I shot a couple rolls of Tri-X last year in my EOS 10 with no special
considerations, developed myself normally, and got excellent negs and
prints. I made the prints myself on both Kodak Multigrade B&W and Kodak RA4
B&W paper. I'd say exposures were bang on under all conditions including
flash. Negs did not look too dense, and photos had real nice fine grain and
tonal range.
I don't like overexposing B&W as I find it gives larger grain and long
enlarger exposure times. I'd advise you to partial meter on the important
areas. Of course if you're getting picky, spotmeter the shadows and adjust
exposure to get the amount of detail you want there. If highlights are
important, work from the highlights to retain details there. You can of
course compensate somewhat in processing the film, and contrast of paper to
retain shadow and highlights, but only in a limited degree, unlike colour
negative film and paper.
The zone system requires much work and calibration, then strictly
adhering to your development and exposure system to get decent results. You
will find a method of amount of compensation from shadow and highlights to
get good results by reading about the zone system and other fine black and
white books, then doing some testing of your own. Of course the old tricks
of burning and holding back print areas can make a difference too, as well
as Photoshop on your scans.
May I suggest this quick test - find a scene with a large tonal range -
in which with normal exposure you will be sure to lose some shadow and some
highlights. Set your camera on a tripod, then take some shots at normal
metering, then partial, then some with compensation of 1-4 stops
overexposed, and 1-4 stops under. Process normally, and decide how much
compensation gives you a good print for both shadow and highlights. That
would then become your normal exposure pattern. For example, if you find
underexposing 1 stop at normal metering gives you the best compromise of
shadow to highlight, then you might use that for your normal metering by
setting your filmspeed 1 stop higher. Getting more shadow or highlight is
simply compensating from there in either direction. Subsequent films shot
with this method will tell you whether it's working :-)
Using my spot meter, I often check the scene with the meter to determine
the range of tones. If there's more than 10 stops difference, then I might
want to change my film developing to compensate. This of course would only
apply when both highlight and shadow are important. Underdeveloping the negs
after overexposing them of course does gain you more tonal range.
More developing tends to only develop the highlights more, the shadows
gain very little from 'pushing' them on B&W film. If you need to increase
contrast though, it's a good plan to underexpose and over develop. The main
thing, is to check your camera metering and film developing combo as to
getting a normal negative with your favorite film. It's pretty hard to do
unless you're developing your own films, or have a good lab that can give
you consistant results.
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