ORpilot Loc: Prineville, Or

Yes and no.....If you are going to standardize everything by using a densitometer rather than comparison processing. You will need to use a Gray Card. Personally I found doing all the testing of films, with each developer, and times and temperatures rather long and tedious. I never owned a densitometer and always used the colleges. It is not as exact doing comparison vs densitometer. While you are at it you can test each lens f-stop, and each camera shutter speed. If you have zoom lenses then you need to check the f-stops at wide, mid, and long zoom point. Have fun, and happy shooting

BebuLamar

Tell me the procedure please.

pendennis

I'm still a bit confused. Tri-X has always been advertised as a film ideal for push processing, whether roll or sheet, and under most any exposure calculation. I've shot thousands of frames of Tri-X pushed as high as ISO 1600. While grainy at that speed, contrast was well with printable limits.

And Tri-X is advertised as a single emulsion film.

cytafex Loc: Clarksburg MA

18% grey card for reference is central to establish print values and metering.

Darkroom317 Loc: Mishawaka, IN

Interesting. It appears most if not all fast films are two emulsion layers. I just read that Delta films are single layer. I've always rather liked Tri-X but as most of my work is 4x5 I don't use much of it. I can't afford TXP320 so I am using Ilford HP5+. I just use Tri-X in 35mm at this point. When I have used Tri-X I pushed it often and developed it in Rodinal using stand development

Bergger Pancro 400 is advertised clearly as a two emulsion film consisting of Silver Bromide and Silver Iodide emulsions
https://emulsive.org/reviews/film-reviews/bergger-film-reviews/bergger-pancro-400-35mm-part-1-ei-400-bracketed-1-stop

sirlensalot Loc: Arizona

Or you can ignore metering altogether. UK wedding photographer Richard Barley uses this technique. He is pretty old school but remains busy. He has several youtube videos out. He is strictly a manual mode, Raw shooter from what I have read, so it sounds like more a of a PP tool?

AP Loc: Massachusetts

Finally, a good point mentioned in photography. In the past I said that FILM is harder than digital. No responses from any UHH members. We'll start with film, as Ansel Adams and myself as all film users worked with. The hardest film to create a perfect exposure is Kodachrome slide film. All colors were judged on Kodak Kodachrome ASA 25 slide film!

There's only two colors that everyone has to adjust for, color black and the color white, both in film and digital photography, how we doing so far? In shooting color slide film if your exposures are not correct they cannot be adjusted when the film is developed. Your photos will be locked in under or over exposed, too light or too dark and cannot be corrected. This not true with negitive film.

You have to understand exposure, as we started with Ansel Adams. In the zone system with Adams, he would make an exposure and mark his film holder according to that exposure. When he developed the film an ajustment would be made, if the film being developed took 7 minutes time at 68º in Selectol he would use more or less time to devolope his film according to his exposure.

Now, using a digital cameras, and, I never ever thought that film would be replaced by digital. However, exposure is the same in film as it is using your digital camera. In the beginning talking about colors black & white. You have to adjust for these colors, know why? Because, your exposure will be over or under exposured. Just like shooting Kodachrome not being corrected!

The exposure difference between color black & color white when making a photo is up to two stops. Do you know how to make this adjustments? It's easy on your digital camera. Set memo to + or - ! The two + exposure is: White is = up to to 2 stops, if black is, = up to - 2 two stops.

There has been a dispute concerning incident light readings. Using a hand held lightmeter with a white dome, the dome is placed over the cell and meter is held towards the light coming into the meter from the sun into the sun. It is the most percisite and accurate light reading. The light falling into the meter.

With digital cameras these days you have great advantages in photography. The camera does all the thinking, you just press the shutter button!
There's only three things in making a picture, YOUR EYE, YOUR BRAIN, & YOUR SHUTTER FINGER! You see the subject, your brain tells you, press the shutter stupid! You wait just one second . . . and your photo is gone forever!

Think about it, this photography business is not as easy as one thinks! And we did not mention far beyond these techniques ! If you think you're pretty good, THINK AGAIN! Digital cameras have more advantages than film cameras, but in film cameras you have to be more knowledgeable!

Digital is much more easier and less mistakes! Next time you make a picture put your digital camera or lens on manuel focus, especially photographing SPORTS or any moving image. Show us all at UHH your tact sharp image, you only have a split second in the making! CIAO, AP

ORpilot Loc: Prineville, Or

Oh man, it is a long step by step process. It has been over 30 years since I have done one. Basically use Ansel Adams Photography book 2, The Negative. There are other Zone System books by other authors Alan Ross, Norman Koren (Internet), and others. I'm sorry , I can only direct you to the books for the procedures. My students use to spend over a month doing the complete zone system for their film and equipment. If you were here locally, I would help via private classes but via the Internet is not practical.

ORpilot Loc: Prineville, Or

Like I said, I don't have data or information on the current Tri-X by Kodak Alaris. It could be a single emulsion film now. I too used Rodinol 1-100 for Panatomix X. I could get near medium format quality out of 35mm.

PlymouthWoodworker Loc: Plymouth, MA

Back in my darkroom days I used the Zone System extensively -- constructed my own film curves, adjusted development times, etc. However with digital I find I don't need to go through all that to get the tones I want. Digital camera sensors seem to act sort of like slide film: they can take quite a bit of underexposure, but don't like overexposure. Once the highlights are blown out there is no getting any detail back. But you can pull a lot out of the dark shadows (although you can get some grain (noise)). I generally expose for the most important parts of the scene, take care not to blow out the highlights, shoot in RAW, and manipulate the highlights and shadows in post processing. If shadow noise creeps in I use the NIK collection Dfine plug-in to reduce it. Seems to work for me.

gravymeister

I agree. Unless you are seriously pursuing film photography, you really don’t need to study zone photography. I did a lot of darkroom work, and learned what my cameras would do. I switched to full digital in 2005 and really only worry about what details I want. The auto bracket function and editing features allow me to get the results I want. After years of BW, I started using a lot of slide film, and it is better to underexpose. Skies are not white!