What is film latitude?

I think of lattitude like dynamic range. It is inversly proportional to development time. Squeeze 12 f-stops into a density range of 1.3 by developing for 10 minutes or spread 5 f-stops over a density range of 1.3 by developing for 30 minutes. All other things being equal. it kind of works like that. Except that certain films expand or contract better than others. I find that FP4 can give me more contrast than TRI-X and TRI-X can accomodate greater range eaiser than FP4. It might be a general characteristic of film speed. It seems common for normal speed films (100) to give greater contrast when manipulated and for faster films to be less contrasty on demand.

IMO Helen is right,the word latitude is used in two different ways.If this is inconvenient,the larger of the two could be called by the other term sometimes used for it,dynamic range.

Alan Johnson said:

IMO Helen is right,the word latitude is used in two different ways.If this is inconvenient,the larger of the two could be called by the other term sometimes used for it,dynamic range.

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The word latitude is used in different ways. It will depend on the physical properties the lens, film/developer etc. Because different people have different approaches, they will experience the subject differently. To give an example: Hans Windisch made a photograph of an burning incandescent lamp in front of the print in a newspaper. One can read the letters! What about the latitude in this case?
Because of so many 'latitudes', (within two main streams), it is difficult to discuss this subject withouth confusion. This does not mean that one cannot handle the subject in a specific situation.

Jed