Re: [Leica] A recipe for THE GLOW

["Dan Post" <dpost@triad.rr.com>]

Wunderbar!
Super! Sounds like what I try to do, only I have come to like the PMK
developer as much or better than D-76! The stain image seems to enhance the
capabilities of VC paper! PMK negatives done with Tri-X and printed on the
Ilford MC fiber paper are really nice! Keeps me from going totally with the
Epson!
Dan
- ----- Original Message -----
From: "Mike Johnston" <michaeljohnston@ameritech.net>
To: <leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us>
Sent: Tuesday, October 24, 2000 8:24 AM
Subject: [Leica] A recipe for THE GLOW


> Here's one recipe for "The Glow." Not the only one, but this should work
for
> you.
>
> Anyone can do it. Try it, you'll see.
>
> 1. Use an older "long normal" lens--58mm f/1.4 or 1.2. Various makers made
> 'em and you can get 'em on eBay for a song. One nice new one is the Ricoh
> 55mm f/1.2 for very little money. A Noct or a Summarit will serve well
> enough if you only have Leica lenses. Don't use most current 50/1.4s. If
you
> want a cheap sample for yuks, get an old Spotmatic and an old Pentax M42
> screwmount (not Leica screwmount) 50/1.4 Takumar.
>
> 2. Use a K2 filter (Wrattan #8, medium yellow, whatever you want to call
> it).
>
> 3. Shoot in good light away from the sun, and don't provoke flare. Shade
the
> lens. Stay away from very high contrast situations.
>
> 4. Don't use a thin-emulsion film--stick with old-fashioned conventional
> emulsions. There are a couple of these left; one is Kodak Plus-X.
>
> 5. Expose enough. Say, Plus-X, E.I. 64 (that film's real speed), and maybe
a
> bracket up for safety.
>
> 6. Use a conventional, traditional developer. Again, there are several,
but
> Kodak D-76 is one.
>
> 7. Don't develop too much. Say, 10% or 20% less than the manufacturer
> recommends for outdoor scenes, no more than the manufacturer recommends
for
> flat indoor scenes (giving generous exposure and not developing too much
is
> called "pulling," and it was common in the days before reliable light
meters
> and before the pernicious disease of "pushing" became an epidemic spread
by
> the hobby magazines and photojournalists <g>).
>
> 8. Use a diffusion enlarger. Most enlargers are somewhere on the spectrum
> between purely collimated and purely diffuse light, with a point-source
head
> at one extreme and an actinic (cold-light) head at the other. A Durst
> "condenser" enlarger is pretty diffuse, because the light source is a
large
> frosted light bulb. A dichroic-style head like a colorhead is quite
diffuse.
> Most photographers have no idea of the difference their light source makes
> in the way their film looks. The selfsame Tri-X negative printed on a
Leitz
> Focomat IIc and a Saunders 4550 VC head make the _film_ look like it has
> very different characteristics. Try it. You'll see. (Yup, I have.)
>
> 9. Use fiber-base paper.
>
> 10. Don't print with too much contrast. Most photographers print with way
> too much contrast and way too light. Cartier-Bresson was always egging his
> printer to use less contrast--he sent the master repro prints for _The
> Decisive Moment_ back to the lab to be printed with lower contrast. With
> many negatives, photographers unknowingly push past the natural scale of
the
> negative and they think that lowering the printing contrast will look
> "flat." Actually, lowering the printing contrast brings out more gradation
> and makes the print look _richer_, until you get past the threshold where
a
> complete range of tones is present--which most photographers seldom do.
>
>
> Voilá. Le glow. Try it, you'll like it.
>
> --Mike
>
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