Favorite Tri-X (120) film-developer combinations

[Clay2]

Hi Phillipe,
Thanks for the interesting story, I laughed!
Had the same type argument with the instructors at The New York School of Photography over how to
photograph the full moon. They insisted that the moon was in full sunlight and to use the 'Sunny-16' Rule,
f/16, 1/film speed. I said yeah, it is in full sunlight but on the other side of the Earth and much farther
away. The inverse square law says that the amount of radiation from a source varies inversely as the
square of the distance from the source. I used the 'Looney-11' Rule, f/11, 1/film speed. Mine were the
only decent shots of the full moon. The instructors avoided me from then on, sigh.
Best regards,
/Clay

 

[Lee L]

The moon is 250,000 miles from earth, and the earth is 93,000,000 miles from the sun. So at full moon, the distance from the sun to the moon is 1.002688172 times the distance from the sun to the earth. Using the inverse square law that should mean a decrease of light falling on the moon to 0.9946% of the sunlight hitting earth. Nowhere near a stop. It's the same as thinking you need to make an exposure adjustment when moving your flash from 10 meters away from the subject to 10 meters + 2.6 cm from the subject.

Nothing personal, it's just that this patently wrong "logic" for the looney 11 rule seems to have taken on some sort of legitimacy on the internet.

The actual reason for your shot looking better is that the moon has a lower albedo (reflectivity) than the average scene on earth, about 12% as opposed to the earth's commonly used 18%. Add in the fact that we expect to see the moon "shine" against a dark sky, but don't expect that of the earth. So the moon needs to be placed higher on a gray scale than the average earthly scene to match our visual preconceptions.

Your method works, but not by the mechanism you assert.

Lee

Hi Phillipe,
Thanks for the interesting story, I laughed!
Had the same type argument with the instructors at The New York School of Photography over how to
photograph the full moon. They insisted that the moon was in full sunlight and to use the 'Sunny-16' Rule,
f/16, 1/film speed. I said yeah, it is in full sunlight but on the other side of the Earth and much farther
away. The inverse square law says that the amount of radiation from a source varies inversely as the
square of the distance from the source. I used the 'Looney-11' Rule, f/11, 1/film speed. Mine were the
only decent shots of the full moon. The instructors avoided me from then on, sigh.
Best regards,
/Clay

 

[Clay2]

Thanks Lee, You are quite correct.
I was just trying to inject some humour into the topic. Reminds me of Ansel Adams' quote about his shot
of 'Moonrise Hernandez N.M.' : 'I had to make an educated guess since I could not find my exposure
meter.Knowing that the moon is usually about 250 candles/square foot at this distance from the horizon, I
used this value to make a quick calculation and then made the exposure.'
Do we really care as long as the shot turns out the way we visualized it ?
Best regards,
/Clay

 

[Rolleijoe]

Very easy. For portraits: HC-110 1:50. For everything else: Rodinal 1:50.