My experience with "The Negative"
Posted: Tue Jan 13, 2009 1:03 pm
I know I'm digging up an old thread, but I recently bought and read The Negative, and I thought I'd give my perspective.
Prior to reading the negative, I read the Film Development Cookbook. As a result, I ignored a lot of Ansel's development advice. Anchell and Troop recommend roughly the following: If you're shooting roll film, develop normally in a compensating developer and let VC paper take care of contrast.
A lot of the advice in the Negative that doesn't relate to development is quite useful. He recommends erring on the side of overexposure, and he seems to "under" rate his film (e.g. FP4 at 64 ASA, Pan F at 25 ASA). His procedure for testing for actual film speed seems useful, although I don't have a densitometer.
I agree with Ornello that not all of Ansel's photos are aesthetically pleasing. In one case, he uses expansion to make a side lit wooded scene look like a moonscape. He says he needed to do this to preserve shadow detail--I suppose that's his choice, but the result isn't great. CPbas's example of extreme contraction wasn't really detailed enough for me to decide if the gradation was unpleasing (to my eyes), but I liked the effect overall--a lot of times I'm dissappointed by night photos that really show the difference between what film can see and the eyes can see.
Note that, according to the Film Dev. Cookbook, the only technique Ansel recommends for contraction with modern film is use minimal agitation (obviously this isn't clear in the negative...). If you look on p. 86 of the FDC, you get Anchell & Troop's opinion on expansion and contraction, which is more or less: it doesn't work very well with modern films, but it is usually possible (depending on your film and dev. choice) to change contrast at least a "zone" in either direction.
One place that the Negative really helps is with it's explaination of characteristic curves. The Film Dev. Cookbook says that slow films have a shorter tonal scale that medium speed films, but it never says what tonal scale is. The negative gives you this information. Particularly, it shows the curve of FP4 vs. Pan F, which is exactly the comparison I wanted (although Pan F+ has a longer scale than Pan F apparently). Of course all this info seems to be available through Digitaltruth, but the negative gives a good explaination on how to intepret it.
Another thing he helps clear up is "speed increase". The Film Dev. cookbook says that certain developer gives you a true speed increase of 50-100%. I guess it should have been obvious that this means, rate your film this percentage higher, and that's what Ansel says. However, he makes a point of clearing up the terminology. Since most people don't find the manufacturer's speed recommendations accurate, and since the dev. charts in the back of the book (i.e. from this site) give you recommended times for many different speed ratings, it wasn't totally clear to me what was the best way to rate film with a speed increasing developer. (In theory, it's clear now: rate that percentage above box speed... in practice you still have to deal with how accurate the box speed is).
Although though a lot of Ansel's advice seems questionable, I think his advice to "visualize the scene" and expose to keep detail in what you think is the most important part (usually the shadows, but sometimes texture in clouds or snow, etc.) is good. If you don't have a spot meter, and don't have a densitometer, Ornello's advice (set ASA for an overexposure, bracket if you have to, develop for flat/managable negatives) seems more practical. Also, Ansel's advice on how you should expose for particular scenes seems useful, as well as his advice on what zones to place certain things (e.g. zone 5 for blue north sky); again, how closely you can follow this advice depends on your ability to meter precisely....
I have some specific questions for Ornello: is the idea of the overexposure/underdevelopment technique to place the shadows on the straight line section of the curve, or is it simply a measure to guard against underexposure? Anchell recommends an average film density of .9 vs. 1.2 or higher (as Anchell says Ansel recommends); does overexposure/underdevelopment give you the same density as normal exposure and normal development, but with less graininess? (granted I can't actually test the negative density... but given comparable negatives, your way is less grainy?); is this completely empirical, or is it due to inaccurate ASA (i.e. overexposure is actually the proper exposure)?
Also, could you send me your book?
Prior to reading the negative, I read the Film Development Cookbook. As a result, I ignored a lot of Ansel's development advice. Anchell and Troop recommend roughly the following: If you're shooting roll film, develop normally in a compensating developer and let VC paper take care of contrast.
A lot of the advice in the Negative that doesn't relate to development is quite useful. He recommends erring on the side of overexposure, and he seems to "under" rate his film (e.g. FP4 at 64 ASA, Pan F at 25 ASA). His procedure for testing for actual film speed seems useful, although I don't have a densitometer.
I agree with Ornello that not all of Ansel's photos are aesthetically pleasing. In one case, he uses expansion to make a side lit wooded scene look like a moonscape. He says he needed to do this to preserve shadow detail--I suppose that's his choice, but the result isn't great. CPbas's example of extreme contraction wasn't really detailed enough for me to decide if the gradation was unpleasing (to my eyes), but I liked the effect overall--a lot of times I'm dissappointed by night photos that really show the difference between what film can see and the eyes can see.
Note that, according to the Film Dev. Cookbook, the only technique Ansel recommends for contraction with modern film is use minimal agitation (obviously this isn't clear in the negative...). If you look on p. 86 of the FDC, you get Anchell & Troop's opinion on expansion and contraction, which is more or less: it doesn't work very well with modern films, but it is usually possible (depending on your film and dev. choice) to change contrast at least a "zone" in either direction.
One place that the Negative really helps is with it's explaination of characteristic curves. The Film Dev. Cookbook says that slow films have a shorter tonal scale that medium speed films, but it never says what tonal scale is. The negative gives you this information. Particularly, it shows the curve of FP4 vs. Pan F, which is exactly the comparison I wanted (although Pan F+ has a longer scale than Pan F apparently). Of course all this info seems to be available through Digitaltruth, but the negative gives a good explaination on how to intepret it.
Another thing he helps clear up is "speed increase". The Film Dev. cookbook says that certain developer gives you a true speed increase of 50-100%. I guess it should have been obvious that this means, rate your film this percentage higher, and that's what Ansel says. However, he makes a point of clearing up the terminology. Since most people don't find the manufacturer's speed recommendations accurate, and since the dev. charts in the back of the book (i.e. from this site) give you recommended times for many different speed ratings, it wasn't totally clear to me what was the best way to rate film with a speed increasing developer. (In theory, it's clear now: rate that percentage above box speed... in practice you still have to deal with how accurate the box speed is).
Although though a lot of Ansel's advice seems questionable, I think his advice to "visualize the scene" and expose to keep detail in what you think is the most important part (usually the shadows, but sometimes texture in clouds or snow, etc.) is good. If you don't have a spot meter, and don't have a densitometer, Ornello's advice (set ASA for an overexposure, bracket if you have to, develop for flat/managable negatives) seems more practical. Also, Ansel's advice on how you should expose for particular scenes seems useful, as well as his advice on what zones to place certain things (e.g. zone 5 for blue north sky); again, how closely you can follow this advice depends on your ability to meter precisely....
I have some specific questions for Ornello: is the idea of the overexposure/underdevelopment technique to place the shadows on the straight line section of the curve, or is it simply a measure to guard against underexposure? Anchell recommends an average film density of .9 vs. 1.2 or higher (as Anchell says Ansel recommends); does overexposure/underdevelopment give you the same density as normal exposure and normal development, but with less graininess? (granted I can't actually test the negative density... but given comparable negatives, your way is less grainy?); is this completely empirical, or is it due to inaccurate ASA (i.e. overexposure is actually the proper exposure)?
Also, could you send me your book?