Acros II - What speed are you getting?

[MattKing]

My experience with fairly high volumes of consumer and amateur photographers and labs is the opposite of chuckroast - people who habitually over-expose their negatives tend to achieve worse results than those who use the "box" speed.
Much of that, of course, is colour negative, but it applies as well to black and white.
It may be relevant as well that many of those people take far more photographs of people, whereas Zone System users seem to like landscapes, rocks and trees
I guess I'm an outlier - I don't use much Zone System, but after years with lots and lots of people pictures, I too like landscapes, rocks and trees.

 

[Steven Lee]

@MattKing looks like our brains are wired in a very incompatible way, because - again - you're mixing unrelated concepts in the same sentence: "people who habitually over-expose their negatives tend to achieve worse results than those who use the "box" speed."

I understand what you're trying to say, but I still find it strange that photography enthusiasts use such loose language. Film speed and exposure have little to do with each other. It's like saying "people who greatly exceed speed limit tend to get into accidents more frequently than people with 8-cylinder engines".

You can get into an accident by going 150mph in a 4-cylinder Honda Civic.

 

[MattKing]

Steven,
Perhaps you would prefer if I said instead: "people who habitually use a lower EI to guide their exposure decisions or add exposure as an extra safety factor tend to achieve worse results than those who rely on the "box" speed."

 

[chuckroast]

My experience with fairly high volumes of consumer and amateur photographers and labs is the opposite of chuckroast - people who habitually over-expose their negatives tend to achieve worse results than those who use the "box" speed.
Much of that, of course, is colour negative, but it applies as well to black and white.
It may be relevant as well that many of those people take far more photographs of people, whereas Zone System users seem to like landscapes, rocks and trees
I guess I'm an outlier - I don't use much Zone System, but after years with lots and lots of people pictures, I too like landscapes, rocks and trees.

I should have been more specific - everything I said was in context of monochrome only. Color is an entirely different matter and - in the rare instances I shoot color film - I shoot at only and exactly the rated ISO speed.

 

[Stephen Benskin]

It's much simpler than that. Every single film/developer combination I have tried, when shot at box ISO and developed according to the recommended time/agitation discipline has lacked shadow detail. Switching to the ZS definition for effective ASA delivered results as you note - the personal ASA showed a full stop (ish) slower.

Now you can argue that the original ISO methodology of getting 200 viewers to tell them what looked best is a better test (as controlled with scientific rigor). You can argue that my subjective idea of what constitutes "good shadow detail" doesn't constitute proof. You can argue that my meters or thermometers are all out to lunch and that's why I'm not seeing sufficient shadow density when working at the prescribed ISO and development scheme.
The problem is that my experience is echoed by a great many other experienced photographers who have found the exact same things; The ISO rating gives weak shadow detail and its typically a full stop too fast in practice.

As I noted upthread, I did several years industrial research that involved measuring human response to sensory input. The individual-to-individual variability made finding statistical significance in the results ... challenging. So I am not wildly confident that asking 200 people what makes a "good" picture is any better a measure than my own need for shadow detail.

The ISO standard is useful. It provides a consistent and controlled way to speak to film sensitivity. But practice beats theory, and there is a significant body of practice that finds far better results by using the ZS definition of speed and development discipline.

I am not terribly dogmatic about any of this. If people are getting satisfactory results with ISO marked speed, Godspeed to them. We each work in our own way to our own vision.

N.B. All of this is pretty much beside the point anyway. The biggest sin I see committed in monochrome photography is a lack of local contrast even if the entire SBR is captured. This yields flat, boring images irrespective of the shadow detail ...

So, it's anecdotal. That is legit and I can respect your opinion. I misunderstood because your statement was so definitive.

 

[chuckroast]

So, it's anecdotal. That is legit and I can respect your opinion. I misunderstood because your statement was so definitive.

Well, more to the point, it's subjective - much like asking 200 people what print is "better". At some level, all of this depends tying to figure out how people "tend on average" to see things. But that's not really a great measure of human response. On average, we're all going to die, but that doesn't mean I currently have given up on life.

What matters is how any of us subjectively respond to images metered at some speed, developed in some way, and printed with some kind of intent. Whether or not ISO speed was used is almost entirely to the side of this.

Like I keep saying, ISO standards - and there are many - are intended to bring rigor and repeatability to manufacturing (among other things), but they do not - in and of themselves - address practical use. I can have an ISO 9001 certified shop for quality, but that doesn't mean the products I'm making are any good in actual use, are needed by anyone, solve a real problem, etc.

I know I am being a bit pedantic here but that's because I served on international standards committees for a few years. What you quickly realize is that they either are more-or-less abstracted from pragmatic applications (depending on the standard) or they are purely political and/or marketing driven initiatives designed to grow or protect markets.

For the record - these days about 90% of the time, I am getting an EI that is exactly the ISO speed because I am using long, dilute, low agitation development, which lets the shadows fully develop. This suggests that my meters and thermometers aren't too out to lunch...

 

[pentaxuser]

For the record - these days about 90% of the time, I am getting an EI that is exactly the ISO speed because I am using long, dilute, low agitation development, which lets the shadows fully develop. This suggests that my meters and thermometers aren't too out to lunch...

chuckroast, what might be worthwhile if you were willing to go to the trouble to do it for those of us who remain open-minded about this interesting point about long, dilute, low agitation, is an experiment of the same scene, same camera, same film and one negative developed in say D76 conventionally, one in say D23 or Pyro-cat HD conventionally and the third in D23 or Pyro-cat HD at say 1+4 with your semi-stand development to demonstrate the effect of long, dilute low agitation I mention D23 simply because I see that as the simpler recipe for me and others that may not have tried "home brews" e

I am sure that you have proved to yourself that long, dilute etc works so I suppose the easier way might be to show us "before" and after negs that were different enough to have led you to conclude that long,dilute etc works

Thanks

pentaxuser

 

[chuckroast]

chuckroast, what might be worthwhile if you were willing to go to the trouble to do it for those of us who remain open-minded about this interesting point <SNIP>

I don't have one negative, and one scene to compare, but I can come up with relevant examples. The following are all scans of silver prints. So the printing process certainly affects outcomes, but I've attempted to find examples that illustrate the commentary below. (I should mention that highly dilute Pyrocat is on the order of 1.5:1:200, not 1:4.)

First Image:

645 Agfapan APX 100 shot at box speed (EI 100). Processed conventionally in D-76 for 9min to for N+2. Notice that even the extended development didn't fully capture the shadows i.e. Conventional development - even with extended time - didn't deliver full box speed.

2nd Image:

6x6 Agfapan APX100 shot at 1/2 box speed (EI 50), Processed conventionally in PMK Pyro for 13min. Shadows are decent because of the derated ASA and highlights held well because of the PMK stain.

3rd Image:

4x5 Fomapan 200 shot at box speed (EI 200). Semistand processed in DK-50 1:3 for 60 minutes. Initial agitation for 2 minutes, and one additional agitation of 10 seconds at 31min. The actual scene was in late afternoon shade with completely flat light and almost no SBR, Notice that the extended development did 3 things: It hit full box speed (the shadows are well captured at box speed), the mid-tone contrast is popped well above what was naturally occuring, and the leaf edges are razor sharp from the seminstand development effects.

 

[Steven Lee]

Steven,
Perhaps you would prefer if I said instead: "people who habitually use a lower EI to guide their exposure decisions or add exposure as an extra safety factor tend to achieve worse results than those who rely on the "box" speed."

Not quite. I would say: "Everyone uses box speed. But everyone has different exposure habits. Those who habitually give film more light than needed achieve worse results". Basically, since the film speed is a constant, it is removed from the equation.

This difference is important to me. Because dishonest manufacturers (let's not mention anyone by name) fuck it up for everyone, regardless of one's exposure habits. But if you combine film speed and exposure into the same construct, you give them (dishonest manufacturers) an escape hatch called "well... it depends on how you expose". Nope. It doesn't. Everyone must conform to the ISO standard or be fined. Just one guy's opinion.

 

[chuckroast]

Just one more to illustrate highly dilute semistand in D-23.

Beyond about 1:4, D-23 loses a lot of alkalinity because there's not enough Sodium Sulphite left in solution to make it all go. But - higher dilutions are of interest because the more you dilute D-23, the less it acts like a solvent developer (because there is less Metol in solution). That means the developer doesn't nibble away at the grain as much and you get - in theory - sharper negatives. The fix for this is to dilute D-23 highly but add something to kick the alkalinity back into a better place. This works well for larger formats (Image 1) but can really make grain visible with smaller formats (Image 2).

Image 1:

9x12 Fomapan 100 exposed at box speed (EI 100) and semistand developed in D-23 1:9 with 0.5g/l of sodium hydroxide (lye) added. I If you look closely, you can see a single strand of vegetation rendered sharply in the bottom center of the image. That's the high acutance due to the extreme dilution.

Image 2:

35mm Double-X exposed at box speed (EI 250) and semistand developed in D-23 1:9 with 0.5g/l of sodium hydroxide (lye) added. By reducing the solvent effect significantly, the grain is rendered with great acutance and just beats you over the head. That's not necessarily a bad thing, and could be used to good aesthetic effect, but I'm not a fan of this for the general case.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Trying to use low or moderate scenes to prove "box speed" ability using certain developers is not really a fair fight. Try it with a full range scene. For instance, Foma 200 is indeed capable of reproducing around 11 or even 12 full stops of range under routine development, but not at box speed - more like half of that (100). Now try your semi-stand or whatever trick using the same parameters. Go photograph an extreme range scene, and see if you still get full linear response or not.

Second issue : what is highly dilute D23 with all its sulfite grain-solvent effect doing to the edge acutance? I've never used it for anywhere near that length of time.

 

[chuckroast]

Trying to use low or moderate scenes to prove "box speed" ability using certain developers is not really a fair fight. Try it with a full range scene. For instance, Foma 200 is indeed capable of reproducing around 11 or even 12 full stops of range under routine development, but not at box speed - more like half of that (100). Now try your semi-stand or whatever trick using the same parameters. Go photograph an extreme range scene, and see if you still get full linear response or not.

I don't have a Fomapan 200 image like that, but I do have this one:

Image 1

9x12 Fomapan 100 exposed at box speed (EI 100) and semistand developed in D-23 1:9 with 0.5g/l of sodium hydroxide (lye) added. Between the deep shadow in the bushes and the sun beating down on the branches center right, this was a challenging SBR. There is plenty of negative here to interpret and play with. The entire SBR is held well without compressing the mid-tones to the point of complete boredom. I've still not settled on a final interpretation. That said, this particular glade in the woods is one of the mountains I climb periodically as I've not yet found the expression I really love there...

 

[chuckroast]

Second issue : what is highly dilute D23 with all its sulfite grain-solvent effect doing to the edge acutance? I've never used it for anywhere near that length of time.

See post #110

 

[pentaxuser]

The 9x12 scene of logs is sharp as testified by the one strand of grass? you pointed out. Some of the highlights look a little blown on the end of the logs but for all I know the end of the logs themselves may have weathered and dried to a near white with little texture

The 35mm scene of "tickets" is equally sharp but again the front sign with fantasy on it looks a little blown out as if the sign artistry has serious faded and may be that just the problem i.e. it has just faded and is not blown out My first thought here, had it been a print was that a higher print contrast was needed. On the other hand the trees in the background do appear to have detail which a higher contrast might destroy

Maybe the whole of the tickets' painted frontage has seriously faded in real life so what I am looking at is the genuine way it is and diluted D23 in low agitation and long development has captured the scene in a way that conventionally process D23 could not manage?

The only way to be sure would have been to have taken another neg and developed it normally I suppose

Yes there is grain when I use my software on screen magnifier that I think magnifies it at least 4 times so I wonder what restricting the dilution to 1+4 but using low agitation would have done i.e. what might be the gains and losses compared to 1+9 plus lye?

Finally the forest scene in the light conditions looks to be one of those scenes where the challenge to make it look more interesting is a very difficult one under any processing regime but the detail on the trees' bark does look full of detail

Thanks

pentaxuser

 

[faberryman]

The key to evaluating the images posted is not ISO but exposure. The photographer's meter can be set at lower or higher than box speed and the resulting image be underexposed, overexposed, or correctly exposed, depending on the metering skill of the photographer. You really need to conduct a film speed test according to ISO or Zone System standards for each film, developer, and development routine you employ, and work on metering consistency. Then, of course, there is interpretation during printing.

For example, the image of trees in post #112 is lovely, but from a technical point of view, the sky is completely blown out, as are the highlights in several areas of the tree trunks. In addition, the main tree trunks appear to be unnaturally light. The only way to determine whether this image was exposed at the technically correct ISO/exposure would be to see a print exposed for the minimum time for maximum black at the film edge. As I said though, the image is lovely as printed regardless of how it may have been exposed.

 

[chuckroast]

The key to evaluating the images posted is not ISO but exposure. The photographer's meter can be set at lower or higher than box speed and the resulting image be underexposed, overexposed, or correctly exposed, depending on the metering skill of the photographer. You really need to conduct a film speed test according to ISO or Zone System standards for each film, developer, and development routine you employ, and work on metering consistency. Then, of course, there is interpretation during printing.

For example, the image of trees in post #112 is lovely, but from a technical point of view, the sky is completely blown out, as are the highlights in several areas of the tree trunks. In addition, the main tree trunks appear to be unnaturally light. The only way to determine whether this image was exposed at the technically correct ISO/exposure would be to see a print exposed for the minimum time for maximum black at the film edge. As I said though, the image is lovely as printed regardless of how it may have been exposed.

This particular location at that time of day calls me back from time to time. it's a beautiful spot but it's a technical nightmare to capture. The range of light is all over the place and there is no exposure placement that makes it entirely satisfactory to my eyes.

Here's another day's attempt from a slightly different angle done in DK-50 1:4 + 0.5g/l lye. I find this one far less satisfying than the one I posted above. It has none of the atmospheric sense...

 

[chuckroast]

The 9x12 scene of logs is sharp as testified by the one strand of grass? you pointed out. Some of the highlights look a little blown on the end of the logs but for all I know the end of the logs themselves may have weathered and dried to a near white with little texture

The 35mm scene of "tickets" is equally sharp but again the front sign with fantasy on it looks a little blown out as if the sign artistry has serious faded and may be that just the problem i.e. it has just faded and is not blown out My first thought here, had it been a print was that a higher print contrast was needed. On the other hand the trees in the background do appear to have detail which a higher contrast might destroy

Maybe the whole of the tickets' painted frontage has seriously faded in real life so what I am looking at is the genuine way it is and diluted D23 in low agitation and long development has captured the scene in a way that conventionally process D23 could not manage?

The only way to be sure would have been to have taken another neg and developed it normally I suppose

Yes there is grain when I use my software on screen magnifier that I think magnifies it at least 4 times so I wonder what restricting the dilution to 1+4 but using low agitation would have done i.e. what might be the gains and losses compared to 1+9 plus lye?

Finally the forest scene in the light conditions looks to be one of those scenes where the challenge to make it look more interesting is a very difficult one under any processing regime but the detail on the trees' bark does look full of detail

Thanks

pentaxuser

I think the highlights looking blown out may be a monitor calibration mismatch. Both on my monitor and in the actual prints, the areas you mention show good detail. My monitors are calibrated - initially with a colorimeter and then tweaked by hand - to, as best as possible match the prints. But that doesn't mean it will match your viewing setup. This is the bane of internet image exchange.

The advertising panel in front of the ticket booth is definitely very bright (it was under direct assault by the sun) but shows detail. If I cared deeply about this image, I'd probably burn that a bit.

I do have a plan to, at some point, try 35mm Double-X in a less dilute version of D-23. The 120 version of this film is really nice to work with so I have high hopes for the 35mm incarnation. Clearly, using a super acutance developer concoction like I did isn't appropriate for negatives this small unless you're seeking that look.

I do know that it's possible to shoot into very high SBRs with high speed, small format film, and get very clean grain. Consider this print scan from a 35mm Tri-X negative processed in highly dilute Pyrocat-HD (1.5:1:300) and processed for an hour with Extreme Minimal Agitation - 2 min initial agitation and three equally spaced 10 second agitations during the hour. Apologies in advance for a lack of sharpness across the frame. It was shot handheld with a Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 lens that - while very sharp - has very limited DOF:

 

[faberryman]

Here's another day's attempt from a slightly different angle done in DK-50 1:4 + 0.5g/l lye. I find this one far less satisfying than the one I posted above. It has none of the atmospheric sense...

The image in post #112 was developed in D-23 1:9 + 0.5g/l lye, so a modified Metol developer. The image in post #116 was developed in DK-50 1:4 + 0.5g/l lye, so a modified Hydroquinone developer. The later image is darker with more detail, which could be attributed to film exposure, developer, developer routine, and/or print exposure.

Have you done film speed tests for all the film, developer, and developer routines you employ?

 

[chuckroast]

The image in post #112 was developed in D-23 1:9 + 0.5g/l lye. The image in post #116 was developed in DK-50 1:4 + 0.5g/l lye. The later image is darker with more detail, which could be attributed to film exposure, developer, developer routine, and/or print exposure.

Have you done film speed tests for all the film, developer, and developer routines you employ?

I have not because extended development like this gives you full ISO rated speed in pretty much every case - the film is in developer so long that you get full shadow speed. For this reason, I meter at box speed and adjust developer dilution for contrast management to keep the highlights under control.

What you are seeing in this image is likely attributable to underexposure. Note that lack of detail in the deep shadows. But there is another thing at work here - and I've not messed about with it to fully understand how it affects things. DK-50 has both Metol and Hydroquinone in it. I've never tried an MQ developer like this at a higher than usual dilution in semistand or EMA before. At 1:3, DK-50 works really nicely.

Well ... that's not certain to be true. I've done it with super dilute HC-110 (1:128) but I don't entirely know what it's in that developer.

N.B. After this thread of conversation, I'm not sure what a "speed test" even means anymore. We've established that the ZS tests do not match the ISO definitions, so - as a matter of curiosity, without being argumentative in any way - what would you suggest a valid test would even look like?

 

[faberryman]

N.B. After this thread of conversation, I'm not sure what a "speed test" even means anymore. We've established that the ZS tests do not match the ISO definitions, so - as a matter of curiosity, without being argumentative in any way - what would you suggest a valid test would even look like?

I am not sure why you are not sure what a film speed test means anymore. Nothing has changed. The ISO test came out in 1993 and, to my knowledge, has not been changed. The Zone System film speed test came out decades before, and likewise has not been changed. Both have been described earlier in this thread.

 

[pentaxuser]

Certainly using my screen magnifier so in that sense keeping all thing equal with the tickets scene, the grain in the rocks scene using Pyrocat HD is a quantum's leap improvement in terms of grain. OK the 2 films used are different: tickets being Double X and the rocks being Tri-X but I doubt that is significant.It might be that Pyrocat HD is able to combine box speed with low grain in 35mm in a way that D23 cannot

Semistand type of development seems to be a recognised method in a way that highly dilute D23 and lye is not. In fact until I saw your posts and your interesting article to which you referred me, I don't think that I have seen anyone mention highly dilute D23 with or without lye

Thanks

pentaxuser

 

[chuckroast]

I am not sure why you are not sure what a film speed test means anymore. Nothing has changed. The ISO test came out in 1993 and, to my knowledge, has not been changed. The Zone System film speed test came out decades before, and likewise hasn't changed. Both have been described earlier in this thread.

Yes, I am well aware of both. But this thread demonstrates that there is a vast discrepancy of the merits, relevancy, and applicability of both. We seen claims that how you expose has nothing to do with film speed, that Zone System speed testing is incorrect, that ISO speed is THE speed to use and so forth. Again, I have no agenda here, people should use what works for them.

Having done way too much testing in the past, I now happily let my densitometer gather dust. I am confident after all that testing that my meters and thermometers as accurate within the bounds required by monochrome processing. More to the point, the larger source of variability is that of the leaf shutters on my various cameras.

These days, if I am developing conventionally, I use 1/2 box speed and derate development 20% for normal SBRs. If I were still doing N+- development, I'd increase/decrease development time for each increment.

For extended development, I use box speed and expose for the shadows I care about to end up on Zone III, adjusting developer type and dilution according to SBR. This continues to be an area of exploration, but I'm happy with the results I'm getting.

Life's too short to waste it on infinite testing. I want to make pictures.

 

[chuckroast]

Certainly using my screen magnifier so in that sense keeping all thing equal with the tickets scene, the grain in the rocks scene using Pyrocat HD is a quantum's leap improvement in terms of grain. OK the 2 films used are different: tickets being Double X and the rocks being Tri-X but I doubt that is significant.It might be that Pyrocat HD is able to combine box speed with low grain in 35mm in a way that D23 cannot

Semistand type of development seems to be a recognised method in a way that highly dilute D23 and lye is not. In fact until I saw your posts and your interesting article to which you referred me, I don't think that I have seen anyone mention highly dilute D23 with or without lye

Thanks

pentaxuser

Yes, Pyrocat-HD definitely has better grain behavior than D-23 at any dilution. Super dilution of D-23 isn't really a common thing, I was just curious to see how much acutance could be squeezed out it. I doubt I will use that concoction a lot. I did find it interesting that DK-50 at just 1:3 gave pretty amazing edge effects - not something I would have expected.

But, for my day-to-day work, Pyrocat-HD remains my standard film developer.

I confess to being sort of an experimental junkie. I'd rather try different formulations in different ways with "real" pictures than plot densiometric curves. More often than not, it leads to garbage, but now and then I find a new concoction that works well.
More arrows for the quiver...

 

[faberryman]

Life's too short to waste it on infinite testing. I want to make pictures.

"Infinite" testing is required only if you use an a lot of different films, a lot of different developers, and a lot of different development routines. It sounds like you have done enough testing that you know when you negatives look right, and no longer need to engage in the exercise.

 

[Stephen Benskin]

Well, more to the point, it's subjective - much like asking 200 people what print is "better". At some level, all of this depends tying to figure out how people "tend on average" to see things. But that's not really a great measure of human response. On average, we're all going to die, but that doesn't mean I currently have given up on life.

Apart from blowing off an entire field of science offhand, it is considered an opinion because you have no evidence to substantiate it. It is impossible to have confidence the claims are true. Which is fine when working within your own closed system; but how am I supposed to know that your observation of ISO film speed not being applicable to real world situations is correct or that it isn’t just your metering technique?

The 90s and early 2000s saw a good deal of people using the Zone System. What came with it was an explosion of Dunning-Kruger cases as people were only familiar with Zone System testing and how it obtains personal film speeds by incorporating “real world” testing. As we know Zone System testing and ISO testing are two different methodologies and produce different results in identical conditions. Being unaware of the difference between the two methods, a meme arose that Zone System testing results were the true film speed. Conspiracy theories soon followed that film manufacturers fudged their results, and that lab testing doesn’t represent real world testing. Nobody noticed that their personal Zone System speeds were effectively the same and differed to the same degree from the ISO speeds.