Using an external meter by choice

[wiltw]

Well, I moved up to American cheese, However, I understand that foreigners don't even consider that real cheese either.

American cheese was formulated simply to melt well over a hamburger patty...the pre-formed version of cheese spread in a tube. American cheese is a product made by blending real cheese with texture- and flavor-altering ingredients, using a process actually invented in Switzerland, and perfected by Kraft.

 

[MattKing]

Well, I moved up to American cheese, However, I understand that foreigners don't even consider that real cheese either.

I expect that a large number of non-foreigners don't either.
Somehow Alan, I don't think you are the target market for one of my favourite local stores, Les Amis du Fromage:
https://www.buycheese.com/collections/individual-cheeses

 

[wiltw]

I expect that a large number of non-foreigners don't either.
Somehow Alan, I don't think you are the target market for one of my favourite local stores, Les Amis du Fromage:
https://www.buycheese.com/collections/individual-cheeses

I once warned a German colleague about American yellow mustard. He foolishly decided to try a bit, and immediately made a pained look on his face, before grabbing the brown mustard.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

I once warned a German colleague about American yellow mustard. He foolishly decided to try a bit, and immediately made a pained look on his face, before grabbing the brown mustard.

The only thing worse than putting yellow mustard on a frank, is putting ketchup on it.

 

[Sirius Glass]

American cheese was formulated simply to melt well over a hamburger patty...the pre-formed version of cheese spread in a tube. American cheese is a product made by blending real cheese with texture- and flavor-altering ingredients, using a process actually invented in Switzerland, and perfected by Kraft.

Indigestibly delicious(?)

 

[Mick Fagan]

I expect that a large number of non-foreigners don't either.
Somehow Alan, I don't think you are the target market for one of my favourite local stores, Les Amis du Fromage:
https://www.buycheese.com/collections/individual-cheeses

Matt, that looks like a heavenly place to purchase some great cheeses of the world, especially French and Swiss. We have some shops near our place that have a similar array, the aroma when entering the store is unbelievably nice.

In southern Germany where my wife comes from the Schabziger cheese is available and is served with spätzle which is a speciality dish of the Schwabian area my wife comes from. Below is some text taken directly from the site you gave us a link to. Yep, it has a distinct pungent aroma.

The texture is a bit like a hard ricotta, and the aroma is uniquely pungent. It’s generally not eaten on it’s own, but used in cooking instead, where it is grated over potatoes, spätzle

 

[abruzzi]

velveeta has one, and only one purpose in the universe--microwave chili con queso. Real queso is better, but velveeta melts smoothly in a microwave, then dump in a lot of very hot green chili, and you'll barely notice the cheese flavor over the 2nd degree burns inside your mouth.

And Velveeta isn't the biggest affront to cheese, cheeze whiz is. How people like that stuff on cheese steaks, I'll never understand.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Nor do I consider it real cheese. I'm not sure what "American cheese" actually is, except that it's not cheese itself. Maybe a blend of mayonnaise and recycled orange hair gel. I dunno. Toxic waste? - unquestionably. Anything made by Kraft is. Might make a decent lensboard material when stale.

Cheez Whiz might come in handy for permanently filling and repairing a flat tire. Tastes and smells worse than a baked tire, however.

 

[Alan Gales]

My stepson living in Chicago once dated a girl from Wisconsin. If you said American cheese she would say that it may be American but it sure ain't cheese!

 

[BrianShaw]

You could probably process film or paper in a Velvet-a solution!

 

[MattKing]

Anyone want to try to bring this thread back on topic?
(he posts, after being as big an offender as anyone in the off-topic thread posts category).

 

[Bill Burk]

Comparing multiple meters is very different than doing comprehensive ZS testing. I am not a masochist.

Traditional Zone System tests can take a lot of film and could/should be done at least once for the experience. Afterwards if one finds it enjoyable all the more power to them.
But it only takes 5 sheets for a full family of curves and an occasional control sheet now and then to keep in touch with your process consistency.

 

[wiltw]

Traditional Zone System tests can take a lot of film and could/should be done at least once for the experience. Afterwards if one finds it enjoyable all the more power to them.
But it only takes 5 sheets for a full family of curves and an occasional control sheet now and then to keep in touch with your process consistency.

5 sheets is a whole lot less masochistic than 105 sheets, which the other poster did in order to understand different developers. OTOH it is presumptuous, IMHO, to think the one developer you chose is 'the best' for ZS results, isn't it?!

Besides the only 4x5 sheetfilm that I ever shot professionally was color transparency, for commercial shots, where the client never wanted B&W. So I had no need for ZS exposure plus film processing methodology.

 

[Bill Burk]

5 sheets is a whole lot less masochistic than 105 sheets, which the other poster did in order to understand different developers. OTOH it is presumptuous, IMHO, to think the one developer you chose is 'the best' for ZS results, isn't it?!

5 is the usual and Stouffer scale makes quick work of it.

I would do a whole family for each interesting developer I planned to use. For example if I wanted to use pyro or Rodinal going forward. But I might just do one test if I wanted immediate results from a one-off developer like D96 for Double-X. Graphs are out there that can give me “time/contrast” in case I feel lazy

 

[Craig]

5 sheets is a whole lot less masochistic than 105 sheets, which the other poster did in order to understand different developers. OTOH it is presumptuous, IMHO, to think the one developer you chose is 'the best' for ZS results, isn't it?!

You misunderstood. I did 105 exposures, 21 per sheet (i.e. contact printing a step wedge that had 21 panels), for a total of 5 sheets of 4x5 film. There are 105 density measurements per film/developer combo that need to be made. You need that per film and developer combo you wish to test.

So for example if you wished to test HP5 with Xtol and ID-11 you would need to run 5 sheets of HP5/Xtol and another 5 sheets of HP5/ID-11. That would be 105+105 density measurements, for a total of 210 density measurements spread over 10 sheets of film.

It isn't about determining what is "best", it's about understanding how a chosen film/developer combo behaves and how to obtain predictable results. The whole goal is to be able to capture the desired range of shadow and highlights to obtain a printable negative, and be able to expose and develop accordingly. The starting point developing recommendations on the film box may not yield the results you want, or you might want to use a developer not on the data sheet. By doing this testing you can find the optimum ISO and developing time.

 

[wiltw]

You misunderstood. I did 105 exposures, 21 per sheet (i.e. contact printing a step wedge that had 21 panels), for a total of 5 sheets of 4x5 film. There are 105 density measurements per film/developer combo that need to be made. You need that per film and developer combo you wish to test.

So for example if you wished to test HP5 with Xtol and ID-11 you would need to run 5 sheets of HP5/Xtol and another 5 sheets of HP5/ID-11. That would be 105+105 density measurements, for a total of 210 density measurements spread over 10 sheets of film.

It isn't about determining what is "best", it's about understanding how a chosen film/developer combo behaves and how to obtain predictable results. The whole goal is to be able to capture the desired range of shadow and highlights to obtain a printable negative, and be able to expose and develop accordingly. The starting point developing recommendations on the film box may not yield the results you want, or you might want to use a developer not on the data sheet. By doing this testing you can find the optimum ISO and developing time.

Thanks for clarifying what you did...the idea of 105 sheets of film was too painful!

 

[drmoss_ca]

Well, I honesty miss the former trio of Astia / Provia / Velvia, which covered a better span of potential chrome contrast issues than any single product can. But what I don't miss is that miserable decade when nearly all chrome sheet films from both Fuji and Kodak were on miserable floppy, dimensionally-unstable triacetate base instead of superior polyester stock. That is still the case with Provia.

So yeah, maybe Velveeta, the floppy cheese substitute, was named after the floppy version of Velvia, instead of the other way around.

I'm having difficulty getting the Velveeta slices into the 4x5 holders - what am I missing?

I know, a brain!

 

[Paul Howell]

It isn't about determining what is "best", it's about understanding how a chosen film/developer combo behaves and how to obtain predictable results. The whole goal is to be able to capture the desired range of shadow and highlights to obtain a printable negative, and be able to expose and develop accordingly.

No, I respectfully disagree, its about learning to see, Adams called it visualization, what White called previsualization, when I attended Minor White seminar we spent 2 full days learning to see or previsualize a scene before we tested film. The goal is to capture the visualized shadow by exposing for the visualized shadows and developing to obtain the visualized highlight and anticipating how a visualized highlight will affect all the tones of the print. I don't believe that the zone system or beyond the zone systems are necessary to obtain a printable negative.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

It isn't about determining what is "best", it's about understanding how a chosen film/developer combo behaves and how to obtain predictable results. The whole goal is to be able to capture the desired range of shadow and highlights to obtain a printable negative, and be able to expose and develop accordingly.

No, I respectfully disagree, its about learning to see, Adams called it visualization, what White called previsualization, when I attended Minor White seminar we spent 2 full days learning to see or previsualize a scene before we tested film. The goal is to capture the visualized shadow by exposing for the visualized shadows and developing to obtain the visualized highlight and anticipating how a visualized highlight will affect all the tones of the print. I don't believe that the zone system or beyond the zone systems are necessary to obtain a printable negative.

Paul, I'm impressed you met with these people and took a course with them. The way you describe (pre)-visualization, is that it has to do with tones, highlights and shadows in getting a nice print. What about composition and content. How did your teachers address (pre)visualizing these things which to me seem of first priority?

 

[MattKing]

Visualization incorporates composition and content - it is the process where you visualize how to translate that which is in front of you into something else that will also be in front of you - a print, projected transparency or backlit screen - which is itself a two dimensional representation of the original (usually) 3 dimensional subject.

 

[Paul Howell]

Paul, I'm impressed you met with these people and took a course with them. The way you describe (pre)-visualization, is that it has to do with tones, highlights and shadows in getting a nice print. What about composition and content. How did your teachers address (pre)visualizing these things which to me seem of first priority?

Although I did not the AA's seminar, as I understand it, both he and Minor White used black card cut outs periportal to 4X5 to learn to see and compose our visualization before we pulled out our cameras. AA also used very dark filters that when used very briefly provided sense of how the scene will look in black and white. The only reason I was able to attend was that my college had a grant. At the time LaVern College had a minor in photojournalism, but not offer a degree in photography, the minor was a companion to a degree in journalism. I was an antro major. I was picked because I was the only student with a 4X5, a Speedgraphic, needless to say Minor White was not impressed.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Although I did not the AA's seminar, as I understand it, both he and Minor White used black card cut outs periportal to 4X5 to learn to see and compose our visualization before we pulled out our cameras. AA also used very dark filters that when used very briefly provided sense of how the scene will look in black and white. The only reason I was able to attend was that my college had a grant. At the time LaVern College had a minor in photojournalism, but not offer a degree in photography, the minor was a companion to a degree in journalism. I was an antro major. I was picked because I was the only student with a 4X5, a Speedgraphic, needless to say Minor White was not impressed.

Thanks for that. I'm using my digital camera to scope out the shot and composition first also using it's zoom to determine the lens. I switch it to display BW. I have one of those f/64 viewers with the dark filter. But the digital camera is better. I'm not sure if that could be considered visualization. But it's very helpful getting the shot set up.

 

[Craig]

I The goal is to capture the visualized shadow by exposing for the visualized shadows and developing to obtain the visualized highlight

How would you do that if you don't know what the film and developer combo is capable of? If you don't know what the contrast index of the film/developer is, or how many stops of brightness it can capture, how can you expose for the" visualized shadows" and not get blank film instead? How do you know how much exposure to give the film to accurately produce what you visualized without knowing the properties of the film?

I see visualization of an image and BTZS testing to determine the film/devloper properties as complementary things, not an either/or.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Gut instinct works way better for me than "visualization" or "pre-visualization", which I suspect was more an just ideological mantra for AA himself than anything he could afford to waste time on when a tempting shot suddenly appeared in fleeting light. You either get to the point of doing all this spontaneously or you aren't going to succeed very often. The point is to arrive at a VERSATILE ENOUGH negative, after exposure and development, that will fit into a reasonable range of printing options afterwards. If you need the Zone System in lieu of some other religion, so be it. But I think much of that gets over-sold.

That being said, any great pianist does practice a lot of chords before arriving at that skill level. But gosh, unless you have a real itch for mere technicalities, don't overthink all this. There is simply no substitute for shooting, printing, figuring out what you do or don't like about the result, and going from there, one step at a time. Otherwise, too much theory loaded up front is just going to over-complicate and slow you down. You don't even know what to "previsualize" for unless you've already been on the road awhile.

 

[Paul Howell]

Although I attended the Minor White workshop, I was trained as a PJ, college and Air Force, worked for the wires and freelanced newspaper work, never bothered really to test or measure 35mm, shoot a roll, bracket, decide the ASA, ISO, and go on assignment. On occasion I do shoot Zone, I've tested my film with a ring around, and attempt to visualize, it seems to work for me, not in my nature to work and think about at scene as much as the great zone practitioners.