Response to densitometer alternatives

Andy, Look at your prints and then look at prints by any of your favorite printers. Are your prints close in look as theirs regardless of content? Are your whites nice and crisp and blacks black as night? Are your midtones where you want them? Even if all you want are midtones are they're relationships where they should be? If you're not satisfied, then learn all you can about the "system" of photography. Yes "system". Yeah, you don't need a densiwhatyoumacallit. Hell, I don't own one either but my prints are scrumptious because I learned the system. You should know the reasons behind why the zonies do what they do. Using the zone is so rewarding once you get the feeling for it. Before I learned the system I wasted tons of materials. It would have been cheaper to use a small portion of this material learning the system in the first place. Make the effort and find your proper film speed and your correct printing time for max-black in a print with your set-up. From there it is a piece of cake to place whatever tone you want pretty much wherever you want. Your prints will sparkle as never before. It wont be luck anymore. Even if you vision is a portrait that you want soft and only have the higher midtones. You will end up burning and dodging a lot less. And don't believe what you hear about the great artists not being hung-up on technique. They weren't because they took the time in the beginning to learn all they could to get what they saw in the view finder and in their minds creative eye onto a print. There are a lot of ways to learn the system. It doesn't matter which one you choose to learn from, just learn what your materials will do and then use this knowlege to make you vision as good as it can be. A. Adams said something about a fuzzy picture of a fuzzy concept. Don't get hung up in technique but by all means learn what the technique is telling you. James

[ Previous | Next ]