Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2007/03/02
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Except when I am using C41 monochrome film, I don't know if a problem in a negative is due to under/over exposure or under/over development. There are so many factors affecting development (age of chemicals, water quality, agitation) and so many possible E.I. ratings of film, I finally said "Enough!". I am going with three liquid developers with very good shelf lives (Rodinal, Prescysol, and PMK Pyro) and, of those, I favor Prescysol because it uses the same timings for all films and involves very little agitation. If I let a highly controlled development in Prescysol become my "anchor" and use ambient light measurements carefully, then I think I can settle on an E.I. for a few good films that will work well most of the time. I would like to use BW400CN or XP2-Super, but with so few labs down here now, I would have to either drive to the suburbs or mail the film out of town. I'll probably do the latter in Santa Fe. Jeffery Smith New Orleans, LA http://www.400tx.com http://400tx.blogspot.com/ -----Original Message----- From: lug-bounces+jsmith342=cox.net@leica-users.org [mailto:lug-bounces+jsmith342=cox.net@leica-users.org] On Behalf Of Alan Magayne-Roshak Sent: Friday, March 02, 2007 1:18 PM To: lug@leica-users.org Subject: [Leica] Exposure and Development On Thu, 1 Mar 2007 Jeffery Smith wrote: >I made a rather sobering discovery a few weeks ago. I was using a Nikon >RF which, of course, has no meter. So I used a Gossen digital light >meter and used ambient readings rather than reflective readings. The >exposure in most of the frames was right on the money, much better than >my usual TTL reflected light frames. This made me want to use a >handheld meter and blow off the in-camera meter. >======================================================================= >======== Mike Tatum of Honeywell used to give a talk on quality in exposure and development. He said the incident meter was best for exposure consistency. For part of his presentation, he showed 20 prints made from 20 frames on the same roll of 35mm film, shot under various lighting and contrast conditions, metered with an incident meter, and printed at the same enlarger settings. They all were good. I think this might be where I first heard the advice to set an incident meter to one-half the ASA rating for B&W, to get more shadow detail. I bought a Sekonic Studio Deluxe the day after attending the lecture, and never regretted it. Most of my Kodachrome shooting was metered with this, and it was so accurate that I never bracketed. All my outdoor slides were with a polarizer, too, and I found that the 3.5x exposure compensation was right on. Now, with digital, I still like using an incident meter. About 90% of the time I have the 1D or 1Ds set on manual. Alan Alan Magayne-Roshak Senior Photographer Photo Services Univ. of Wis.- Milwaukee Information & Media Technologies amr3@uwm.edu (414)229-6525 http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/Alan+Magayne-Roshak/ _______________________________________________ Leica Users Group. See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information