contrast

[Alan Clark]

Here's a problem for all you expert printers.
I went out a few days ago in dull, rather flat light, and photographed some trees and bushes on 120 FP4. I then failed to develop the film enough to boost contrast, and ended up using a grade 4 filter to get enough print contrast. But all was not lost. The effect was rather nice, with the hard filter giving lots of interesting tonal seperation in the detailed mass of fine twigs and branches.
Here is the question. If I had developed the film to a higher contrast and printed on, say, grade 2, would these prints match the contrast that I got on the grade 4 prints? The tonal seperation would now be in the negatives. The question is, would it transfer through to the print on a grade 2?
I intend to do a simple test to find out, but I'm interested in what others think.

Alan

[Mike O'Pray]

My simple answer and simple answers are always the best is: "I pass"

I have read several printing books with illustrations and now I think about it I don't think I have ever seen a comparison of a higher contrast neg printed onto grade 2 and neg uncompensated for flat light printed onto grade 4.

Your test, Alan, especially if accompanied by two prints at grade 4 and then grade 2 for the respective negs will be interesting and highly educational for me.

Mike

[Alan Clark]

Apologies for baffling you Mike, but I salute your honesty!

Alan

[JOReynolds]

I don't have the entire answer but when I was experimenting with LED illumination for printing on Mutigrade paper I made a relevant observation. When using a 430nm (indigo) lightsource, exposing only the hard emulsion, I got the same toe and shoulder shape as when I exposed the soft emulsion at 530nm (green). The slope of the 'straight' portion varied greatly, as you would expect, but the subjective appearance of the low-contrast curve is much closer to a straight line than grade 2, which is beginning to take on an obvious 'S' curve.
The optimum would seem to be to expose so that the shadow areas of interest are off the toe (an extra stop and a half?), develop for the normal time/temperature and print on low-contrast paper. 35mm results might look a little grainy, so use a slow film or a bigger negative. But isn't this is the technique used at the beginning of the last century? Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose...

[Argentum]

This is something I've often considered. If using full on zone system with highly calibrated development then you are tailoring negative contrast to paper contrast.

But when all is said and done, paper can display 7 to 8 stops of contrast from black to white and the ideal subject will also be 7 to 8 stops from black to white.

Zone system teaches calibration of 10 stops from black to white which basically means you are always going to get a soft result unless you print with extra contrast and lose some of what you captured on film.

So in the long run the best results will always be had by careful subject selection with a subject brightness range which is well suited to papers natural contrast range and then you can tweak with selective higher contrast burning in if required.

Colour photographers, especially those using slide film have been doing this since the year dot. They pick the time of day with optimum contrast range and good side lighting. i.e. dawn and dusk. For some reason B+W photographers seem to think they can bend every subject to fit the paper. Well IMO it just doesn't work as well as starting with a subject of optimum SBR for the paper.

So to answer the question directly, pick a subject which has the right contrast. Everything else is a rescue job.

[Martin Aislabie]

In theory - yes - that's the whole point of the zone system

In practice - I'm not sure FP4 is well suited to pushing/pulling by quite that much (2 grades of paper).

Personally, I find "zoning" to be too much hassle to bother with unless the subject SBR is very low or very high.

I concentrate more on framing the light and shadows and then exposing when I hope the transient light is right.

With the zone system, you spend a lot of time trying to measure the shadow and highlight tones - which in steady lighting conditions isn't too hard but in constantly changing light conditions (which we often seem to have in the UK) is hugely time consuming.

Martin

[David Brown]

Like so many other things: in theory: maybe; in practice: maybe not.

I suspect that the results will be similar, but not the same. However, I also suspect that one will have to have the two prints side by side to see the difference, and that a casual observer would not be able to tell which was which.

Looking forward to your experimental results.

[Argentum]

remember that when printing you are laying the curve of a negative onto the curve of the paper and it is the result of the combined curves you see in the print.

Altering both the shape of the negative curve and the paper curve and the result is never likely to be exactly the same.

The higher contrast neg will have a shorter toe. The softer paper curve will have a longer toe. But their changes won't be in exact sync with each other, neither will the changes in average slope or the shoulders. All that will be in sync is the overall contrast if you print it to be that way. i.e. they are going to look different.

[Alan Clark]

Thanks for the comments everyone. The "simple" test to find the answer to the problem is provinga bit more difficult to do than I thought. But it looks like David and Argentum are right. Results are close, but slightly different. I like the grade 4 print better, done from a low contrast negative. But with another subject I suspect the reverse may be true and the normal neg on normal paper may work better.

What I am fairly sure about is that a full-blown zone system approach isn't really needed when printing with multi-contrast paper.
In 35mm, for example, where everything is a compromise, and yoe can't fully apply the zone system, I find I get by very well with HP5 or TRI X rated at 200 and developed in D76 at 1+2 for 14 minutes. Frames exposed in full sun usually print on a no.1 or 1.5 filter grade, and lower contrast scenes go on grade 3 or 3.5.

Alan

[Phil]

The Zone System was developed for graded paper, and it is really surprising how well a range of different contrast negatives can fit onto a bog standard sheet of Graded Grade 2.
I've printed a few things recently, where negatives that were a bit underexposed were printed onto Grade 2 and they looked fine just a tad soft-toned, whereas things that had been really overexposed/overdeveloped looked pretty damn snappy. The softer ones I used a bit of selective bleaching to give them a bit of sparkle.
So I think you could have acheived that look by overdeveloping the film and then printing on G2. Wynn Bullock in Darkroom, mentions underexposing/overdeveloping as a way of achieving a snappy look.
Oh, and dare I say this . . I prefer Graded paper to MG . .