Saggy curve ...
SAGGY CURVE ?????

:confused:



(based on my numerical data, the curve
is a little saggy,
but Im a photographer, not a numerologist, or whatever they are, and my Kodak Step Tablet isnt linear,
and so I think my curve is a little lumpy and saggy and in reality the negs are really kinda wonderful.)
I was only 16 back in 1968, but got to work with my teachers Portrait Pan, and in my youthful naivety, thought that all you had to do was have your subject stand by the window or in an open doorway and Kodak magic would make the picture come out. Well, thats why portrait films were made, right ? That was all it took back then.
Compress the shadows, expand the highlights. Fantastic. Magic.
The only 2 reasons Im not using the stuff now are that Kodak doesnt make it for 35mm.
And because Kodak stopped making it 40 some odd years ago. When it got canned, Paul Strand was really pissed off, too !
You can almost get the same thing with TXP, if you coddle it, and if you shoot 120, which I dont.
So I got good at shooting TX and then TMY (for the last 20 + years) and then burning in the shadows with a #1 filter, which I knew was a waste of time, and then one day, until I realised that I was wasting my time.... I could fix the bloody curve !
I mean, if Zakia said I could do it, that made it OK, yes ?
So I did. I fixed it !
So I used a plain old glycin developer, that cost me two stops and made the highlights plot like a rocket launch.
In time, I remembered E10 and 12, and worked with them a little, and PRESTO !
Good old Kodak Portrait Magic, once again, on super adaptable TMY, with the help of a good old midwestern photochemist. Ive got Portrait Pan again, except it is 400 EI, not 125, and 35mm instead of sheets.
But an 8x10 print looks like it came out of my RB Graflex.
Even if my curve is saggy, the pictures are WAY cool.
And when I want a straight line, its XTOL all the way.
