[Leica] Exposure and Development

[walt at waltjohnson.com (Walt Johnson)]

Luis

Smith, among many other shooters, used this same approach. The Zone 
system is great and Minor White did the best book on it many years back. 
It is a bit awkward for roll film, especially 35mm. If you shoot  under 
the same conditions for the entire roll it  then  all well and good. How 
many of us do that with 35mm? Nonetheless, it does give the photographer 
an excellent frame of reference for his or her work.

The water bath system you mentioned is a way of controlling those out of 
control brightness ranges. There again, not real applicable to 35mm 
work. Every now and then I do a few zone system tests but only for the 
fun of it. As I'm sure you know, after a while all this becomes second 
nature. Thank goodness! Then we can get about making images. :-)

Walt

Luis Ripoll wrote:
> Hi Walt,
>
> I agree with you, and this is a general old rule I didn't know was
> established by Eugene Smith. The only thing is that developping for shadows
> on my experience increase the grain. I'm no longer developping myself my
> films, when I does it I've decided to do long and very compensate
> developping processes, sometimes with stoping the development and putting
> the film in a water bad. IMO, except if you search some special effects or
> you work with medium or bigger format, a carefully develpping is enough for
> almost all situations.
>
> The zone system is a very good school to learn and know better the
> photography techniques, many years ago I've played it, now I think that it
> is similar to the first piano exercises for a pianist.
>
> Saludos cordiales
> Luis 
>  
>
> -----Mensaje original-----
> De: lug-bounces+luisripoll=telefonica.net@leica-users.org
> [mailto:lug-bounces+luisripoll=telefonica.net@leica-users.org] En nombre de
> Walt Johnson
> Enviado el: jueves, 01 de marzo de 2007 23:01
> Para: Leica Users Group
> Asunto: Re: [Leica] Exposure and Development
>
>
> W. Eugene Smith taught me a fantastic way of putting this together.....
>
> Expose for the shadows .......Develop for the highlights...
>
> Processing has little or no effect on shadow detail but is the cats meow in
> terms of highlights..... While Ansel made almost exclusive use of the
> reflected meter most pros today can be seen reading the scale on a Minolta
> incident meter. When talking about the effects of exposure and development
> on film it's better to use "dense" and "thin". Best way to get a grip on 
> all
> this is to practice. Next time you find yourself lusting after  a new lens
> buy film instead.
>
> Walt
>   
>>> On 3/1/07 1:53 PM, "Lottermoser George" <imagist3@mac.com> typed:
>>>
>>>       
>>>> Under exposure and overdevelopment do not properly describe fine 
>>>> photographic technique.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> The terms:
>>>> 'over exposure' implies too light and blown highlights 'under 
>>>> exposure' implies too dark and lost shadows 'over development' 
>>>> implies blown highlights 'under development' implies lost shadows.
>>>> In all cases these terms also imply poor technique, and lack of 
>>>> control and/or understanding of what's going on with your materials 
>>>> and chemistry.
>>>>
>>>> Regards,
>>>> George Lottermoser
>>>> george@imagist.com
>>>>
>>>>         
>
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