Overexpose and Underdevelop?

Firstly, grey cards are not as accurate as your meter.
Secondly, depending on exactly how you use your minolta spot meter, you will have varying results. If you point it at the brightest part of the subject and use the highlight button, that will give you a reading of 2.3 stops brighter than exposing that highlight on the actual metered value. If you point it at the darkest part of the scene and use the shadow button, that will give you a reading of 2.7 stops less exposure than the actual value. Neither of these will be correct unless by chance. If you use the average function with with the highlight/shadow buttons then that will give the average between the two points which again won't be right unless by chance.

Your instructor was wrong. The zone system is as good if not better than other systems for very accurate metering and you have the meter to do it.
The highlight/shadow functions on the minolta are ideally suited to slide film which only has a scale of 5 stops. For B+W I would recommend you use zone system metering. Pick a shadow area in which you want full textural detail and meter from that area. That will be a zone 3. Then adjust metered reading by closing down 2 stops (see note below) and expose at that adjusted reading.

Note: As I explained in my earlier post, how much you close down to place something on zone 3 is dependant on what you have calibrated your film development to. i.e. a 10 stop range or a 7 stop range or some other range. In your case you seem to be using Ilfords figures for dev so I reckon your development will be calibrated more towards a 7 stop range. Therefore close down 2 x .7 stops = 1.4 stops or 1.5 which is closest doable exposure. You would close down 2 stops if you were sure your film was calibrated for a 10 stop range.
Forget about the highlights for now and just try this technique. The highlights will still be captured on film. You really need to do the print tests to determine exact film dev time.

And by using the zone system to place shadows with full textural detail on zone 3, you ensure that your shadows are never blocked up. Most modern films have a plenty long enough scale to capture the highlights regardless.

Thanks Rob, I will try that out.

Just to add in the hope it makes it clearer what I think is happening:

I don't how you metered the first of those two images you posted but taking the first one of them, the washing machine, I'll assume you metered the darkest shadow area and then pressed the shadow button on your minolta.

The darkest part is the skirting board on the bottom left of the image. Now if you had wanted to just retain full textural detail in that area, then using zone system placement, you should have placed it on zone 3. That would mean metering it and then closing down 2 stops from the metered value. Your minolta shadow function automatically gives the metered value minus 2.7 stops. Almost a whole stop less than it should have been for a zone 3 placement. If you wanted it on zone 2 (faint detail), then it would have been almost correct.
However, because you are using standard dev times I beleive you are working on a 7 stop range which means each zone is only .7 of a stop and not 1 stop. Therefore you should only have closed down 1.4 stops (2 zones lower than metered) and because your meter shadow function has automatically given 2.7 stops less exposure, you have given 4 zones less than metered (4 x .7 = 2.8 stops). The result is that the skirting board is placed on zone 1 and not zone 3. Thats 2 stops too little exposure which is why it has turned out black and the rest of the shadow values are very dark with little separation.

I hope that illustrates why you have to be careful of how you use your spot meter functions and that what you pick to meter is very important. But again, the only way to calibrate accurately is to do an actual print test to prove a zone 1 and zone 9 negative print as they should.

On the other hand, if you always intend to scan, then you have so much Dmax lattitude in the scanner that scanning and retaining full detail from the neg should not be a problem. Then you only have to worrying about giving enough exposure to get detail in the shadows and exposing for zone 3 will do that.

Real scan problems start with slide film which has a much higher dmax than negative film and usually hits the limits of the scanners capabilities.

And I forgot to add that, as someone else mentioned, reciprocity would have pushed the skirting board even lower which is why it is completely black.

I just got out of the darkroom with a half dozen film packs from a walk through the woods. It was mid day and the scene contrast was at least 12 stops from shadow detail to highlights. I did the first half in pyrocat-pc with a 30 min semi stand and some of the negatives have a density range that is quite unruly - not working on grade 2 and muddy on VC grade 1 or 0. So I thought I would try split D23 on the other half due to its compensating action. The new negatives are slightly better - not fantastically better. There is a thing I observe with ultra contrasty scenes; If you try to get all the highlights and shadows to print - it will look flat. Many of AA's prints that he pulled to get a handle on scene contrast look flat to me. I guess for me the bottom line is that I would rather have very contrasty prints that may have some highlight blow out and some difficult shadows than have the whole print seem flat just to get both ends on the paper. I much prefer making prints from scenes that are flat and pushing them to make them contrasty. The results always seem better. Hence - magic hour - that first and last hour of the day when contrast can be managed.

I agree. All these magic bullet chemical formulas may be great at compressing scene contrast to fit the film so that it fits the paper, but that doesn't mean anything in terms of aesthetic look of the print and as you say, it usually compresses areas of the subject which specifically don't want compressing because they look lifeless if you do. There are occasions where these magic bullet developers are useful where you are forced to make images from difficult subjects but pre editing your images by careful subject selection and choice of lighting conditions is a much better way of going about things if you want consistently high quality images. i.e. know what will work well and look for it.

fhovie said:

It was mid day and the scene contrast was at least 12 stops from shadow detail to highlights. .

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In many ways Semi-stand dev. is a magic bullet, but make no mistake there is a reason books are titled "Quiet Light"

Generally, such wide range scenes are two separable scenes because the range of reflectivity of natural materials is no greater than that of high quality photo paper. The illumination variation from one area to another is no problem for the eye because we only see a very small area at any look point and the near instantaneous adaptability of the eye tends to dodge and burn automatically. Clouds are another matter because they can be like a frosted light bulb. I seriously doubt that Adams made very many prints of wide range scenes without dodging. Now if we wanted to go dxxxxxl, we could have an automatic dodger built into the recording device.

gainer said:

Generally, such wide range scenes are two separable scenes because the range of reflectivity of natural materials is no greater than that of high quality photo paper. The illumination variation from one area to another is no problem for the eye because we only see a very small area at any look point and the near instantaneous adaptability of the eye tends to dodge and burn automatically. Clouds are another matter because they can be like a frosted light bulb. I seriously doubt that Adams made very many prints of wide range scenes without dodging. Now if we wanted to go dxxxxxl, we could have an automatic dodger built into the recording device.

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Fuji do.

There is an alternative - alternative processing - here is a print from a negative that was too contrasty on grade 2 but on cyanotype it is pretty good:
Fp4 Pyrocat PC semi stand 30min


this one was developed in D23 split and was fp4 sucking up 12 stops

Kevin Kehler said:

A question regarding exposures and developing, which while stemming from the Zone System, is not meant to mean that I am using that system. I recently borrowed several books from the library and have done some research on-line about negative development; a common suggestion is to overexpose to allow for shadow detail and then under-develop to save highlights. This should increase contrast and allow better prints; I also realize that all shots on a role of film would have to be exposed/developed the same amounts. My question is how to calculate these types of scenarios.

I am using a Minolta Spotmeter (digital) so I am able to have very accurate measurements and can have 1/3 or 1/2 steps in ISO (i.e., I usually expose Velvia 50 at 40 as I like the colour and highlights better but I don't develop E-6 myself). I like using PanF, which is a 50 ISO, and then exposing at 25 ISO so there is an over-exposure already; however, looking at the development times (1:1 Perceptol), there is a 4:30 difference between 25 and 50 (I have been following recommended development times so far). HP5+ has a 3 minute difference in ID-11 between 400 and 800 ISO.

So, how does one decide how long to leave the roll in the developer?
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I understand that Ansel Adams learned to observe the development of the negative by eye and then dumped it into the stop bath when the density was "just right." Of course, he was developing large negs in a tray...

I used this procedure all the time back when I was shooting b&w many years ago. I overexposed and underdeveloped the negs then selenium toned them to increase contrast enough to print properly on Grade 3 Ilford Gallery. I then selenium toned the prints. I liked the results. This does precisely what you've read it does... opens the shadows while retaining the highlights.