The first thing to test periodically is your light meter.  Except for one old Nikon, none of my cameras have meters in them – so my meter(s) are the foundation of every exposure I make.  The only requirement I have of a meter is that it be linear – that is – if I expose a gray or white card in dim light, bright light , medium and dim again and expose exactly as the meter indicates, each exposure should yield the same density on film.  If the densities match closely, my meter is good, but if one exposure doesn’t match the others, the meter needs to go to the shop.  This test is well worth the time and cost of a roll or few sheets of film!

Incidentally, this is a great way to test your meter’s color response.  Instead of photographing subjects of different brightnesses, photograph a neutral card then do it through strong-colored filters – you’ll likely see reds underexpose and blues overexpose!

Once I’ve verified my meter’s linearity, I re-test for film speed and development time.  I’ve switched to a new processing timer in the last year or two and changed some timer calibrations (see New Darkroom Timer, below) so it’s time for a double-check.  I’m also going to compare my current “standard” film, TMax 100 with Ilford’s Delta 100 and FP4+.  A friend recently showed me a test he’d done with TM100 and FP4, and the tonal renditions were quite different, so I want to take a look for myself.  He also had some interesting results comparing Kodak Xtol and Ilford’s ID11 – so I think I’ll look into that, too.

All this testing doesn’t really need to take a lot of time – I don’t worry about making “art.”  I can expose two sets of film and develop in separate developers – or expose a whole roll of film the same, cut the roll in half and develop separately.  I can expose three different films the same and develop appropriately in the same developer and see the differences between the films themselves.  I do use a test target and a densitometer (got it on eBay for $100!) and that saves a lot of time – for me –  but it’s not essential by any means.

When I’m done with all this I’ll feel more up-to-date – prepared for the “chance” that may come my way.

Over the years I’ve evolved a technique I have come to refer to as Selective Masking. I use the term “selective” because it is a physical, hands-on method of tonal control in analog printing, rather that the photometric “unsharp masking”. In its basic form, it’s not techno-anything; it simply is a means of solidifying your own dodging and burning preferences into a “package” which remains absolutely constant from print to print.  You can change your mind about how you want that package to perform; you can dodge and burn in greater detail than with traditional methods and with absolute consistency from print to print.  It works with either a diffusion enlarger or in contact printing.  It does NOT work with condenser enlargers.

Carried to the ’nth degree, Selective Masking can transform the job of printing a challenging negative from one of agonizing difficulty to the mere push of a button: a “straight” print from the untouched, unmodified original negative. Any size print. Local contrast changes can be made, and that oh-so-smooth gradual sky burn can be built into the mask package.

Available in my Online Store:  Want to turn a difficult negative into a straight print?  This technique has worked well for me in the over 20 years I have been refining it and has been updated to reflect more sophisticated digital techniques.  Selective Masking Articles on CD

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Next I’m going to work on making a BW negative from a color digital image I made in China when I didn’t have access to my 4×5!

The bottom line is that I now feel it is realistic to make repairs and adjustments to images that otherwise might be set aside as unusable for silver printing.  For pricing and further information on the process contact Ludo Leideritz at Reflective Image Studios.

Left: scan from original negative; Right, scan from silver print from digital negative.
Barricia Vineyard, planted 1888.

When I got my first sample of the Adox paper, I had just finished producing a batch of Ansel Adams’ Moon and Half Dome prints for The Ansel Adams Gallery. Since the negative (made on 120 Adox R17 12/28/1960) was still in my Omega D5500 enlarger, I had a perfect opportunity to see exactly how the paper would perform with a high quality image I had printed many many times.

The first result: an absolutely lovely image. It required no change in the “no filter” setting I usually use with this negative on Ilford Multigrade FB – so “normal” contrast seemed to be right on. It had a beautiful gradation of tonality from blacks to clean whites. It seemed a bit faster than the Ilford, but for the Adox test I was using a higher concentration of Dektol than I had used for the production printing.

The image seemed to show a slight tendency to split-tone in Ilford Selenium toner 1:10 for 4 minutes. The split was not as noticeable as I had seen with its predecessor, Agfa MCC. In a subsequent toning I cut the time to 3 minutes, and that seemed fine.

The surface quality seems to be beautifully glossy.

After such a first informal evaluation, the next thing I like to do is quantify a paper’s contrast range – how far will it go hard and soft? For this test I use a 4×5 Stouffer 31-step test film. With the test negative in the enlarger I first determine an exposure so that with no filter I get a print where I stop getting any increase in “black” somewhere around steps 3 to 5. After the print is dry I then see which step appears to be paper white. I then do the same thing with maximum magenta and maximum yellow filtration. The enlarger and its colorhead are over 25 years old and I now can’t get a filter setting beyond 164 Magenta or 164 Yellow. Even so, this is enough to get contrasts of 00 and 5+ with Multigrade.

With the Adox, “no filter” had almost identical contrast as Multigrade and slightly harder than Foma or Oriental. At 164M it was slightly softer than the Multigrade and identical to the Foma and Oriental – maybe a Grade 5. At 164Y it was off-the-chart soft. I was not able to get either a black or a white from the Stouffer film. At 130Y I got a near-black and near-white.

Summary: The Adox MCC 110 seems to be an absolutely excellent paper. Its paper base is now white rather than the “natural” white of the Agfa version, but the image color seems to be the same slightly-warm as the Agfa. Excellent printing speed, tonal gradation and contrast range.

CompnTemp ® is software rather than hardware and is available for both Windows and Mac computers. I set up a small shelf in my darkroom for my Mac Powerbook and all I have to do to get going is plug in the accessory USB temperature probe and cover the screen with red plastic.

What sets CompnTemp apart from ANY other timer is that is completely user-programmable. if you want your target temperature to be 73 degrees instead of 68 that’s fine. If you want it to count UP instead of DOWN, that’s fine, too.

You can save profiles so you can toggle from one group of settings for prints to another set of preferences for film. It even lets you customize the compensation curves.  It also gives you a continuous read-out of the ACTUAL temperature.

Price is $85 for CompnTemp and about $40 for the probe. Contact: http://www.curtpalm.com/Software.html for more information or purchase!

Probe Clamp

The probe used for the CompnTemp timer shouldn’t be allowed to be completely immersed – so I have started making a specialized little tray clamp to hold the probe (see right).

Flat fee $25 – USPS postage included. To order one from me, contact me!

Katherine Gillis in Lake Wylie, South Carolina has been doing much of my own print spotting and ALL of the spotting on the Ansel Adams Special Edition prints for the last 11 years or so. She used to be here in Santa Fe but for various reasons had to relocate.

She is so good and great to work with that I’ve been FedExing prints to her for nearly ten years. She works on black-and white and color prints and film. She has e-mail but prefers to discuss particular needs on the phone, so if the link above doesn’t get a response, give her a call at 803-631-0117.

For years I had a pair of supposedly “matched” Pentax digital spot meters that were never closer than 1/3 of a stop from each other – so I had to remember which meter I used for film tests and which one I had in the field.  One of these meters had an accident and got sent off to its maker for a rebuild – and came back 2/3 of a stop away from where it had been, now 1/3 higher than the meter it had been lower than!  So I sent the other meter off to its maker and after two months got it back about the same as when I had sent it.  Which meter was right?

I then got a dandy little “Pocket Spot” from Metered Light which sometimes agreed with one Pentax and other times, the other.  The Pocket Spot was the only really “linear” meter of the three, yielding nearly identical densities on a roll of 35mm film exposed randomly on plain targets ranging in brightness from about 1 EV up to 18.  Last spring I had had it with the three-meter dance and decided to finally standardize on the work of a highly competent, pro-savvy company in Hollywood.  Quality Light Metric does the meter calibration for the film industry, and those folks don’t have the time to mess around with equipment that isn’t right.  I sent both meters off to Hollywood.

The calibration was done in two days at substantially less cost than the “other” place, and both meters now agreed exactly with each other, and while they were still 1/3 stop different from the Pocket Spot, they were now, at least, perfectly linear.  The final answer?  I sent the Pocket Spot and one of the Pentaxes off to Metered Light and had them tweak the PS to match the Pentax.  I now have three meters that all read the same!

My students, naturally, have all varieties of meters in their kits.  Sometimes they agree with mine and sometimes not.  We can tell pretty quickly whether their gear is linear, and if it is then we know they can rely on the readings, they’ll just have a different film speed than I use.  But they’ll wind up with the same exposure!

If you have multiple meters and want to put an end to calibration frustration, just have them all set to the same standard, and make that your own.  Contact George Milton at Quality Light Metric, 7095 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood CA 90028.  323-467-2265.  If you Google them, you’ll come up with a bunch of different addresses and phone #s.  This is the current info for mail order work.

In the last year and a half I have had the opportunity to make three international trips with 4×5 camera gear and TMax 100 film. Italy via Frankfurt; Scotland; and China. In Albuquerque and in Florence, when connection times allowed the time, a hand inspection (with wipedown) was done without objection, but other times and places made it practical or obligatory to send the carry-on film through the scanner.

On the China trip, my ISO 100 film got “zapped” six times (they even do this at train stations in China). The net result? No trace of fog.

On the Italy trip last year I made three identical exposures on TMX 100 Readyload. I put one sheet in my checked baggage, one in my carry-on to be x-rayed, and one which I requested hand-inspect. The two carry-on films were perfect, but the film in the checked bag showed definite scan lines. The scan lines were probably Zone I or below so didn’t “print,” but the net reccommendation from all of this is:

• Don’t put ANY film in your checked baggage.
• Carry-on film is probably fine with multiple security scans.

Update: November 2008. I just returned from my fifth trip to China with TMax 100 4×5 Readyload film. After, I think, six scans through passenger security machines there was no trace of fog.

If you have been one of my students and would like something better than the xerox copies of the articles you got in your workshop binder, contact me. I’m offering the Variable-Contrast CD for $30. I’ll even sign it! It’s a single CD with a pdf file which has daisy-chained the four articles together.

Lastly, the illustration photos in the pdf file seem to print a bit on the mushy side with some printers. I suggest printing a single, sample page such as p.23 or p.24 and adjust the contrast and brightness settings on your printer until the images print satisfactorily.