Unless you can recognize a properly exposed C-41 negative, but that is asking a lot from a beginner.
Anyone else remember good old Kodachrome (ASA 10)? If your exposure was off by two stops you did not even get an image. Exposure by guess got 2-5 images to a roll (out of 36), autoexposure cameras got about 50%. 1/2 stop bracketing got you either a usable slide or an unusable one, not one that was a bit better than the other. Anyone who got 100% decent exposures really knew how to use their meter. I do not think I ever got much better than 80-85% myself using my Weston Master III. That stuff had no latitude at all.
graywolf http://www.graywolfphoto.com "Idiot Proof" <==> "Expert Proof" -----------------------------------
William Robb wrote:
----- Original Message ----- From: "Don Sanderson" Subject: RE: Understanding exposure? Recommendations?
Considering that most people don't have, or no longer have, (such as myself) facilities to develop black and white film, how do those of you that do feel about trying out these techniques with C-41 BW film? Of course you have no control over development times but do you think it would be a valuable exercise in learning the zone system and exposure in general? Or is the latitude of the C-41 stock such that it wouldn't really tell you much? The lack of E6 processing locally, and the cost makes shooting slides impractical for me so that's pretty well out. Perhaps digital would be the most educational after all?
In any learning situation, you want to limit all the variables except the one you are trying to gauge the effect of.
If you are going to use a C-41 process film, thats a good way to go, since C-41 is a pretty fixed process that doesn't lend itself to a large degree of change due to process variations.
OTOH, it's pretty well impossible to get unmanipulated C-41 printing, unless you know someone with a custom lab who is willing to make prints for you usng an enlarger.
Minlab printers cannot have their automation turned off, they always try to make the best exposure possible (given their set up parameters).
William Robb
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