pleasure reading your message ken. recently i set up a darkroom and now i'm
doing and pretty much all that i'm interested in is b&w. like you i found
_the print_ a god send. all my adult life i've been in and out of darkroom,
but never really learned how to expose for highlights and fill in the
shadows with contrast.
was surprised to hear that you're using pan-f mainly. personally this was a
favourite for a long time, but i've recently abandoned it for delta 100 and
agfapan 25. i'm souping both in xtol and i've been knocked out by the delta
100 (ei 80/100). the true speed, the grain, sharpness, tonality are
exceptional. in fact, i can believe how good some of the new b&w products
really are: xtol, delta 160, ilford IV/agfa classic rc. honestly feel like
i've got a lot more expressive room than i do w/ chromes, which don't get me
wrong i still love.
glen lowry
-----Original Message-----
From: Ken Norton <image66@xxxxxxx>
To: olympus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx <olympus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: December 2, 1999 5:09 PM
Subject: [OM] On B&W, etc.
>Well, it's been an interesting week here in Lake Wobegone...
>
>Since my last post regarding Multi-Media in Des Moines, IA, I've had quite
>a busy week buried in my makeshift darkroom soaking my fingers to the bone.
>(Oh, you're supposed to use tongs?)
>
>First thing I had to do was smulch through 20,000 pictures digging up all
>of my B&W negatives. There were dozens of rolls of processed/proofed film
>that I never even took a second glance at. What a shame, since there was
>some decent stuff in there.
>
>It just so happened that last Wednesday, Karen and I mosied over to Iowa
>City and spent an afternoon in the mall there. We went into Barnes and
>Noble bookstore and I picked up Ansel Adams "The Print". I did that because
>I was planning on getting back into a darkroom sometime next year. Uh huh,
>right! I got my money back from MM and went into Christain Photo (Des
>Moines) and bought up their stock of darkroom supplies and proceeded to
>spend three days buried up to my eyeballs in developer.
>
>Again, I had no intention of getting back into the darkroom at this time,
>so I was reading the book out of enjoyment. Enjoyment or not, it was the
>most valuable $23 I probably have ever spent. I've grown up in the
>darkroom and have made at least a thousand prints, but NEVER truely knew
>what I was doing as far as contrast control was concerned. Mr. Adams wrote
>probably the one thing that turned me around, and it is so crazy basic that
>you all are probably gonna think I'm stupid or something: He said to
>expose the paper for the high values (Zone VII-VIII), and use paper grades
>for the blacks. Well, DUH!!! Within an hour, I was printing pictures like
>an old pro. I even went after and attacked a negative that was so soft
>(foggy winter day) that I figured would end up being a throwaway. I went
>up to grade 4 and found textures and gradients that I never knew existed.
>This one is a work in progress, though, as there are scratches from
>processing on the neg that need additional nosegrease.
>
>I printed up a snowscape (stream, trees, fresh snow) that is gathering much
>interest. (OM-1, Tokina ATX35-70/2.8, handheld through the jeep's open
>window with engine off, but heater running) I've been advised that at a
>dozen 11x14s of it should sell by Christmas. I hope so, I've gotta feed
>the kids somehow.
>
>What is interesting about all this, is that eight pictures (most of which I
>also have Fujichromes of) have gotten more interest, oohs and ahs, than all
>but a handful of my color shots. I haven't even started yet!
>
>So anyway, I feel like I'm being brought back into the fold. I had pretty
>much abandoned B&W or relegated it to "whatever" shots, but now I'm all
>excited about it again. Best of all, since it is getting wintertime, I'd
>rather shoot B&W than Provia/Velvia. I'm kicking myself for not shooting
>B&W religiously alongside the color stuff all these years. I have a couple
>thousand shots I'd love to do up in B&W right now. No, I won't abandon the
>slides, but will retarget the B&W as possibly a great marketing tool for me
>right now.
>
>An interesting aside, regarding optics... Over half of my negs are medium
>format (645, 66, 67) and the rest primarily shot on the OM-1. The center
>sharpness of the Mamiya optics are incredible and you could cut atoms with
>the enlargments, but overall sharpness is slightly better with some of my
>zuikos. The Mamiya Super-23 (press) that I currently have is producing
>exceptionally good B&W negatives and its "dry", non-saturated look from the
>lens is quite beneficial with the B&W film as the gradients are much
>smoother. Lenses that produce highly saturated colors (wonderful for stock
>photography and magazine covers), don't do so well with B&W film. I'm
>learning that the 100/3.5 lens on my Super-23 can be stopped WAY down with
>minimal diffusion. F32 really is usable on that lens. (Must be the single
>coating that makes it better)
>
>Regarding negative films... In the OM's I've mostly shot Ilford Pan-F (ISO
>50) film. It's grain is nearly identical to TMAX 100 in medium format.
>The 11x14 prints in side by side comparison are a hard draw to tell the
>difference, although the tonalities of the medium format are a shade
>better. (that contax is looking awefully good again...)
>
>Ken (yellow fingers, red eyes) Norton
>
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