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> > The case for the color negative. > (What do Fig Newtons have to do with color printing?) Well, Since you brought it up....Alot actually. I worked in a custom photo lab for 8 years, and I used to be able to hold my own pretty well making custom prints. Don't know if I could do it anymore, but... > The statement was made that an art director or editor would wonder why you use > color negative film. Several reasons are: > 1. It is more forgiving than slide film. You can over or under exposed by > perhaps as much as 1 f stop and still get an acceptable result. A thing called bracketing. Not real effective for railroad photography though. What is acceptable? Even with the exposure correction you can make in a darkroom, a 1 stop under or over, even on negatives, cannot always be properly corrected for. And with color, you cannot correct the contrast which suffers from poor exposure. What you call acceptable, and what I might call acceptable, or the art director, may be two separate things. > With transparencies what you get is what you get. No compensation is possible in > the darkroom for the individual exposure. Entire rolls of film can be pushed > or pulled but not single frames. The very best result with negatives comes > from properly exposed film. This may be off target a little to your point, but, if you do your best to make proper exposure, and practice makes perfect, then this becomes an issue that doesn't have to create a lot of concern. Everyone makes mistakes. But being conscious of how you are exposing your film at all times, generally helps you get the best results and the best results from any film come from proper exposure. > 2. Publication quality b&w prints can be made using Kodak Panalure paper and > printing from color negatives. Since 1987 I have had over 100 b&w photos, > made using 6x7 color negatives and Panalure, paper published in national and > regional railroading publications including CTC Board whose standards are as > high as anyone in railroad publishing. IMHO Panalure is awful, the stuff is horrible to work with. Since it is sensitive to all wavelengths of light like normal color paper, you cannot correct for contrast, which is essential for a good looking B/W print. Your color neg has to be close to right on, otherwise underexposed negs produce very flat prints, or overexposed very contrasty. You are gaining nothing as far as I am concerned. I can pretty much be certain that all these images that you have had published have been pretty darn close if not near perfect exposures. I agree that CTC Board will not print anything but very good quality images, but I doubt that any print made from a 1 stop over/under exposure especially on Panalure would qualify. I may be wrong here, but enough experience in the darkroom has told me otherwise. I can usually, but not always, tell in a rail mag when someone has used a Panalure to screen from. No punch to the picture. > 3. If you send in a color print you always retain the original (the negative). > If you send in a one of a kind slide (the original) to an editor, you are at > the mercy of the editors carefulness and personal integrity and a host of > other factors out of your control. Ah, in the illustrious words of the founder of SPORRS, see the "motor driven clip". Granted, all of us do not have the luxury of 6 fps motor drives, but the in camera dupe is the best way. 3 shots per clip becomes one slide for one editor, one slide for another, and one for myself. Every pro photographer I have ever worked with, uses color negatives when they need to create something to be displayed. A poster, a framed print, a DuraTrans or DuraFlex display ad or something of the sorts. If it is for publication, they always used color transparencies. Fig Newton (a.k.a Rick Newton) ======================================================= -> SPORRS: 'Serious Photographers Of Railroad Related Subjects' -> Web Site: http://www.anet-stl.com/acphotog/sporrs/ -> Message © 1998 SPORRS® - All Rights Reserved =======================================================
