations which would otherwise be fairly minor. With very high quality, fresh film, it is less of an issue, but with older or lower quality coating and emulsions, these variations can become troublesome.

[Pere Casals]

Basically a signal to noise ratio issue...when you take that relatively narrow range of contrast and expand it to a full contrast range, you also amplify any of the variations which would otherwise be fairly minor. With very high quality, fresh film, it is less of an issue, but with older or lower quality coating and emulsions, these variations can become troublesome.

Well, a digital effect of this is banding, when we edit a 8bits per channel image: if we compress and later we expand then banding appears, solution is working with 16bits per channel. But film has a continuous enconding in the density, so a compression in the negative should have no problems in the printing. At the end we only can craft 2.0D on a paper, so we won't have to expand much what's in a compressed negative.

I agree that first is metering and exposing (shutter tester) accurately, then we may use graded ND. All this may allow to spend poroperly the density range we have in the negative for the scene zones.

Then we can shoulder the curve in the processing with several techniques, finally we have no other way than N- if the scene does not fit in the negative latitude.

hmmmm... nothing better than having the suitable light !!!!!

[StuartR]

Hi Pere,
I am not talking about digital banding from the scan, I am talking about accentuating minor variations in the emulsion, because all your negative's information is contained in an extremely narrow band of tones. If you try to take a negative where all the information is in the mid greys and expand that to true blacks and whites, you accentuate any small (and natural) variations in the emulsion. You are leaning very heavily on the film manufacturer to provide an extremely even emulsion. I find Kodak and Fuji can usually do this...Ilford is not quite as reliable in my mind, but still very good. Foma, Rollei, Adox, Bergger etc...not so much. It also tends to make processing variations like uneven agitation, foaming, inadequate fixing etc all the more visible. Of course, you want to avoid those anyway, but if you add very flat negatives on top of less than perfect processing conditions, you are making things even more difficult.

[interneg]

Ilford is not quite as reliable in my mind, but still very good.

I think they're just a hair more susceptible to interlayer drying marks & those then produce the effect you describe on flatter negs. I've found that prompt rewashing & drying more carefully relative to ambient humidity often(though not always) solves it. The PhotoFlo literature describes this phenomenon pretty thoroughly.

[Pere Casals]

prompt rewashing & drying more carefully relative to ambient humidity often(though not always) solves it. The PhotoFlo literature describes this phenomenon pretty thoroughly.

Probably using distilled water with a very low amount of PhotoFlo for a final rinse it also may help.

[jnantz]

I usually rate Tmax at 50 and develop 20% less, with Ilford DDX 1+4 (Stop and Fixer also by Ilford).

Since it's usually mid-day (overcast or cloudy), they sky is significantly brighter than the rest of the scene. I can pull it down in photoshop but was wondering if there are better alternatives for retaining highlights.

Are you contact printing, scanning or enlarging your film ? If you are contact printing, like every large format practitioner should be doing! >> then you probably want to use something like PYRO or its cousin, a Vitamin C developer like Xtol or CaffenolC, over expose by a few stops and develop the hell out of your negatives .. but then again, I find it is really hard to make recommendations about exposure and development to someone because it is impossible to know their exposure / printing style/technique, if their lenses are CLA'd every 6months/year, if their long-exposures or development timer clock are accurate and all the other things that might change how their finals are.

ME? I over expose and over develop everything, and contact print, but im kind of a hack and don't care much about zones and fancy development techniques.

[Bernice Loui]

Appreciation of preserving good details on highlights without flattening them to death comes with making a LOT of prints directly coupled with a deep and full appreciation of preservation good highlight details can make a print come alive when the print is viewed in proper light.

If an individual has not developed or gained the appreciation for this, mostly pointless to try making them understand as they are not ready for this.

What I'll say, started to use PMK pyro in the early 1990's and it made a DIFFERENCE in taming the highlight burn out problem.


Bernice