As ic-racer said, since you are consistently printing on grade 4 you need to increase your development time by 10% to 15%. Adjust the development time so that the typical print is grade 2 or grade 2.5. Get the printing time for the highlights at grade 2 or 2.5 and then increase the grade to get the dark parts correct. See pages 23 to 34 in Ralph Lambrecht's Way Beyond Monochrome, second edition.
It's probably the situation for the series I've worked on the last two years. ALWAYS inside, and window light... This won't give a full 10-stop brightness range I guess? If I knew back then I would have increased the development time with 15% ...
However, I think I have misunderstood a basic principle. I always read, that if you can print your negative at grade 2... it's a perfect negative.
So it's basically, if your negative holds 10 zones of information, it would print well at grade 2? But, if you have less then then, you just need a higher grade... and that doesn't mean the negative is bad?
I'm not sure what has been written in this earlier, but some thoughts:
Not sure if it is of any help, but good luck!
- Is your enlarger properly setup? If you have variable condensors, if they are wrong they will reduce contrast...
- How is your (enlarger) lens? Very dirty?
- If you are constantly printing on grade 4-5 you are either under developing and/or under exposing
- Development time, I use Moersch ECO 4812 at 1+14, my Adox MCC is wonderful at the recommended development time (180 s)
- All printing problems are not solved by development, some contrast issues can be solved by dodging/burning
It is not unusual to adjust the developing time of your negatives to the subject contrast. Outdoor situations in sunlight might ask for a shorter different development time then soft indoor light, so even when your outdoor negatives might print well on grade 2, the development time for this indoor situation might requier a much longer time - 10 to 15% longer sounds like a good starting point.
Also remember that creating pictures is not about brightness ranges or any other theory but about getting the results we want.
Yes, I do think you've misunderstood.
First, the width of a zone doesn't necessarily equal 1 f-stop when you spot meter a scene.
A window light portrait like your example probably doesn't cover anywhere near 10-stops of luminance, maybe 5 f-stops from black to white, but in Ansel's world there are still actually 11 zones (0 through X). So roughly 5/11th's of an f-stop wide. If you are outside 10 or 11 stops of luminance is very possible so outside 11/11 or 1:1 is very possible.
In Ansel's world a short scale scene (5-stops in this example) suggested expansion (extra film development) to fit the scene onto the paper and get a "perfect negative" for grade 2 paper.
An 11-stop scene in angel's world got less film development so that the longer scale scene would fit on the paper.
In the real world grade 5 paper isn't a sin, don't sweat the exact number if it works it's fine, but it does sound like that for 90% of your work your extra film development would make your life easier.
It is fine to print at whatever grade you please or need. The problem I see is running out of adjustment if you are consistently having to print at grade 5, there's little room for error so some extra film development would be a good choice at least for your window portraits. If I was getting that type of result I'd develop more.So it is okay to print at higher grades? That's what I'm bothered with, maybe I should't care too much about the higher grades and just print like that. About the film developing... yes that could be true, but the series is finished now and I will do individual projects now, so always different lightning.. It's hard to predict how extra development time will come out..
It is fine to print at whatever grade you please or need. The problem I see is running out of adjustment if you are consistently having to print at grade 5, there's little room for error so some extra film development would be a good choice at least for your window portraits. If I was getting that type of result I'd
It's actually not hard to predict how extra development will come out what tougher to predict is what's perfect for a given shot, subject matter and lighting and intent for each shot can vary wildly. But, let's consider a worst case scenario. If you added 25% extra development time for your film and had to print some photos (maybe from outside) at grade 1 and others (your window portraits) at grade 3, would that be such a bad thing? (I don't think so.)
Thank you! I will now first, shoot a roll of HP5 which I shoot the most now, spotmeter everthing and carefully check my exposures and the tonal ranges in the scene and make sure they are higher then 10 stops. Then develop like I normally do, if that fixes the problem, then it's my exposure. If it's still flat, it's probably something else.
Still what I don't understand is. People tell, that the SBR should be 10 stops to print well at grade 5, but only grade 3-7 yield texture. So, if you have a scene that meters perfectly between zone 3 and zone 7 (and developed well) will this print good at grade 2 or will you have to increase contrast?
Actually, capturing a 10 stop SBR which prints at exactly Grade 2 will produce a slightly soft negative and the print would look a bit soft too.
But you can increase print contrast to make it look good. Everyone is going to give you different advice about this.
The methodology I explained to you produces a slightly soft negative but if you place exposure on a zone 7 then printing will be easy. If you place expsoure on grade 3 then you can run into printing problems if your SBR is less than 7 stops.
When I talk about SBR I mean from black to white and not just zone 3 to 7. Other people may mean only zones 3 to 7. You must get them to calrify on that.
Also when you post a single negative/print and say, for example, you had to print at Grade 3 1/2, everyone tells you to increase development. However, take that advice with a pinch of salt because they are specifying what the ideal development would be for a single negative. But your roll of film might have different subjects with different SBRs so no single development time can be perfect for all of them. The advice I gave to you in earlier topic was designed to get all SBRs upto 10 onto neg which will print at G2 but shorter than 10 stop SBR will require greater than G2 to print well.
For ease of printing you want highlight negative densities which are not too low and not too high. Exposing for a highlight, say zone 7 will always give you a good negative density for printing if you have calibrated dev for a 10 stop SBR to just into G2 but may require printing at G3.
Consistent negative densities for highlights makes printing much easier providing the neg density is at the right point on the film curve. If its too thin it makes printing harder. And exposing for shadows will make it hard to print if SBR is low, i.e. less than 7 stops.
The next person will give you different advice because they do it differently. There's a 1001 ways to skin a cat.
And note that Adams zone system trilogy of books were written very much with sheet film processing in mind where exposing for shadows and devloping for highlights works fine. Problem is that it doesn't work fine for roll film.
An ideal subject would be 5 stops from black to white, developed to fit into 1.3log range f negative and printed on G2. But the ideal subject combined with the ideal development is something that can only be achieved in the studio. With roll film you need to use a sensible workaround designed to get everything on neg at sensible and easily printable densities.
Thank you! I will now first, shoot a roll of HP5 which I shoot the most now, spotmeter everthing and carefully check my exposures and the tonal ranges in the scene and make sure they are higher then 10 stops. Then develop like I normally do, if that fixes the problem, then it's my exposure. If it's still flat, it's probably something else.
Wrapping your head around contrast takes thought and practice, it's not an easy subject. Exposure can't fix a contrast problem.
If the shadow detail is on the negative and can be printed on a test strip, then exposure is probably not the problem. Camera exposure controls how much shadow detail is available on the negative.
A significant film underexposure will show as a lack of detail in the shadows on both the negative and the test strip regardless of how hard you try to fix it. Conversely, negative film like HP5 can take a considerable amount of "extra" exposure without harming the printability, you simply adjust the enlarger exposure to place the print tones appropriately on the paper.
If your scene measures only 5 stops it's not exposure that needs to change, it's the contrast. Contrast adjustments control whether 5-stops from the scene or 10-stops from the scene will straight print on a given paper.
You can use a hard paper like grade 5 instead of grade 2 to make that adjustment (as you have been) for the window light scene OR adjust the film development (a little extra in that case) and print at grade 2 or 3 instead.
agreed but if you are using roll film with subjects of different SBRs then you need a strategy/methodolgy that works for all shots on the roll.I think the basic rule about getting contrast correct in the print is to expose the film correctly for the lighting contrast in the original scene and then develop the film in relation to the type of enlarger you are using. Sounds easy, but requires lots of practice.
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