Film testing

[sanking]

One curiosity, if I may indulge....For Sandy King, was knowledge of BTZS an influential factor in formulating Pyrocat -HD ? Was there something in your BTZS testing that pushed for such a developer ? My favorite combo is 400Tmax/pyrocat-mc 1:1:100 in BTZS tubes (ei@G=0.52 EFS=348 es=1.15). It took exactly 40mins to do the test. My negatives exposures in a word superb! Alas, I wish that developing visual and compositional skills was as easy.... .

Yes, BTZS controls were a major factor in my formulation of the Pyrocat-HD formula. Every permutation of the formula I made was thorougly examined with BTZS testing. This included extensive comparison testing, using a light integration system of exposure, and carefully controlled development procedures, of Pyrocat-HD against a number of *control* developers.

Later, I modified the Pyrocat formula to include Pyrocat-MC and Pyrocat-P with the intention of improving acutance with rotary processing. BTZS testing procedures were used in these tests.

Sandy King

 

[Chuck_P]

I wonder what old AA would say to all this discussion about the ZS. When asked by John Sexton what he thought his epitaph should read, AA responded that it might be similar to what Alfred Eisenstadt wanted his to read which was:

"Here lies Alfred Eisenstadt, he lived for better or for worse but he's dead for good."

I think AA would say of the ZS: the zone system, it exists for better or for worse, but it is alive and well.

I'm smiling as I write this and I say that I think the overall discussion that we are having is a healthy one for what we do. Albeit, the form of communication, however, presents it own set of difficult circumstances to overcome.

Chuck

I was reading last night and came across Alfred Stieglitz and knew instantly that I had used the wrong name in my own post! I don't even know where Eisenstadt came from, crazy.

 

[MVNelson]

Yes, BTZS controls were a major factor in my formulation of the Pyrocat-HD formula. Every permutation of the formula I made was thorougly examined with BTZS testing. This included extensive comparison testing, using a light integration system of exposure, and carefully controlled development procedures, of Pyrocat-HD against a number of *control* developers.

Later, I modified the Pyrocat formula to include Pyrocat-MC and Pyrocat-P with the intention of improving acutance with rotary processing. BTZS testing procedures were used in these tests.

Sandy King

Thanks...

Miles

 

[bogeyes]

When I am cutting a piece of steel on my lathe I use a rough cutting tool and a pair of calipers to measure with. I then use a fine cutting tool and a micrometer to get the work spot on. Using my experience I am sometimes within tolerence using the roughing tool/calipers to measure with. As I get closer to my goal I work to a finer tolerance.

 

[Paul Howell]

Food for thought:

Andreas Feininger in his book on Darkroom which covers developing negatives states that with a properly exposed negative you should be be able to read newsprint though the denses part of the neagative, and see details when looking though the thinnest part of the negative. I just check a few of my 4X5 and 6X9negatives and he is right. Any thoughts?

Yesterday I tested a roll of Forma 120 Action 400, shot 8 exposure in 1/2 stops from 1600 to 100 developed in Ansco equilivant of D 76 at recommended time for D 76, then looked for the speed that allowed my to read newsprint though highlights and see details in the shadow. I judged 320 to be best, printed on grade 2 paper at my rated time for my negatives that I tested in the past, almost a perfert match. I plan to do a real world test follow up this weekend to see if I get as good as match at 320.

 

[Roger Hicks]

Yesterday I tested a roll of Forma 120 Action 400, shot 8 exposure in 1/2 stops from 1600 to 100 developed in Ansco equilivant of D 76 at recommended time for D 76, then looked for the speed that allowed my to read newsprint though highlights and see details in the shadow. I judged 320 to be best, printed on grade 2 paper at my rated time for my negatives that I tested in the past, almost a perfert match. I plan to do a real world test follow up this weekend to see if I get as good as match at 320.

Dear Paul,

Hey! No fair! Simple tests using minimal test equipment? Surely you should know by now that only arcane theoretical considerations are allowed on APUG.

Unless, of course, all you want is negatives that are exposed and processed within the (very wide) limits necessary to get good prints...

Thanks for the link to reality.

Cheers,

R.

 

[sanking]

When I am cutting a piece of steel on my lathe I use a rough cutting tool and a pair of calipers to measure with. I then use a fine cutting tool and a micrometer to get the work spot on. Using my experience I am sometimes within tolerance using the roughing tool/calipers to measure with. As I get closer to my goal I work to a finer tolerance.

How much tolerance and precision we need in our work is an important issue.

APUG is not a homogeneous community, even though we are united by an interest in traditional photographic printing methods.. On the one extreme we have folks who use exclusively 35mm and shoot only a few rolls of film per year, and have little or no financial interest in the process. At the other extreme are LF and ULF photographers who expose hundreds of negatives per year, many of whom derive income from their photographic activities. In between there are MF users.

My own belief is that if you are a LF or ULF photographer working with sheet film one should do whatever is possible to expose and develop the individual sheets so as to make printing as easy as possible. In the long run you will save a lot of time and aggravation by learning what you need to know to make negatives that print well. And since you are working with individual sheets of film it is a simple matter to expose and develop for each scene.

On the other hand, if you are a 35mm photographer any given roll of film typically will have negatives covering a fairly wide range of subject lighting conditions, and if that is the case optimizing development for the entire roll is impossible. My own solution to this situation is to use C-41 color negative film, expose for shadow detail, and just have the film processed at local lab. To make a B&W print you will have to either have the negatives put on CD or scan them yourself, but since highlight density of color negative film shoulders considerably a good scanner should be able to capture it, even if the subject has very high contrast lighting. To print you will have to adjust the curves with image manipulation software.. If this procedure interests you go over the hybrid forum and start a thread. I will say, however, that I have exposed medium format color negative film in SBR conditions of 10 or higher and was able to make prints with a full range of tones from the deepest shadows to the highlights. On the whole I find that this procedures is much more productive than shooting B&W film in the camera.

Sandy King

 

[Roger Hicks]

How much tolerance and precision we need in our work is an important issue.

APUG is not a homogeneous community, even though we are united by an interest in traditional photographic printing methods.. On the one extreme we have folks who use exclusively 35mm and shoot only a few rolls of film per year, and have little or no financial interest in the process. At the other extreme are LF and ULF photographers who expose hundreds of negatives per year, many of whom derive income from their photographic activities. In between there are MF users.

My own belief is that if you are a LF or ULF photographer working with sheet film one should do whatever is possible to expose and develop the individual sheets so as to make printing as easy as possible. In the long run you will save a lot of time and aggravation by learning what you need to know to make negatives that print well. And since you are working with individual sheets of film it is a simple matter to expose and develop for each scene.

On the other hand, if you are a 35mm photographer any given roll of film typically will have negatives covering a fairly wide range of subject lighting conditions, and if that is the case optimizing development for the entire roll is impossible. My own solution to this situation is to use C-41 color negative film, expose for shadow detail, and just have the film processed at local lab. To make a B&W print you will have to either have the negatives put on CD or scan them yourself, but since highlight density of color negative film shoulders considerably a good scanner should be able to capture it, even if the subject has very high contrast lighting. To print you will have to adjust the curves with image manipulation software.. If this procedure interests you go over the hybrid forum and start a thread. I will say, however, that I have exposed medium format color negative film in SBR conditions of 10 or higher and was able to make prints with a full range of tones from the deepest shadows to the highlights. On the whole I find that this procedures is much more productive than shooting B&W film in the camera.

Sandy King

Dear Sandy,

Hang on! There are a couple of assumptions here. I might as well say, 'At one extrenme there are 35mm users who expose hundreds of rolls a year, and at the other, LF users who expose a few dozen sheets a year.' As for deriving income, that's a complete red herring, independent of format.

I'd also suggest that scanning colour neg film is some way from the route that serious 35mm or MF photographers might consider the optimum for getting B+W prints with the best possible tonality. A lot of us prefer processing 'real' B+W film in the traditional manner and printing it in a 'real' darkroom.

The simple truth about LF is that you can afford to be a lot sloppier than you need to be with smaller formats, because bigger grain and reduced sharpness (associated with wanton over-exposure) matter a lot more as the format gets smaller.

It is remarkable that LF users often attempt to be more technically precise than 35mm users, but it is unremarkable that a significant percentage are deluding themselves that they are working to a very much higher standard of precision than they are, when they are in fact being saved by the inherent flexibility of the B+W neg/pos process.

Note: I do not intend to include you in the latter group!

As one who has owns and has used numerous formats from Minox 8x11mm to 12x15 inch (though I have not shot under half-frame/single-frame 18x24 for years), I really do feel that you are making a generalization here that is hard to defend.

Cheers,

R.

 

[sanking]

Roger,

My only generalization was that there are a lot of different interests here on APUG.

The only other thing I have claimed is that for my own reasons I have switched to color negative film for all of my work with medium format. I did not claim it was better, only that I find it more productive when having to deal with a wide range of lighting conditions on one roll of film.

I did not make any claims of any type regarding the best way to make a print, or about print quality from different formats, so please don't put words in my mouth or suggest that I am saying anything other than what I specifally noted, i.e. that for my own work I find it more productive to use exclusively color negative film in medium format.
You are free to agree or disagree with position, but it is my right to make personal decisions about my own work.

Sandy

 

[Roger Hicks]

Roger,

My only generalization was that there are a lot of different interests here on APUG.

The only other thing I have claimed is that for my own reasons I have switched to color negative film for all of my work with medium format. I did not claim it was better, only that I find it more productive when having to deal with a wide range of lighting conditions on one roll of film.

I did not make any claims of any type regarding the best way to make a print so please don't put words in my mouth or suggest that I am saying anything other than what I specifally noted, i.e. that for my own work I find it more productive to use exclusively color negative film in medium format.
You are free to agree or disagree with position, but it is my right to make personal decisions about my own work.

Sandy

Dear Sandy,

I apologize for putting words into your mouth, and you will see that I have deleted another message on reading your reply.

You are of course entirely right that you can make any decision you like about your own work. I know that I am not alone, however, in being astonished that someone who will go to such lengths in LF is so apparently indifferent to smaller formats.

And my comments about your ranking of 35mm, MF and LF, and dismissal of your remarks about selling pictures, stand.

Cheers,

R.

 

[sanking]

Dear Sandy,


And my comments about your ranking of 35mm, MF and LF, and dismissal of your remarks about selling pictures, stand.

Cheers,

R.

That is not correct. I did not rank anything. All I did was suggest that there are a wide range of users on APUG, and that the type of recommendations for exposure and development we make for one group would not necessarily apply to another. I specifically never get into discucssions regarding print quality from different formats.

Also, since you know nothing about the quality of my work in medium format the suggestion that I am sloppy or dismissive of good technique in using it is something of a leap, is it not?

Sandy

 

[Roger Hicks]

That is not correct. I did not rank anything. All I did was suggest that there are a wide range of users on APUG, and that the type of recommendations for exposure and development we make for one group would not necessarily apply to another. I specifically never get into discucssions regarding print quality from different formats.

Also, since you know nothing about the quality of my work in medium format the suggest that I am sloppy in using it is something of a leap, is it not?

Sandy

Dear Sandy,

Please re-read both your posts and mine. You said that there are those who shoot a few rolls of 35mm per year, and those who shoot a lot of LF/ULF, with MF in between. I proposed an alternative ranking -- and I would maintain that on any ordinary reading of the English language, both your statement and mine are rankings.

And just where did I say you were sloppy in your use of MF? As you say, I know nothing of your work. What I said was that LF users can afford to be sloppier than 35mm or LF, then specifically pointed out that I did not include you in this category.

If I have said anything that could be misinterpreted by a reasonable person who actually read what I wrote, I will be only too happy to retract it and apologize. I should be obliged if you would point out the offending passages.

Cheers,

R.

 

[Allen Friday]

And I thought this thread was about done....

 

[Roger Hicks]

I make wide us of image control software and digital negatives in my own printing, which is a 19th century process for which I have to make all of my own materials.

Dear Sandy,

Sorry: can't resist.

You mean that in order to make digital negatives for these traditional 19th century pictures you coat your own inkjet transparency media and formulate your own inks?

Surely if you make wide use of image control software and digital negatives, the quality of your original film negatives need be nothing like as high as if you made in-camera negatives, correctly exposed and developed, in the style of the 19th century?

I do not doubt for an instant that your negatives are superbly exposed and processed, but I do have to ask why you feel the need for the digital intermediary. No doubt you will either explain this with a clarity that will leave me feeling ashamed for having asked, or indicate that this is yet another area you do not wish to discuss.

Cheers,

Roger

 

[sanking]

Please re-read both your posts and mine. You said that there are those who shoot a few rolls of 35mm per year, and those who shoot a lot of LF/ULF, with MF in between. I proposed an alternative ranking -- and I would maintain that on any ordinary reading of the English language, both your statement and mine are rankings.

R.

To quote from a country song that was quite popular in the US some years ago, "what part of no don't you understan?"

What I gave was not a ranking, but a list. For some reason you decided it was a list and have chosen to make it an issue. But I did not give or imply any kind of ranking, and as I have said before, I avoid all discussions about the merits of different formates.

Sandy King

 

[sanking]

I do not doubt for an instant that your negatives are superbly exposed and processed, but I do have to ask why you feel the need for the digital intermediary. No doubt you will either explain this with a clarity that will leave me feeling ashamed for having asked, or indicate that this is yet another area you do not wish to discuss.

Roger

I have no problem at all in discussing reasons for my use of digital post-capture techniques, but APUG is not the place for such discussions. If that matter is of serious interest to you I suggest you go over to the hybrid forum and pose the question.

Sandy King

 

[timbo10ca]

And I thought this thread was about done....

It looked like it was going that way. Then I finished reading BTZS today, and an earlier assumption of mine did not pay out. That is, How is the camera, lens and meter taken into account with testing? The Zone System addresses this directly. It looks to me that BTZS is great for paper and film matching, but it doesn't take the hardware into account, other than "testing your materials in the field and fine-tune". An earlier post stated that the ZS takes alot of time because you have to do alot of testing and fine tuning your exposures. How is this any different from what is being necessary for BTZS? Quite frankly, I'm disappointed. I guess I had an unrealistic expectation. Sure, it might give you great info on the behaviour of that film and this paper, but the equipment you're using may throw things off by as much as a stop or two. Then what's the point of having the film/developer/paper so finely tuned? I'm probably already within 2 stops of an ideal exposure! I wasn't trying to stir any pots earlier, but now I'm playing devil's advocate. I have a pretty darn good understanding of BTZS after studying that book for 3 days. You practitioners are really going to have to sell it now! (Well, maybe it's not worth your trouble- we'll see )

 

[Paul Howell]

It looked like it was going that way. Then I finished reading BTZS today, and an earlier assumption of mine did not pay out. That is, How is the camera, lens and meter taken into account with testing? The Zone System addresses this directly. It looks to me that BTZS is great for paper and film matching, but it doesn't take the hardware into account, other than "testing your materials in the field and fine-tune". An earlier post stated that the ZS takes alot of time because you have to do alot of testing and fine tuning your exposures. How is this any different from what is being necessary for BTZS? Quite frankly, I'm disappointed. I guess I had an unrealistic expectation. Sure, it might give you great info on the behaviour of that film and this paper, but the equipment you're using may throw things off by as much as a stop or two. Then what's the point of having the film/developer/paper so finely tuned? I'm probably already within 2 stops of an ideal exposure! I wasn't trying to stir any pots earlier, but now I'm playing devil's advocate. I have a pretty darn good understanding of BTZS after studying that book for 3 days. You practitioners are really going to have to sell it now! (Well, maybe it's not worth your trouble- we'll see )

I have the same thoughts, but on the other hand I have seen some very impressive work done with BTZS. I have spent 40 years with the ZS as well other approches, use what works for you. I am just going to read newsprint though the highlights and look for details in the shadows and call it a day.

 

[wm blunt]

This has turned surreal. I dont know why you bother to respond Sandy.

You can almost hear the Twilight Zone theme music in the back ground

 

[Colin Graham]

John, that's a hell of a burden to put on someone.

 

[Chuck_P]

I've been following as best I can. You guys are going to have to realize that in this type of communication you can only respond to what is directly stated in a particular post and not to what you feel is inferred; don't respond to what you think is between the lines as it quite often clouds the issue at hand. Too many inferences are being made. I know it can be difficult but that is how we have to argue, by not making assumptions, respond to only what is being stated.

I think Sandy is being unduly dragged through the coals on this one.

Just my two cents.

Chuck

 

[MVNelson]

After re-reading the post of the last 24hrs it appears that this post dissintegrated into argue for the sake of argument. Anyone objective observer would conclude that there are countless instances of putting "words into someone elses mouth that they never said'.. To me this dishonest, annoying and diminnishes one of the purposes of this site.....to help the thousands of us out here looking for meaningful tibits of information that just might help us in our quest for improving our photography from people accomplished enough and earger enough to spread the wealth of their expertise and experience freely with us...(sorry about the run on sentence, i was a pre-med not a english major .

 

[Michel Hardy-Vallée]

Moderators, please clean up this mess, it seems that some people need a refresher course in logic. That is an utterly stupid turn to what is one of the most useful threads we've had so far to examine methodological assumptions.

 

[jd callow]

I think I got most everything. Sorry folks I thought we had seen the last of these types of discussions.

 

[sanking]

That is, How is the camera, lens and meter taken into account with testing? The Zone System addresses this directly. It looks to me that BTZS is great for paper and film matching, but it doesn't take the hardware into account, other than "testing your materials in the field and fine-tune".

What you say is essentially correct. BTZS matches paper ES to film exposure and development, but it does not concern itself with hardware, other than the issue of lens flare. BTZS testing does, however, give you a real true EFS (effective film speed). It is real and true because each user develops a personal speed point that is calibrated to a film and developer combination known to produce true box speed. From that point you run a test of five films, exposed the same and developed for different times, and when you plot those tests and record the values you know how to expose and develop your film for any SBR of N condition. To derive that amount of information from traditional ZS testing would take you days and days. That is why many people who continue to use ZS metering use BTZS testing methodology.

At that point you have the information necessary to take your equipment into the field and get accurate exposures, assuming that your equipment is within tolerance and you really know how to meter. Most modern equipment is quite accurate and the total accumulated error, even assuming that the lack of tolerances are all in the same direction, should not amount to over about 1/2 stop, which is well within the mar gain of error for exposure of film. If you have an older lens in a shutter of dubious reliability you obviously need to test it with a shutter checker and make allowances for field work. You should also calibrate your meter. The logic in this is that it is much easier to have one set of film exposure and development data that is true, and then adjust for lack of tolerance in specific components of your field system. Some ZS testers make the other case, that each combination of equipment should be tested in the field, but that would become a very onerous undertaking for people who own many different lenses and/or cameras. I think testing the individual components made more sense in the past when most photographers only owned and used two or three lenses, but nowadays many people own as many as 6-10 lenses for every format they use, and many people are working in multiple formats.

Reasonable people can debate the merits of the two methods of testing, but
at least there you have the logic.

Sandy King