Ken, any way you could post it on Zone-10?
Charlie
On Mon, Feb 22, 2010 at 10:54 AM, Ken Norton <ken@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Read no further if discussing film bothers you...
>
> I spent the better part of the weekend buried in the darkroom printing
> zillions of 11x14s for a customer. Talk about grunt work... (digital is
> "easier"). Anyway, I was about to clean up when I had the hairbrain idea
> to
> print ONE picture for myself. On a contact sheet there was this one picture
> that just stood out from the rest and it was nearly the same exposure as
> something I had been working on.
>
> So I decided to make this a one-print affair and not do any test strips. I
> was split-grade printing and knew that my Grade 00 was close but the Grade
> 5
> needed a little oomph, so, using the settings from the last four pictures,
> I
> just boosted Grade 5 by 1/4 a stop and exposed the print.
>
> The picture was of the lowering sun reflecting off a pond with the distant
> trees reflecting too. In the foreground is a huge broken treebranch
> sticking
> down in the water. Obviously, the trees are blackened out. I shot the
> picture with the 35-80 on the OM-3Ti. Film used was Fuji 100SS B&W. If you
> stick your nose into the print you can barely make out texture of the
> grain,
> but not the grain itself. The branch is brutally sharp, but the bokeh of
> the
> distant trees and sun are downright lovely. I probably shot at around F5.6
> with the shutter speed about maxed out.
>
> If I reprint this shot I may change my Grade 00 exposure to Grade 1 to get
> a
> touch more gradient in the higher tones, but otherwise I can frame it and
> sell it as-is. The curves of the Fuji 100SS film seem to be a good match to
> the Adox MCC 110 paper, whereas I do have to work PanF a bit. But they both
> benefit from a healthy dose of split-grade printing.
>
> It's not often when you can just eyeball a negative and nail it in one
> print, but it just worked this time. I have two dust specs to spot, but
> otherwise it's done.
>
> Because of how the sun is in the shot, I'm not sure it could be done like
> this with digital. The sun and the nearby sky reflection would have blown
> out or stairstepped. The 100SS had just enough "compression" to it to
> prevent runaway highlights. This isn't an "anti-digital" statement, just
> acknowledging the elephant in the room. Of course, the other elephant is
> the
> "digital would have been easier for everything else leading up to that
> point, and my back wouldn't be hurting from standing on a concrete floor."
>
> Have I mentioned, lately, how much I enjoy film and the darkroom?
>
> AG (when you got it--exploit it) Schnozz
> --
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>
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