The reason I question the 'great dynamic range' is that the best color films only get about 7-8 stops of dynamic range. And since chromogenic B&W films essentially use the same technology/photochemistry, I'd be very surprised if they can exceed that (slide film is around 4-5 stops). The traditional 'Zone System' was developed on the assumption (valid for the time) that B&W film can capture 10 stops of dynamic range. Modern B&W films are better than what Adams was working with when he co-developed the Zone System, so it doesn't surprise me to see that FP4 has a usable 11 stop range
You can test this for yourself. Go buy a roll of T400 CN and a roll of Ilford FP4. Then borrow or buy a grayscale step tablet calibrated in 1/3 stop steps. Using the same camera,lens and lighting, shoot the step table (set the exposure off a gray card in the same lighting). Then still using the same gray card you used for your initial lighting, do a range of exposures starting at -6 stops to +6 stops over the indicated exposure (you might need to fiddle with speed/Fstop combos). Get both rolls developed (but not printed). Take a look at the number of stops between where the film itself goes from indistinguishable from the 'film fog' ie the same transmissivity as the sprocket hole exposure to shere it is so black that you can't distinguish between two adjacent exposures. I will lay good money that the range of T400 isn't close to that of FP4. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Berry Ives" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Wednesday, October 15, 2003 7:17 PM Subject: [filmscanners] Re: scanning TMAX 3200 on 10/15/03 1:05 PM, Austin Smith at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > It's true that high quality silver-based B&W film, when properly exposed and > developed, has a higher dynamic range than chromogenic B&W. It's also true > that it is not a classic "wet darkroom" film, since it's normally developed > by a one-hour type color lab. However, based on my experience with a > "consumer" film scanner, low priced scanners don't have the dynamic range to > handle the range of density that good B&W negatives can produce, so this may > be a moot point. The chromogenic films are certainly convenient, especially > for the darkroom challenged, but I don't think that there's one out there > with all the speed that TMAX 3200 offers. Well, you may be right. I don't know. But there have been some pretty good reviews of T400 CN film, which support my observation of the great range of this film. If you have some lab test to refer to, I would be interested in that. But, really, I think that Tony made the critical observation: you have to adjust the curves to exploit the dynamic range. The dynamic range it can handle is so great that the mid-tones are flattened until you tweak them to get where you want to be. But the information is there on the film if you want to exploit it. Really, I am a relative novice with this film. But it is very interesting to me, as someone who wants occasionally to make B&W images on film and scan them to produce prints. Supposedly it is pretty good to 1600. Here are a couple links with some review of this film. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/photo/essays/vanRiper/010427.htm http://www.capla.org/98_nov.htm Berry ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------ Unsubscribe by mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED], with 'unsubscribe filmscanners' or 'unsubscribe filmscanners_digest' (as appropriate) in the message title or body ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe by mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED], with 'unsubscribe filmscanners' or 'unsubscribe filmscanners_digest' (as appropriate) in the message title or body