BTZS results

Just wondering if there are people who have worked through the Phil Davis book and arrived at film/paper combos that have worked well using this method and film/paper combos that do not work. CTEIN talks about film/paper combos that do and do not work well together, I’m just trying to see what results people are getting using the Davis methodology.

I’ve used it with Efke PL100, an old version of TMX, current Tri-X and FP4+ And TMY, as well as Kodak Carestream X-Ray film. I’ve used mostly Azo, Forte Polywarmtone, Kentmere, Ilford Gallerie, and homemade albumin papers. Of course a lot of that stuff is no longer available, which is a huge pain. That’s what drove me to making my own paper. Plus polycontrast papers are all the norm now, so perhaps exact paper matching is no longer required. At any rate, I think the BTZS system will work with anything. Whether a certain film and paper would work together is probably more your individual choice.

markbau said:

Just wondering if there are people who have worked through the Phil Davis book and arrived at film/paper combos that have worked well using this method and film/paper combos that do not work. CTEIN talks about film/paper combos that do and do not work well together, I’m just trying to see what results people are getting using the Davis methodology.

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It shouldn't really be used as a doctrine, rather as a means of understanding why some curve combinations are potentially trickier than others - especially if specific tonal behaviour is essential in the final print. Otherwise you will run the risk of producing prints that might be 'correct' but are tonally boring. Perhaps look at it this way: there's a considerable difference between passing a driving test and winning a rally stage.

I think Ctein may have been referring to some tricky situations involving maintaining specific highlight separation and midtone behaviour without the shadows losing their tonal strength - which would (if my brain isn't fully asleep) involve maintaining a shorter toe at a higher contrast grade. If you wanted to get the shadows right by using a higher grade you'd end up with poorer highlight separation and lighter mids, but if you got the highs & mids right, the shadows would be too soft. There are darkroom techniques to solve these but Ctein's narrative/ agenda was that he found it easier to do so by digital means.