AFAIK,he mainly used Kodak films(TriX) and an 8x10 camera;his dark skies are a combination of filtering during camera´xposure and burning in the darkroom.Looking at a lot of pictures from the famous photographer, what B&W film was his film of choice? And was it 4x5 or 8x10 mostly? And how did he get those really dark skies in many of his pictures? Was it filtration (how on large format), or was it just film choice?
Thanks for posting this link. Very interesting correspondence.There's correspondence from January 1954 between Adams and Paul Strand where Strand queries whether he should continue to use Kodak Portrait Pan (320TXP is the effective successor) developed in D-23 and Adams replies: "Portrait Pan film is very fine - perhaps the best quality for the kind of work we do. But the Super Panchro Press film is also fine and, of course, is more than twice as fast. With D-23 it gives excellent qualities. The only thing to do is to try it. I understand the new lsopan is a grand film, too. There is not much difference in scale between these films; it is chiefly a matter of speed and image-grain." The letters can be found here on pg.81 of the downloadable document.
AA was active from the 20s to the 80s, like 60s years, my personal favorites are from the 30 and 40, so some over lap with the Zone system. As he reprinted in the 70 and 80s his prints became more dramatic, question is was how he want to print or if he was printing for the market?
And to address the OP's question, there was no appreciable grain visible in those mural sized prints. He must have used a fine grained film, and we all know he used an 8X10 camera.
By his own statements, his eyes were changing and he needed more contrast in the photographs to see them better.
And a horizontal 8x10 enlarger with rolls of mural paper hanging from the wall....
And to address the OP's question, there was no appreciable grain visible in those mural sized prints. He must have used a fine grained film, and we all know he used an 8X10 camera.
And a horizontal 8x10 enlarger with rolls of mural paper hanging from the wall.
For the ugly side of AA find a copy of Ansel Adams Photographs from the National Park Service Archive, by Basil Cannon, let's just say that the Park Service has many prints that were at best work prints, many from really badly exposed negatives. Others might have been negatives that were bracketed.
I think that AA never really had to 'keep up with technological changes', rather I think one of his greatest gifts was providing a sense of order to the whole thing. His opinions and work with the major film photography players is well known, and I understand that the general state of photographic material sensitivity was quite varied from manufacturer to manufacturer. We take it for granted that when the box of film says ISO 400 we can set our meters correctly to get the density we desire.
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