I'm not so good with measuring the contrast with the DA Enlarging meter. Here is an example. I measured in the shadow under the bananas and on a highlight near the top of the banana. It read about a 3.2 difference which by the chart for Ilford MGIV RC. I printed the image grade 1/2 for 8s which was the exposure indicated on the measured highlight.
scan0011 by
mjnewhook, on Flickr
The contrast is just not there. I reprinted it after a few tries grade 3.5 with a little more exposure (10s) and it looks much better.
scan0009 by
mjnewhook, on Flickr
I wrote a bit more and put a few more images in a blog post on this at
http://silverprint.posterous.com/46566693.
So ... what am I doing wrong with the measurements? Any advice?