The Adriatic is stormy

I have been following both sides of this discussion with interest. If I have understood correctly, Alan is following the adage of "expose for the shadows and develop for the highlights." Not having tried it myself, I have been interested to hear about the application of that method in practice.

Now I might be misunderstanding but it seems to me that Alan's main objective is to reduce the contrast ratio of the negative so that it is a better fit with the dynamic range of the film. He is doing so by lowering the film box speed by a stop (reducing the contrast of the latent image) and by curtailing development time (which further reduces contrast and effective ISO).

It occurs to me that a slower film, say FP4 at ISO125, would achieve the same result if fully developed, in other words lower contrast and lower ISO.

Is there something I am missing?
 
Last edited:
Glenn - thanks for your interest. No, I am not reducing the negative contrast so that it is a better fit with the dynamic range of the film. I am trying to end up with a level of contrast that makes the negative user-friendly,, so it prints in the darkroom on a middle grade on the multigrade scale - say, grade 2.5. A negative of this level of contrast will also be easy to scan. The old method of checking if you had got this right was to place your negative on a magazine page and see if you could discern the magazine print through the densest part of the negative. If you couldn't, the film had had too much development and the highlights were too dense (bearing in mind that the longer you develop a film for the denser the highlights get).
The reason for lowering the box speed is as follows. When you reduce development the highlights come down, as you want them to, but the mid tones also come down a bit, and can look slightly too dark in the final print. Lowering the film's box speed corrects this and puts them back up to where you want them.
The "normal" develpment time quoted by Ilford etc. - the N time - is really for normal contrast subjects. If you use it to develop film taken on bright full-sunny days, the negative highlights will end up too dense, and make printing (and scanning ) rather difficult.
 
I should add that when you develop a film the shadow areas develop out quite quickly, because not much activity has taken place there. The highlights, where light has penetrated deeper into the emulsion, take longer and get denser and denser as development goes on. The trick is to stop development when the highlights reach the level of density that you want. So-called compensating developers help here. ID11 , when diluted at 1+2 or 1+3 becomes compensating, i.e. it runs out of steam in the highlights (between agitations), where it has a lot to do.. This keeps the highlights in check. But it carries on working fully in the shadow areas where there is less hard work to do, so the shadows, and the mid tones develop out more fully..
 
Alan Clark said:
I should have added that, even if you don't actually print in the darkroom, it's worth doing what I described above because it produces negatives that are easier to scan.
Click to expand...
We are never going to agree so I will stick with what I know works, and has proven to work for me over 60 years.
 
Glenn said:
I have been following both sides of this discussion with interest. If I have understood correctly, Alan is following the adage of "expose for the shadows and develop for the highlights." Not having tried it myself, I have been interested to hear about the application of that method in practice.

Now I might be misunderstanding but it seems to me that Alan's main objective is to reduce the contrast ratio of the negative so that it is a better fit with the dynamic range of the film. He is doing so by lowering the film box speed by a stop (reducing the contrast of the latent image) and by curtailing development time (which further reduces contrast and effective ISO).

It occurs to me that a slower film, say FP4 at ISO125, would achieve the same result if fully developed, in other words lower contrast and lower ISO.

Is there something I am missing?
Click to expand...
It would work that way by reducing the ISO as well as the developing time for the whole film, but it is almost using guesswork to judge/adjust the development time when only a couple of frames need the amended variation.

With the 'expose for the shadows' and develop normally for the complete film technique you are virtually bomb proof at getting the shadow areas correctly developed which could be the larger area of the image. Then when burning in the highlight by going for a softer grade of paper and burning in the headlight, that ensures that you do not loose any detail. If you make a mistake at that stage and it is toast, you can always do it again, and again and again using another test strip. You still have the original correctly exposed and developed negative to go back and try again.

If you do as Alan has said, get the film development wrong, (It does happen) and you are using roll film or 35mm then altering the exposure for one or even multiple frames, you risk the loss of the majority of the entire film. High contrast may only affect 1, 2 or 3 frames when the other frames all need the correct development.

With respect to Yuri who posted the image He exposed for the highlights and got a high contrast image with little detail in the shadows. Ignoring what has been said before, even using a gray card or meter with a device that has an invercone, exposure guide suggested would probably have made the image lighter with almost normal contrast which would have been easy to deal with.

The prints that Yuri has uploaded in the past have all been very pleasing to at least my eye, and nice to look at. If Yuri sees this and could contribute as to why he chose to do it with such high contrast may be helpful. There may be a specific reason.
 
Hello everyone!
I washed the negatives as recommended by the manufacturer. Most of the white specks disappeared, but a few large specks remained. Apparently, they require longer processing time in ethanol and more vigorous agitation.

Here's the result:
 

Attachments

  • aka Missone (2).jpg
    aka Missone (2).jpg
    1.5 MB · Views: 6
Thank you very much for your attention to my image, I did not expect that it would cause such a discussion.

I want to explain what I wanted and what I got. After looking at Leonard Misson's album, I was very impressed by his work and the effect it produced. The glowing sky, the voluminous clouds, the reflections on the pavement, and the deep shadows. I really wanted to try to do something like this.
And then a storm hit, with rain and strong winds. I grabbed a TLR Lubitel 166, loaded it with Fomapan 100 Classic film, and used a selenium light meter as a spot meter.
While I was on the shore, a strong wind blew the clouds away a bit, revealing a bright patch of sky illuminated by the office lights. It was this patch of sky that I wanted to make the centerpiece of my image.
As a result, I measured it as per the grey card and added another step, +1EV.
I exposed Fomapan 100 as 200 ASA film. This resulted in the film being underexposed. I doubled the development time. This is the resulting image.
 
I took this image with an FED rangefinder camera. I took two readings: first, I measured the light in the shadows, then I measured the light in the brightest area. Then I chose the middle value and took the picture.
The film was Fomapan 100, exposed at ISO 400, and developed with D-76 1+1 with extended processing times.
 

Attachments

  • 51930093799_918b2e0522_c.jpg
    51930093799_918b2e0522_c.jpg
    111.1 KB · Views: 5
That doubling the time is the cause of the high contrast and lack of detail in the shadows I cannot say what the actual time for the developing should have been but for a 100% increase in the ISO rating does not mean you have to develop it for twice the time
 
@Alan Thank you for your clear and considered response.

I have understood most of what you have said with the exception of the question of why lowering the box speed should brighten the mid tones. I am sure you are right but I can't for the moment visualise why this should be the case.
 
Glenn said:
@Alan Thank you for your clear and considered response.

I have understood most of what you have said with the exception of the question of why lowering the box speed should brighten the mid tones. I am sure you are right but I can't for the moment visualise why this should be the case.
Click to expand...
Hi Glenn, suppose you use HP5 which is a 400 iso film, and you rate it at 400 and go out and use it on a day of full bright sun . If you give the film "Normal" development, the negative highlights will end up too dense, and you won't be able to make prints on a normal grade of multigrade, i.e. grade 2.5. So you give the film about 20% less development. The negative highlights will now be less dense, which is what you want. But the negative mid tones will also have been slightly reduced in density. So when you print, more light goes through these and the mid tones in the print can look a bit dark. To prevent this happening you can , next time, give the film an extra stop of exposure - i.e. rate it at 200 iso. This will put more density in the mid tones in the negative, so they will print a bit lighter. Yes, it will also put more density in the highlights, but they will still come down in density with the right amount of reduced development.
If you are making your prints digitally, the extra stop of exposure is probably not needed. Instead, you can use "curves" in photoshop or whatever, to pull the mid tones up in value to give you the look you want.
 
Another interesting and informative debate on the technicalities of film exposure. I enjoy the tit-for-tat between John and Alan, and I learn a lot from it.

The photographs are undoubtedly underexposed, to the point that I feel that trying to pull back the shadows merely further denigrates the images; I feel that it would be better just to let the blacks go and enjoy the highlights in the sky. But then I have just got back from the west country and a couple of wonderful hours spent in the current Don McCullin exhibition at Hauser & Wurth in Bruton. The great Sir Don has no hesitation in letting blacks go black, to fabulous effect.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top