Exposing to recover details in highlghts

[Vaughn]

Ahh ok. I was thinking in terms of metering.

Zone system works fine with roll film, metering-wise. And if it is an important set of images taken under the same light needs different processing, take the roll out of the camera, mark it and put a new roll in. If one worries about 'wasting' the last ten shots on a roll, one could just buy one less coffee.

 

[Luis Filipe]

Zone system works fine with roll film, metering-wise. And if it is an important set of images taken under the same light needs different processing, take the roll out of the camera, mark it and put a new roll in. If one worries about 'wasting' the last ten shots on a roll, one could just buy one less coffee.

Or having two cameras ready.
Thats why the backs on medium format cameras are great.

If there's a significant exposure(s) in the roll that make sacrifice a few others I think I wouldn't mind. I must be confident that it would worth, and at this stage I'm not, regarding technical aspects.

I'm thinking to get a couple of rolls to do some tests/experiments under controlled light anyway.

 

[DREW WILEY]

I like that earlier stagecoach across the Southwest suggestion, with someone "riding shotgun" beside the driver. Load up the shotgun with white styrofoam packing peanuts and blast them into the sky to lower the contrast when approaching a difficult scene. Then blame stagecoach robbers for the environmental mess blowing all around afterwards.

 

[Doremus Scudder]

The trick to applying the Zone System for roll film that has to be exposed with varying subject brightness ranges is to find a developing time for the individual roll that allows the different contrast ranges on the roll to be printed well using contrast controls available in the darkroom (or post...). You can always adjust development time depending on what the average subject brightness range is on your roll; if you shoot a lot of low-contrast scenes, then a longer development time may be better; with lots of very contrasty scenes, a reduced one. When both extremes are present, you need a good "normal" time that will still allow the extremes to be printed well.

Metering technique depends on your type of meter and shouldn't change regardless of the "system" you use (or lack thereof). With a spot meter, expose for the shadows, with an averaging meter, you compensate for scenes with lots of contrast or very flat scenes (i.e., you interpret the meter reading depending on your impression of the subject brightness range and how you want things rendered). Any metering scheme that doesn't underexpose or grossly overexpose your negatives works.

Best,

Doremus

 

[pentaxuser]

With 35mm film there may be something to be said for bulk roll loading whereby you only load up only the number of frames for that day's or even part of the day's shooting when there is a good chance the light conditions will remain the same.

In the U.K. where even in Summer you can get all four seasons in one day three short rolls can easily be carried. Mind you I do wonder how many situations arise at U.K. latitudes that cannot be taken care of by normal development and then darkroom printing means

pentaxuser

 

[Vaughn]

Or having two cameras ready.
Thats why the backs on medium format cameras are great.

If there's a significant exposure(s) in the roll that make sacrifice a few others I think I wouldn't mind. I must be confident that it would worth, and at this stage I'm not, regarding technical aspects.

I'm thinking to get a couple of rolls to do some tests/experiments under controlled light anyway.

True, indeed. And I have been in conditions that a pre-loaded back would be easier/safer than spooling a roll on in the field. I do like the lightweight and simplicity of the Rolleicord. One could just expose the whole roll in that great light/scene one finds. I only use 120 in roll film...so if I come across some particular impressive light, I might as well explore it further...use up the roll, toss another roll in the Rolleicord and make another 12 exposures. If for some strange reason I mess up the development of one roll, I got another to give it another go. I use mostly use 8x10 (5x7 and 11x14 , too). So a roll of 120 seems just to be another sheet of 8x10...I buy them in boxes of 25.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Well, two matching cameras doesn't work for me, because the other one has color film in it. With the 4X5 view camera, I could hypothetically carry as many roll backs as I wished. But none of my MF gear has interchangeable backs. No big deal. I have no problem getting all the shots on the same 120 roll to print efficiently. I just choose a versatile enough film, with a suitably long straight line for the variety of lighting ratios I'm likely to encounter (generally TMax, though I've got Acros in one of my cameras at the moment). I almost always develop normal, and then resort to the excellent VC papers available these days. Seldom an issue. If I need to pull out a roll before it's entirely used up, it's most likely to be due to some fast water motion or windy handheld circumstance where I really need 400 speed TMax instead of 100.

What I DON'T recommend is the moth-eaten old advice of AA to minus develop rolls to handle the potential variations in contrast. Nor do I subscribe to Barnbaum's awful habit of placing the shadow threshold way up on Zone III, which outright forces one to resort to either minus or compensating development to tame the highlights, and risks scrunching all the life, intervening sparkle, and delicate texture out of what lies in-between. Of course, these two practitioners had other ways of reviving things, perhaps a special darkroom defibrillator. With Barnbaum, it was an addiction to Farmer's Reducer to get the bland out of the upper values in the print. But it seems a backwards approach in the face of better options today. I do keep Farmer's Reducer on hand; it's a useful tool at times. But as a substitute for trusting the native film curve? - Naah, or you either own a miserable meter or are using the wrong film to begin with.

 

[juan]

I’ve used Paul Farber’s version of divided D-76 with good results on roll film. One roll in particular was taken at an outdoor market under an Interstate highway bridge. Some shots were entirely in shade, others in full sun. All were easily printable.

I use BTZS but found the Phil Davis book poorly edited and hard to follow. The View Camera Store has BTZS publication that are much easier to follow and put into practice.

 

[Doremus Scudder]

AA advocated tailoring small-film negatives to grade three paper as "normal" (not N-1, but normal for small film) instead of grade two paper in order to reduce the visible grain in the prints; less development = less grain was the idea. In practice, the extra contrast of the paper restored all that grain to a large extent. These days, with VC papers, the goal is to find the middle of what's on the roll so you don't lose the extremes. Still, all that Zone-System theory applies; just the materials are different.

Best,

Doremus