Response to Maximum Black and tone, sharpness and grain

Hi Raja,

There seem to be two ways to go about this, and they both work. You can get one of the several excellent zone system books that have been mentioned by people here. Follow the methods and you'll arrive at a pretty good calibration that matches you E.I., development, and printing methods. Hopefully you'll also become good at previsualizing how a given scene will go through the process and look on the final print, then be able to alter the process to suit your vision. That's one way, and it has a long history of working well for many people. Another path is to study traditional sensitometry. Again, there are several very good books for that. Even if you go pure zone system, I think everyone should have a copy of Photographic Sensitometry by Hollis N. Todd & Richard D. Zakia on the shelf to refer to in time of need! Your materials don't know or care how you arrive at your exposure and processing numbers- they simply react according to the laws of chemistry and physics. Now, to the question at hand. The technical definition of film speed is based on a specific density above base+fog, but there's nothing saying that that number will give you the results you're after. It just provides a consistant measurement so you can compare apples with apples when evaluating films. The problem I always have is judgement; what part of the scene should I place just above fb+f- how much shadow detail do I want? On the maximum black thing, it takes a substantial exposure to produce the absolute maximum black a paper is capable of. That means that shadows move further up (or down, depending on how you draw it) the paper curve, and shadow detail will be lost. IMHO, not usually a good thing. The midtones and highlights of the negative will have to be denser than they would otherwise be. It's actually a contrast problem. The trouble is that grain goes up and sharpness goes down with increasing density and development. The next problem is that those wonderful black Dmax areas of the print have a tendency to bleed on sharp edges, again reducing sharpness and definition. Fortunately, when you calibrate your system you're going to pick the tonal qualities you're happy with- this whole thing is a continuum. What I call not-quite-black might be a black cat in a coal bin at midnight to the next person, or vice versa. I value shadow detail greatly and for some reason I'm very sensitive to loss of separation in the highlights of snow scenes and the like. Thus, I try to stay out of the depths of the toe and off the shoulder. Someone else might look at the same print and find no fault with it whatsoever. Shooting mostly 35mm, I don't agonize *to* much over this, since the whole roll is going to receive the same development. I do the best I can with exposure, then work on the problem areas in the darkroom!

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