In Reply to: OK, OK, OK... posted by Romy on March 24, 2001 at 19:25:40:
***However, it is correct only if you use the development process as standard fixed parameter. Should you have an opportunity to understand deeper the underlying mechanism of development you would learn that the film quality, exposure and development methods are 3 connected, complex and flexible processes. ***Boy, Romy, you take the cake for arrogance. If I *only* can use a commercial lab, then it's GOOD if I have a nice, stable process, and I can use the right film FOR THEIR PROCESS. This does not deny that if you happen to have a C41 setup, an E6 setup, and a full wet lab for B&W you can't do some neat things. Of course you can. The point you started with was a claim that information on what film to use was WORTHLESS. You're still dead wrong on that. Any lab that is close to calibration (and yes, I do know some aren't) will get the results most of us expect from RG100 or RVP or whatever. This means that film recs are entirely useful, because the emulsions are made for specific performance. All of your wailing about labs is wrong. Yes, someone may have to try to find a good lab. I had to. Anyone who cares will.
Your sliding from reliability (which is what your FIRST article addressed, and incorrectly) into custom development is simply trying to change the subject and engage in nice exercise of the fallacy of the excluded middle to make a personal attack.
To the point of what film to use, NO AMOUNT OF FIDDLING WITH DEVELOPMENT IS GOING TO TURN K25 into RVP, now, is it? NOPE.
(me)As my MS is in fact in optical processing, I do in fact have a very good clue as to how to both test and evaluate processing and film results. In fact, I've done some res charts, colour balance (yes, I have a target, etc) and so on, and the negs are right on, with no special processing and no comment to the lab. It just comes out right.
***Those accomplishments you mentioned I demanded from my employees who got paid less then $8/hour. ***
WHAT accomplishments, pray tell? I didn't mention any. Do you mean the Fourier Optics, or the high-speed optical autocorrelation system that could find the eye of a needle, or the what? The res charts are what I do now from the comfort of my own home, to check what my lab is doing to me, as was entirely clear the first time. Your kind of game-playing here is more fit for r.a.o.
***It doesn’t say anything about the quality of the people I worked with but is dose say something about the value of our MS status. ***
Look, I spent time fiddling with about 2 tons of hologram plates, etc. THAT is what I did for an MS.
Tell you what, set up a lithium deturide F-center imaging setup, make it work and show the accuracy and speed of the correlations it makes, and then you can tell me about what I did for an MSEE. Since you claim that your $8.00 an hour employee can do that, show me the employee. After you do that, expect me to find her a job at a bit more than $8.00 an hour, too.
Yes, I also had to use res charts, etc, and calculate from some rather inconvenient densiometer readings the way to get the LiD into the right sort of gamma to give me some decent output, but that is sort of secondary, isn't it? It's all part of doing the work.
***As a professional photographer and creator of number of developers and development techniques I assure you that there is a lot of room in “special processing†because there is no “standard processingâ€.***
"NO STANDARD PROCESSING?" Get real. Something I send to the lab here and to IPG come out within the noise level. If that's not standard, the word has no meaning.
Now, custom processing is indeed very nice, IF, and I repeat IF you have access to it. I don't, generally, unless I ship stuff far away, so I simply use the film the way it was intended for standard processing, and you know what? I can live with it and make good images.
Now, I am pleased that you are a professional photographer and formulary chemist. I don't doubt that you do good work, either. I do wonder why you're so hostile to the fact that labs can and do a standard thing, be it for C41 or E6 or even a FEW for Techpan.
Just bear in mind that when you use your colour-table optimized JPG, you can go to the patent office and find a few patents that (Lucent, I think) hold in my name on the subject of psychovisual tuning for texture, color, and frequency content, in several color spaces. I don't doubt that you do good work, but you are WAY out of line when you assume that the person you are addressing is ignorant.
I am NOT a line photographer, and I know that. I am, however, entirely capable of checking the results I get from a lab, and they are indeed consistant (for the labs I use more than once or twice, of course), and consistant enough that film recommendations make a great deal of sense.
*** There is only the correct correlation between the input conditions, the result and the method how you reach the best possible result.***
And if you have a nice, stable lab who does consistant work, you know what to do when you expose the film, eh? Isn't that the point, if you don't have access to custom processing? Now, there are days, especially when I'm doing B&W, that I wish I had good push/pull processing, when I've got way too much contrast, or none to speak of, but I don't. I cope. Of course it would be nice to have a darkroom in my basement, but I wouldn't use it enough to keep the chemicals fresh.
The state of small labs out there is NOT as bad as you make it out. Now, there are some that are, well, um, "wretched", indeed. The solution for such labs is to only give them one roll, once. And don't make that one valuable, make it your living room, using familiar lighting, etc, so you KNOW what you get back.
The issue of using the right film STILL matters, even if the person is using a really BAD lab (although I'd not do that twice). You'd hardly use RVP on standard people shots in a studio setting now, would you?
On the other hand, you just MIGHT use RVP in a rain forest when you want that lush green, eh? You'd hardly use 160NC, though, under most situations for that, yes? NHG-2? You'd think twice about Ultra 50, I bet, too.
Yes, recommendations DO have some meaning, now, you have to admit, don't you?
Once again, my cv is included. Pay some attention to the publication list.
JJ
This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors:
Follow Ups
- Yeesh! - jj 01:14:11 03/25/01 (6)
- O yes - Romy 13:35:07 03/25/01 (5)
- COOL IT! - The Moderation Group 00:30:47 03/26/01 (0)
- City fellers! - Silver Eared John 20:40:49 03/25/01 (0)
- GET REAL - jj 20:35:41 03/25/01 (2)