As all of you (or at least many of you) know, I only do film, I don't develop my own, I don't print my own, I have no interest in developing and printing. I like taking pictures and bringing them to my lab, coming back a week later and picking up negs or prints, as the case may be.
As you've all noticed, the stuff I post often looks like poo. I'm not very good at scanning. Much of my early reputation as a purveyor of fuzzy pics comes from my sketchy abilities at the scanner. Every year I got to Grandfather Mountain, and every year someone new from the list looks at my pix and says, "Holy crap, some of these are really really sharp. I love the way these things look! Those are amazing grey-tones. The blacks are deep, the greys are beautiful. How do you do it?" More specifically, Mat Maesson asked what developer Robert the Lab Guy and Printer uses. I was speaking to him today (Robert, not Mat), and I finally remembered to ask him. He says that he just uses regular Agfa Multigrade Developer, and prints my stuff on Agfa Pearl paper. I told him about the compliments I get on how the prints look (which may have to do with lowered expectations from poor scans <g>), and he said a great part of how my prints (specifically) turn out has to do with my exposures, which he says are usually bang on, and never "too thin" (which I guess means lots of detail?). He offered the opinion (as he has on numerous occasions, and as I've previously reported to this list) that those that shoot with manual meters tend to have more consistent and better exposed negs than those who rely on AE. Of course, I'm sure there are exeptions to that rule. Or, he could just be saying all that stuff just to "stroke me", and keep me coming back... <vbg> cheers, frank -- "Sharpness is a bourgeois concept." -Henri Cartier-Bresson -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
