generalized exposure discussion

BrianShaw said:

Almost always box speed and a meter - I must not be a very good photographer. Ha ha ha

Click to expand...

hi brian

i'd use box speed too, but
when i do work for clients
it is most always contact printed on AZO
which requires a denser negative.
my own stuff, well, 99.99999% of
the film i use is years past its expiration date
so i way-over expose it to assure i have a latent image
i am guessing if i exposed at box speed sometimes it wouldn't even
record an image ( currently exposing royal pan which from what
mr google tells me is high iso like 1250 high originally, but it is
probably 40+ years old so i expose at like iso 12 )

Hey John. A few years ago I gave away a bunch of old Royal Pan sheet film. Read more. I found out that there is the ultra high speed film using that name and there was another that is like 400 ASA. Mine was the 400 ASA... or at least it was when it was fresh.

I get my best results at box speed using sunny 16.

BrianShaw said:

Hey John. A few years ago I gave away a bunch of old Royal Pan sheet film. Read more. I found out that there is the ultra high speed film using that name and there was another that is like 400 ASA. Mine was the 400 ASA... or at least it was when it was fresh.

Click to expand...

I used Kodak Royal Pan for a while -- it just happened to be the 4x5 400 ASA film the local camera store carried in 1979. Kodak Royal-X Pan was the 1250 ASA film. I never used that...tho I do not know if it was available in sheets.

When I first started using a 4x5 and photographing under the redwoods I used a LunaPro. I would make an exposure at the one meter reading I would take, and another exposure at one stop more light. Always printed the one with the 'extra' stop, so I set my meter at 1/2 the box speed. I did not understand reciprocity failure at the the time and was compensating more for that (unknowingly) than for the film speed. Shutter speeds were (and still are) usually from 1 second to one hour, with most closer to a few minutes.

A bit better these days...it is nice having a spot meter, some understanding of the Zone System and how it applies to looking at the light...and a few decades of printing.

BrianShaw said:

Hey John. A few years ago I gave away a bunch of old Royal Pan sheet film. Read more. I found out that there is the ultra high speed film using that name and there was another that is like 400 ASA. Mine was the 400 ASA... or at least it was when it was fresh.

Click to expand...

oops !

i might be under exposing my film then, i was figuring it was the speedy-stuff.
thanks for the information brian ! i'll have ot actually look at the box
and google more information thanjust the name.
i'm thinking of developing by inspection anyways, after i do my usual
4-5 mins in dektol, 5 mins in Dsumatranol, if it looks like i need more i will dunk it back in the dektol

-john

What I have found over the years is that if my tested film speed varies by a whole lot from the " box" speed, something in my process is wrong.

I just set my camera to full auto. It knows what to do.

David Brown said:

I just set my camera to full auto. It knows what to do.

Click to expand...

But does it know what you want it to do?

cliveh said:

But does it know what you want it to do?

Click to expand...

If one is shooting negatives, one could ask "does it really matter?"

As I load my Holga.

cliveh said:

But does it know what you want it to do?

Click to expand...

hi clive

sometimes if the camera does the exposure control ( even if it is a box camera / something lo tech )
it allows the photographer to spend time composing and worrying about what is in front of the camera ...
as long as there is enough light that isn't a problem, if there isn't enough light, then, well ... all bets might be off ..

john

jnanian said:

hi clive

sometimes if the camera does the exposure control ( even if it is a box camera / something lo tech )
it allows the photographer to spend time composing and worrying about what is in front of the camera ...
as long as there is enough light that isn't a problem, if there isn't enough light, then, well ... all bets might be off ..

john

Click to expand...

Aah, but what if there's too much light?

Rick A said:

Aah, but what if there's too much light?

Click to expand...

Two things actually.

1)
Negatives require a second exposure to be made to create a positive. One of the pleasures of negatives is that there is always the opportunity to adjust where the subject matter landed on the negative to where we wanted the subject matter to land on the paper after the fact.

Negatives are an "intermediate medium" and while many people do shoot to get the exact exposure they "need', that need is driven by their own expectations; to suit their personal standards.

2)
Even with fixed exposure-setting-cameras, we are not without control. We get to choose the film we put in the camera.

...

For most of photography's history timing exposure was quite crude, still and yet Weston, Jim Galli, and countless others have proved that great prints can be made from film exposures that were timed using hats, lens caps, and dark slides as shutters. Many memorable shots were also lit in a supplemental manner with flash powder which is shall we say slightly less accurate in providing light than a Nikon SB-900. I would be willing to bet that in both types of those cases, more than a few had significantly more exposure than needed but still produced good prints.

The ability to deal with extra light is natural for negatives.

Rick A said:

Aah, but what if there's too much light?

Click to expand...

hi rick

i don't think there is any such thing as too much light.

john

BrianShaw said:

Hey John. A few years ago I gave away a bunch of old Royal Pan sheet film. Read more. I found out that there is the ultra high speed film using that name and there was another that is like 400 ASA. Mine was the 400 ASA... or at least it was when it was fresh.

Click to expand...

hi brian

i looked at the data sheet as i putzed around the darkroom yesterday ( and brought a bag of film down to process )
it said 1250 .. you had me worried for a second there, i thought i was going to have
to over develop the sheets by like 45 mins to get the same terrible affect from over exposing it
by 7 stops

john