Best enlarger timer

cliveh said:

I am interested in the axis that defines print quality. Can you please explain?

Click to expand...

A series of negatives, in which the exposure was increased progressively from a very low to a very high value, was made on each of these materials. From each of these negatives was made the best possible print which could be obtained by using any grade of a widely used developing-out paper. These series of prints were judged by 200 observers, each observer being requested to choose the first excellent print in each series. A Study of Various Sensitometric Criteria of Negative Film Speeds, Loyd A. Jones and C. N. Nelson 1940

Click to expand...

Thanks, but what is the subject of the image? As this would affect personal evaluation.

One was "Willow Pond", which Bill Burke tried to locate once. Others were "Beach Scene" and "Woods Scene."

Funny, I would have thought they would use a 'Shirley' and other subjects of that ilk - commercial and consumer. Say a few family groups, a baby or two, an ad for hair shampoo, a Life magazine news shot, something A. Adams-ish.

I have an old Kodak darkroom guide from the mid to late 60's. In the center it has a samples of different paper surfaces - glossy, satin, tweed, luster... - the quality of the images is almost unbelievable. Almost all the shots are studio, though, and being able to control the light counts for a lot in image quality. A ring-around for those sample images would identify the 'perfect print' without much trouble.

Willow Pond, yeah people will take a picture of it on their vacation, but then the photo will go in a shoebox in the attic never to see the light of day until the next generation cleans the house out, looks at it a final time, for maybe 0.5 seconds, before putting it in a garbage bag and to the landfill it goes.

Any guesses on who still has horror memories of recently cleaning out his parents house ...

Nicholas Lindan said:

I have an old Kodak darkroom guide from the mid to late 60's. In the center it has a samples of different paper surfaces - glossy, satin, tweed, luster... - the quality of the images is almost unbelievable.

Click to expand...

I was frustrated and angry with those images. As a teen, just starting in the darkroom, I tried to convince myself those images were not even photography. Their quality was like nothing I had ever seen from a darkroom.

Do you know of the original paper?? They made 8x10 transparencies of Willow Pond and the others. The transparency was photographed hundreds of times to make the negatives for the analysis. That is how they accurately got the values from the scene and ensured consistency. It is, of course, the fundamental study on which DIN, ASA and ISO are all based.