The Devil came home with me today (several) Mortensen Books)

Pic is not meant to be good, just to illustrate the technical point that exposing at higher ISO and developing to gamma infinity increases the separation between the highlights and the midtones.
In (limited) circumstances this may have photographic potential.

cowanw,

My interest in exploring Mortensen's work is not to discredit him. I have long been interested in following the footsteps of pioneers. Whether I like him or not, he was a pioneer. I didn't plan to pick up his trail, but I enjoyed a windfall and I am going to take the opportunity. While I think a lot of what I read in Mortensen's books is absurd, I can see the mechanics of his approach. I can make experiment steps that I think will simulate his outcome, but I will maintain normal controls. I am happy that I tested TMAX 100 to gamma infinity. I never thought I would have a practical reason to use that much development, I just wanted a complete test family. Now, amazingly, I have found an excuse to use these tested development times.

Mortensen would have you toss your light meter, thermometer and timer. But I'll use all three instruments (precise light metering, time and temperature development) to hopefully get similar results.

Alan Johnson,

I like your examples, they are what I would expect from gamma infinity development. It looks like you could set your light meter at EI 3200 for Tri-X and use your meter "the usual way"...

cowanw,

Instead of rating my 100 speed film at 800 (if 400 is 3200 based on Alan Johnson's Tri-X findings then 100 would be 800), I would work from graphs. I would set my meter to 200 film speed because that what my graphs show. Then I would take spotmeter readings. I would try to estimate where my spotmeter reading points would fall on my graphs. Since we're doing gamma infinity development, I would try to keep the bright areas from being greater than 1.10 density on the final negative.

There is a very good chance that when I set my meter at 200 and use it the way I describe... the meter might calculate exactly the same f/stop and shutter speed combinations that you would get on your meter set at 800 and used "the usual way". I'm just doing a little more work to match the light meter reading to the point on the film that I think will be important to hold in this scenario. (Instead of taking the "pushed speed" and just using it).

I wonder what N+max would have actually meant at the time. Since this was combined with development by inspection, perhaps we can assume in fact there was a development that Mortensen aspired to that was actually not, completely, gamma infinity. He seems to really mean “the fullest development that it is possible to secure without the intervention of chemical fog”
Perhaps there is a point that development is complete.
Robert Balcomb writes " after proper agitation during the time for full development, say five minutes, film can be left in the developer for up to two hours (or until developer exhaustion fogs it) without any problems... [using Dectol] After five minutes with agitation I have tried what Mortensen said, "Then go to lunch."
With proper exposure at five-minute developing, all developing possible has been done; from then on, up until chemical breakdown occurs to stain film, nothing happens. I have left film in developer for one-to-two hours and couldn't tell the difference from five-minute negatives. Mortensen taught me this trick; of course, I use it only to prove to doubters that it's true.

cowanw said:

He seems to really mean “the fullest development that it is possible to secure without the intervention of chemical fog”.

Click to expand...

Gamma infinity is a bit of a misnomer. That is what it means - development as far as it is possible. Not literally to a 90-degree vertical line.

'Development to finality' as they called it was discussed by correspondents to Amateur Photographer magazine in 1952.
Here is an extract:
"..the correct development time is that which stops just short of the point where fog begins."
"..Cut exposure to the point where, even with full development, the highlights are not blocked..."
"..Expose exactly for the highest highlight in which you want tone in your print."
"..You must confine your efforts to subjects which by all ordinary standards unacceptably flat...
take close-up readings with an exposure meter of highlights and shadows,and if the contrast exceeds 8:1...put your camera away."
" Anyone who wishes to experiment with this technique and does not digest Mortensen's 'Pictorial Lighting' is greatly handicapped"...
Yours,etc.,S.L.(Lt.- Col.)

was mortenson making contact prints or enlargements? it makes a difference because
contact prints can easily be made with dense film ( what i think of when i think of his negatives ) enlargements would be rather long. while i can see some folks thinking his methods are nothing but hogwash ... i have had film dense, too dense to see through, and i contact printed them ..
they were the fullest prints i have ever printed. tonally as well as details.
so while i dont know much about what he writes about, i can see the use of a rich. beefy, dense negative.

He was making enlargements using "The New Projection Control".

But although he developed to gamma infinity he was not making dense negatives. He exposed to make the light areas fall at the right density for enlarging, and with flat lighting he ensured that the light areas made up the best part of the negative. Many people on APUG talk about "local contrast".

Mortensen was getting negatives with good local contrast in the lightest areas.

In going through a pile of old magazines that I have acquired, I came across, in Darkroom Photography May/June 1985, the Englander system of exposure. Based neither on the extremes of textured shadows or delicate highlights, but rather anchored in the medium world of middle grey. Keeping the midtones stable while a bringing in or stretching out either extreme end would appeal to the moderateness of many Canadians, but it does not seem to have caught on.
Interestingly Joe Englander is still active
http://www.joeenglander.com/joe.php
Any way if you think about it, anchoring or hinging your system at the end or the middle really is immaterial, depending , I suppose, on the most important zone in your own vision (or your personal ability to understand the whole business)

cowanw said:

Bill
Thanks for your thoughts. It made me laugh a little cause I thought that "a plan that will lead to frustration more often than good photographs" was a pretty good description of my experience with trying out the Zone system testing.
I had a second thought, but with no data whatsoever; did the materials of 1930 give different results as to what we might predict with today's films and yesterdays techniques.
Regards
Bill

Click to expand...

To answer your question, yes the materials were significantly different. To name a couple, orthochromatic films were more prevalent than panchromatic ones, and printing papers were significantly different in their chemical structure. Most of the papers contained no brighteners like they do today. If one sees fine prints from the 30's and 40's and before, they will likely remark that the whites are not bright, and/or the prints are flat. My belief is that digital images which are mostly very short in scale are contributing to this also.

I grew up reading the popular photo magazines of that era and the "conversations" between Adams and Mortensen. The biggest difference between them was that Mortensen believed in alteration of the negative using physical means and Adams believed in altering them with chemistry and light. Mortensen was an artist who took up photography, Adams was an accomplished pianist who did so.

If one analyzes the two approaches carefully they will likely find that they are saying basically the same thing, but approaching from different ends of the field. For instance, both suggested reducing exposure and increasing development for flat subjects in flat lighting. This is not saying "under-expose" and "Over-develop" it is saying give the appropriate exposure and development for the subject and lighting.

My library contains a copy of every book by Mortensen and probably 90% of those by Adams. Both sets are important enough to me that I still refer to them after more than 70 years studying, practicing and teaching photography. I continue to learn from both.

cowanw said:

In going through a pile of old magazines that I have acquired, I came across, in Darkroom Photography May/June 1985, the Englander system of exposure. Based neither on the extremes of textured shadows or delicate highlights, but rather anchored in the medium world of middle grey.

Click to expand...

And certainly that's one reason some folks like incident light meter, as it takes away the judgement of whether a tone is in any particular zone, and simply relies on the one middle tone -- as a starting point, at least, from which you can conciously move in one direction or another.

Re: Mortensen, I've read several of his books, and while he does show some non-studio photographs, my impression is that most of his work was under hot lights, which he could control to whatever precision he desired. I'm less certain about the use of his system in constantly changing natural light, though maybe if I lived where it was almost always overcast and hence lower in contrast...

"Pictorial Lighting" was published in 1935 and Mortensen's development method may not have seemed unusual at that time, when Hollywood was to the fore, though his lighting technique was different.
From "Hollywood Portraits" by Hicks and Nisperos:
p9:"In the 1920s and 1930s films and plates were often underexposed and overdeveloped by modern standards, resulting in thin, contrasty negatives"
p8:"...after the war 4x5,roll film and 35mm came in to much wider use. As a result ,the classic look was all but lost".

The Model is one of my favorite books... Part of the time while reading it I was laughing - other parts of the time I was amazed....

A Danish photographer has taken all his books - updated them with new images and so on (I have images in it...) - and made one huge book out of it. It is now used as a teaching book...

Unfortunately only in Danish as we speak...