Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1999/12/31
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Mike Johnston wrote: > > Its BEST quality, though, its its tonality. There's almost no mistaking > Tri-X prints. They can have a tonal beauty that is most remarkable. In > my opinion, tonality or gradation, although discussed relatively > infrequently (if ever), is a more important property of black-and-white > prints than ANY OTHER SINGLE PROPERTY. And the curves it yields at > normal development times match up very usefully with the highlight > contrast of many of the better VC papers. > Agreed that tonality is the single most important property of B&W prints. A question: Is the inherent tonality of a film predicted by its curve? Is it something more? If so how do you describe or predict tonality? Isn't this what the field of sensitometry is trying to do (e.g. Phil Davis' BTZS). How much is tonality inherent in a film vs. the film developer combination. For example a great purported way to reduce highlight blocking, i.e. reduce VC highlight contrast is to use a Pyro developer. The yellow-green stain which is selectively present in the highlights acts as a contrast reducing filter for the highlights only. Jonathan Borden