cesar_barreto

Tom,

Have you ever tried some filters? You can turn skin tone into

anything you want, without worrying about curves, contrast and the

rest of technical stuff. Of course, all the colors in the scene

should be considered, but usually the other tones are secundary and

easily to work in the lab. Give it a try.

Regards,

Cesar B.

Wayne,

Maybe you're dealing with some other variables: the effect of

enlarging lens, as all of them suffer from some sort of fall-off, and

the way you're measuring this. A blank sheet, printed for medium

gray, using different f-stops and different lenses may show clearly

how deeply in trouble you are. Good luck!

Cesar B.

Hi, Matthew,

If you look back on older posts you'll probably find some discussion

about it. And certainly you'll find some contradiction. For sure, it

can be stated some few points: 1- some diffusion is always welcome

for the purpose you want (printing a step wedge can show it pretty

fast); 2- there'll be some, maybe expressive, light loss; 3- one

should be careful not to print some diffusion texture; 4- a softer

head may leave you more confortable to explore controls on exposure

and development of modern emulsions. In short, try it. It can be the

shortest and cheapest way to work with two heads in one.

Good work.

Cesar B.

Some messages ahead I didn't want to show individuality on my own

tastes, wich after all, doesn't make any difference for the matter.

But, in addition to James and others, it should be stated clearly:

after a long, long road seeing and making B&W prints, I'd never seen

a RC print looking nearly as beautiful and rich as Forte print. Maybe

sometime, not till now.

<p>

Cesar B.

Joe,

Grain,or granulation, or whatever you notice in your prints, depends

just on the following variables: emulsion, exposure, developer

formula, development techniques (all of them), magnification,

enlarger source of light, optics and (probably, forgetting something

else) even paper grade. So, open yours eyes, there's a lot to learn

in this field. Good luck.

<p>

Cesar B.

Hi Paul,

Probably your're facing the most difficult task on photo appreciation,

wich means creating a taste and a sense of quality. For sure, RC

prints will stand out easily on side-by-side comparasion, mainly

because it has artificially brightened whites that will transform UV

light into visible light, contributing greatly to its plasticine look.

Even curves can stand close matching and, maybe, even show better

values on D-Max and density range. There's no doubt RC prints will

satisfy most of your potencial clients. But... it looks like plastic,

feels like plastic, behaves like plastic. So it's quite easy to

understand why devoted printers still prefer to work with real paper.

As mentioned before, it's a sense of quality not just a matter of

technical performance. And, by the way, why not to try some other

beautiful and rich emulsion, before being so disappointed?

Welcome to FB arena!

<p>

Cesar B.

David,

Unhappily, your optics aren't the best options for macro work. The

90mm, wich I suppose to be a wide-angle, is a unsymmetrical design

optimized for reductions, and probably will compare badly with an

enlarging lens, for example. The 210mm - a great lens - makes your

bellows extension quite unconfortable. At 1:1, 420mm. Going farther

on magnification will strech your arms proportionally. I've been

working on some 6:1 macro work and having a good time with 105/5.6

and 150/5.6 Nikkor-W. They're almost symmetrical and allow some space

for lighting as well. Obviously, an assistant arm is still great

value.

Have fun.

Cesar Barreto

Eric,

Reciprocity characteristics depends a lot on emulsion formulation and

if you look around, on John Sexton writings for instance, you may

find that at long exposures T-Max 100 can be even faster than Tri-x.

People in industry seems to be working hard on these things.

As about your math, can't say much, as I've never found myself any

significant differences on small percentages up or down anything.

Experimental errors usually comes on much bigger numbers.

I hope somebody else shall give some better information on this.

Greetings,

Cesar Barreto

Joe,

It is always usefull to keep in mind that grain usually comes in pair

with density. Pushing techniques can lead to grainy highlights,

medium tone a bit less and empty shadows with no grain at all. And to

make things worst, you can find that printing this contrasty negative

on softer paper usually softens grain alltogether. So, the suggestion

is trying some over-exposure, changing or not the contrast by

development, and printing this somewhat "dark" negative on high

gradation paper. This way, grain may show uniformily spread all over

the image, varying with your exposure and printing options.

Of course, Rodinal is always wellcome... And any Tri-x works fine

this way. Greetings,

Cesar Barreto

Keith,

Flare on printing stage is easily detectable on high contrast

borders. If you print, for instance, a heavily dense negative showing

part of the blank border, it might be obvious some "bleeding" from

dense areas of the print. Another simple test, if you have a good

lens, is printing detailed shadows while looking for resolution on

near black densities. Flare is a killer of details on these

situations.Good luck.

Cesar B.

Joseph,

If your films are a bit more dense than usual, they will probably be

grainy. Those things usually come together. An easy test could show

you if you're over-exposing and over-developing. Don't take for

granted spec sheets neither your camera and meter functions. By

experience, I can assure you HP5 is quite versatile and can be handle

to exhibit any kind of image you want.

Enjoy it.

Cesar B.

Xosni,

Are you sure about what you're looking at?

At ISO 1600 and higher shutter speeds and apertures are usually more

confortable allowing some improvements on sharpness, independent of

what soup is in use. I suppose that a fair test would be shooting the

same situation using the same stuff and, of course, a solid tripod.

Try it and tell us what you see.

Cesar B.

Why don't you try T-Max 400, for instance?

Good luck, and you'll need it.

cesar b.

Mike,

I had exactly the same trouble with an old model and after some

strugle finally discovered that the shutter had been replaced and it

was altering flange distances between front and back elements. I hope

you can check this easily by rotating each element while looking

through a opal glass put on the back of the camera.

I'm still willing a new camera, but things are much better now.

Good luck!

Louise,

I can suggest two to start:

1-The Photographer's Master Printing Course, by Tim Rudman and

2-Basic Photographic Materials and Processes, by Stroebel, Zakya, etc.

The first will take you from the beginning as far as you can get and

the later will give you enough information on photography for some

years of travel.

Good luck.

Cesar Barreto

Mr. Luong,

Maybe, you could trigger this lens on a flash and photograph the

shutter right open, checking if there's something on the way.

Good luck!

Raven,

<p>

As this people from Sprint doesn't make films or papers, don't worry,

their chemistry might be fully compatible with any emulsion or

whatever developer your prefer. Stop baths don't contribute to image

formation and fixing only changes on speed and capacity. Good luck!

Cesar Barreto

Claudia,

I'm not quite an expert on Tri-X in sheet format, but I've been using

HC-110 for as long as I exist (photographically, I mean). And I

presume that it wouldn't be any sacrilege to say that with this

combination you've a quite good margin of operation and error,

without sacrifing much of you negative potential. Mainly, if you're a

good printer...

Anyway, it's plain obvious that some testing should be done before you

"test" the wrong negative. Both Tri-X and HC-110 have outstanding

latitude and some testing should exhibit this clearly.

Welcome to the tray game.

Cesar B.

Doug,

Unfortunately, I had much less classes than wish I had, but from

years till now I've been trying to teach something. People who seeks

photography must learn above all that it's a meaning of expressing

something that no teacher can tell them exactly what it is. Every

time you finish a print you've aborted some other thousands of

equally interesting and valid possibilities. There's where techniques

comes for help. The more you know, the freer you come for creating a

personal and original work. But, first of all, you've got have some

personal and original thing to say. Otherwise, no luck will help

someone, even technically prepared, to stand out in the crowd.

It works here in Brazil and I suppose it must be OK everywhere.

Good luck in your first class!

Cesar B.

Nick,

You have two chances: read all you get in hand and find you'll

problably be in trouble going far too close, or try to relaxe and use

a good symmetrical lens. If you find something so terrible happening

in the near world, you've pretty good eyes! I haven't found myself

yet. Have fun!

Cesar B.

Does anyone knows if there will be, and when, an 2001 edition of the well rated workshop on Ultra Large Cameras, held on Waterford School by Tilmann Crane & Co? Here in Brazil we're always late to learn about the news. So I thank for any kind of information about it.

Thanks,

Cesar Barreto