mark__5

"no longer a real need for B&W negative film, C-41 or conventional, to make B&W prints. Those films exist for traditional darkroom printing. Color neg has essentially the same range as B&W, and you can achieve the same contrast and curve shape changes with software as one did with developing techniques on B&W. Much easier to scan, too."

 

this is total bs spread by those who don't have a grasp on the possibilities of bw film. I have yet to see a color converted to bw image that can match a quality bw film scan or digital print.

 

I still use bw film and I only print digitally.

"There is nothing worse than a sharp image of a fuzzy concept"

 

Ansel Adams

 

I thought this to be very appropriate.

Let me preface this by saying I have worked with photoshop for about a decade and use digitally enhanced images in my daily work.

 

 

the manifesto makes complete sense considering the viewpoint of the time that photography could not be art, therefore make it look like painting etc. to make it more legit. Groupf64 simply was defending against this, saying that photography just has to be photography to be art.

 

 

My point is that a photograph needs not be digitally manipulated nor made to look like a painting to be a departure from the "realistic" or to be an interpretation of the artists vision.

 

a strong image is a strong image regardless.

I think the 55 has amazing tonality and want to use more of it in the studio where I can control the lighting/contrast. it is much less flexible in the field compared to conventional films but with the right conditions...wow.

I know it was about a color original, which makes the whole effort sorta pointless since you compromise the image from the very start.

how does making it look like a painting improve it?

"I think we all want the best possible way to get a quality Black and white picture not just an ok one."

 

that would involve pulling out the bw film and forgetting color conversions.

Gabor and all:

 

viewsonic P95f+B at page computers, this link will take you right to it. really nice monitor. They are now selling it for $210. I had no problems with them whatsoever.

 

 

http://www.pagecomputers.com/cgi-bin/page/B0029324.html

it all depends on how much you want to spend. I just picked up a super sharp 19" viewsonic with flat screen for about $220.

guide number info---

 

http://www.shortcourses.com/how/guidenumbers/guidenumbers.htm

"In effect, non-specular areas do receive more exposure which places their value closer to the value of the specular highlight."

 

yes, moving the light source in does bring the values closer together, but then you must stop down to retain the overall "correct" exposure, if not then you have the same highlight brightness as before but now with an overexposure on the non-specular objects.

 

Please don't think that I am nit-picking, its just that those who are being exposed to this for the first time may retain it better if they understand exactly why and how this all works.

 

I just "found" this forum with this thread and think it is great, nice to see a studio/lighting forum at photo.net.

 

looks like fun!

Sorry to take so long to respond�.

 

 

Brooks,

 

I should be more specific.

 

The exposure value of a reflection is constant. If you move your lights in closer or further away this value will not change. Therefore, the translucence of a highlight reflection is affected by the relationship of its own exposure value to the exposure value of the overall image. When moving a light source closer, the light source grows more intense in relation to the subject (but not for the reflection), requiring the photographer to stop down the lens. An example:

 

Say the reflection value is f/16 and your overall f/stop is f/16. If you then move in your strobes or hotlights and get an overall exposure of f/22, the reflection has thus darkened by 1 stop.

 

Again, moving in the lights without adjusting your f-stop will only lighten the overall image but will not affect the reflective highlight.

 

I looked at the tomato exercise and it appears to me that the main variable that makes a highlight difference is that each light modifier changes the amount of light getting to the subject, in other words, the highlights were affected more by how much light was being blocked off, rather than by how close it was to the subject. In reality, you may have had the same exposure settings on the camera, but each photo surely did not receive the same amount of exposure.

" XP2 has a wider lattitude than conventional B&W film"

 

please elaborate with details of what type of range you are talking about please.

more specifically it is the exposure that defines the amount of translucents in a reflective highlight.

There once was a man from Kentucky.........

maybe to lessen the amount of layers you could combine layers that have parts that would not overlap each other. sample: say you have one layer with a part of an image up in the left corner and another layer with part of an image in the lower right corner. You could combine those two layers. is this a possibility?

tmax is just fine in shadows, just know what your doing. some of my best shots on tmax are done with very soft/flat lighting, printed digitally or on silver.

this is like saying a copy neg from a print is sharper than the original negative, it makes no sense at all.

 

Everyone seems to have some strange kind of idea that if they can't get good results from scanning bw film then it cannot be done. Do we all make perfect negatives?

 

Do you say a good silver print is not possible from a bw neg if your prints don't look like Ansel's?

 

Let's use some commone sense please.

you actually paid money to see Van Helsing?!?!?!

again, I have never had problems scanning bw film, the first step is having something decent to scan in the first place.

 

and as I have done many times, I will put my scans/prints up against any color-desaturated image- film or digital. This is a challenge I have put forth to the know-it-alls with nothing good to show for about the fourth time. I never get an acceptance, much less a response.

I shoot tmax 100 and develop myself, then I print on an inkjet. don't listen to what anyone has to say, just look at their scans.

"wasting time B/W film and simply shoot color and desaturate. It looks *better*."

 

absolute b.s.

 

Peter, I shoot bw film (tmax 100) and print digitally and get excellent prints.

 

desaturated color lacks a lot when compared to good bw film scans. It all starts with the quality of the neg. I have excellent scans from negs that were taken over a period of 20 years.

 

I scan everything on a flextight precision 3 fyi.

 

stay with film, scan and print digitally if it works for you.

"but even so you make it sound as if he was a petty SOB"

 

this is such a wild jump from what I said, it defies explanation.

 

Ed said he wanted Brett to print the images, correct? so you make this jump in logic that that means anyone down the line should be able to print from his negs as long as he is related? makes no sense.

Having his descendants profit from his work is one thing, but hacking out prints from Ed's negs is another.--no wonder Brett burned most of his negatives.

 

Jorge, if you don't have a problem with it that's fine. I personally think it's really tacky, I simply gave my opinion.

 

Yes, Edward was a photographer, I think we all know that. If he didn't mind who printed his images, then why did he specify Brett and ask that this was noted on each print?

 

"Ansel Adams donated his negs to the Center For Photography"

 

this is a far cry from what Kim is doing, all prints made by students never make it out of the Center and are never sold. Ansel's negs (not all were donated btw) are there for learning, not to make a profit for a less talented relative. As far as the A.Adams special edition prints, I don't really know what the conditions are for Alan Ross or any future successors.

 

I agree with you that many will want a print showing nothing more than Ed's furniture, funny and sad as it is. I would think that this is the type of thing Ed would roll his eyes at. I would imagine he would put this in the same category as his wish to not be called an "artist".

I find it distasteful because of the two, not one, image of the interior of the house for sale. A picture of Edward's desk and another showing the fireplace, doesn't this seem a bit tacky to anyone here?

 

I believe the printing of Ed's negatives originally were handed to Brett, who having less available time for it, handed it down to Cole. I just don't see Ed agreeing with the continued passing of any of his negatives down to later generations so they can generate an income from the sales.

 

It seems to me that these examples should suffice for my opinion, but in addition, the whole site seems to serve up Ed in a way that I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't have him on display like Lenin and were charging admission to see him.

I don't want to rain on your parade by adding any negativity, but the last time I checked out the Weston website (and maybe it is different now), I imagined Ed rolling over in his grave as I saw prints for sale that were no more than snapshots of "Edward's desk" or other areas of his living space.

 

I also thought that only the sons were allowed to print Edward's images, I saw some for sale that were printed by Kim, what's up with that?

 

Overall I found the website to be rather distasteful.