Response to Compensating developers and accutance developers

Hi Clay, I think you are onto something here. The failure of reciprocity basically means that the sensitivity of films drops at low light levels. The reason for the increase in contrast is that the shadow end of the scale is being hit by much dimmer light than the highlight end of the scale i.e., the shadows suffer from greater departure from reciprocity than the highlights (thus the increase in contrast and recommendation for reduced devlopment). However, you are right, this would mean that contrast in the shadows should INCREASE. This would be because the shadows would suffer from much greater failure from reciprocity i.e., their densities would drop much more dramatically than the decrease in densities of the higher zones. Very elegant solution to the problem of getting better contrast in the shadows without affecting the contrast in the highlights. It's probably worth plotting some curves.... food for thought. Cheers, DJ

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