Response to Mortensen and Gradation

This is really interesting. I'd seen Mortensen's stuff, but never knew anything about his processing theories. Pete probably said better and in fewer words what I've been thinking lately, that pulling often doesn't work well, and that a long straight film curve is undesirable. Actually the best curves for tonal reproduction were established way back by Kodak and RIT- see Photographic Sensitometry by Todd & Zakia. Think S shaped. The problem is that modern materials seem to be optimized for a straight line. Even paper seems to be more linear than it used to be. Film Dmax seems lower than it used to be and whenever I cut film development, rather than a nice shoulder, it's more like a sudden shelf. Doesn't help latitude any. Some of the nicest negs I ever shot were on Ektapan, a long toe film with no super straight line. It's still listed in the catalog, but I wasn't able to get it recently.

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