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[OM] Pardon me - Analog Alert

Subject: [OM] Pardon me - Analog Alert
From: Ken Norton <ken@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Mon, 22 Feb 2010 09:54:47 -0600
Read no further if discussing film bothers you...

I spent the better part of the weekend buried in the darkroom printing
zillions of 11x14s for a customer. Talk about grunt work... (digital is
"easier").  Anyway, I was about to clean up when I had the hairbrain idea to
print ONE picture for myself. On a contact sheet there was this one picture
that just stood out from the rest and it was nearly the same exposure as
something I had been working on.

So I decided to make this a one-print affair and not do any test strips. I
was split-grade printing and knew that my Grade 00 was close but the Grade 5
needed a little oomph, so, using the settings from the last four pictures, I
just boosted Grade 5 by 1/4 a stop and exposed the print.

The picture was of the lowering sun reflecting off a pond with the distant
trees reflecting too. In the foreground is a huge broken treebranch sticking
down in the water. Obviously, the trees are blackened out. I shot the
picture with the 35-80 on the OM-3Ti. Film used was Fuji 100SS B&W. If you
stick your nose into the print you can barely make out texture of the grain,
but not the grain itself. The branch is brutally sharp, but the bokeh of the
distant trees and sun are downright lovely. I probably shot at around F5.6
with the shutter speed about maxed out.

If I reprint this shot I may change my Grade 00 exposure to Grade 1 to get a
touch more gradient in the higher tones, but otherwise I can frame it and
sell it as-is. The curves of the Fuji 100SS film seem to be a good match to
the Adox MCC 110 paper, whereas I do have to work PanF a bit. But they both
benefit from a healthy dose of split-grade printing.

It's not often when you can just eyeball a negative and nail it in one
print, but it just worked this time. I have two dust specs to spot, but
otherwise it's done.

Because of how the sun is in the shot, I'm not sure it could be done like
this with digital. The sun and the nearby sky reflection would have blown
out or stairstepped. The 100SS had just enough "compression" to it to
prevent runaway highlights. This isn't an "anti-digital" statement, just
acknowledging the elephant in the room. Of course, the other elephant is the
"digital would have been easier for everything else leading up to that
point, and my back wouldn't be hurting from standing on a concrete floor."

Have I mentioned, lately, how much I enjoy film and the darkroom?

AG (when you got it--exploit it) Schnozz
-- 
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