[Konvas] lab accident

[H. W. Stone]

Dan, this is not to yell at you, you just got in the way.

Sorry.



 First--? again--? the development is exactly the same for different speed neg films of this type--? same chemistry, same time, without regard to brand.

Second--? As for the black and white film?? The temp would float off the emulsion, even if it was Rodinal at 100F-- the black and white emulsion just won't handle the temp.? The lab guy should have been flogged, but one time I watched friend of mine talking to someone else just do fixer first, then stop, then developer-- and then stared at the film trying to figure out what was wrong.? The colored trays in the wrong order kind of gave it away, but he never lived it down.? Stupid happens.

Third--- and the real meat of this reply--? "proper exposure" is a hoax.? Nominal exposure reproduction is the basis for what we CALL proper exposure, but it does not really exist.

The "standard" boils down to what began when Kodak needed a standard, and-- hold your hat--? what was it?? They had a board off of an old barn, the leaned it against the side of the chemical mix room's south wall at forty five degrees from vertical, and "nominal" was "how much time it took to make a good image" at F16.? This means that if it took 1/100th of a second, it was a "100 speeded film coating."?? The emulsion was called a film coating, and the term was speeded-- that was the way they thought.? The "nominal correct" became "dead on" at noon, and 80% of dead on for two to four hours before and after noon-- depending on what time of the year it was-- shorter in summer, longer in winter.? This also meant that winter film of the same "speeded film coating" was different than summer film of the same speeded coating.? 

They finally turned it into a known light output reflected off that gray board-- the "sunny 16 gray card scale."? 

All film exposures are approximate depending on a number of factors.? The same amount of light falling on the same object using the same film may vary based on the color of the light and/or the color of the object--? a light green ball with 100 lux of "mixed mid day daylight" on it will not be the same as it is with 100 lux of 3200k light on it.

All exposure is nominal and approximate.

Overexposure of a negative by a chosen amount is a habit of most older photographers-- and based on the film, time of day, objects, et cetera, it varies.

For still color negative I almost always tried to go from one third to one and a half over, and never had a problem.? Of course, a lot of the "how much" had to do with a few decades of doing it, too, but overexposure of color neg stock never gave me a problem-- and almost always solved many that could have occured.? Black and White negative needed to be one quarter to one half stop over, not more, and color reversal needed to be UNDER by a half stop or so.? Black and white reversal was usually best "dead on" or a quarter stop under to make the image "pop" when projected.

What you want is 80% nominal reproduction of a forty five degree 18% gray fifty percent reflectance board during mid day of a clear day during the month of July in Rochester, NY.

Good luck on that one.





 

-----Original Message-----
From: Dan Cordle <dancordle at hotmail.com>



Hi Ole,

As other's have said, one stop off is likely to be okay. 
I've yet to have that kind of lab mix-up with cine film, but recently my still 
photo lab processed ten 5x7 Black and White negatives in E6 chemicals. That was 
done even though the order was clearly marked AND even though each piece of film 
has proper identification notches. As a result, my negatives were completely 
ruined. When labs screw up, they usually make some kind of amends. Mine offered 
to reimburse me for the negatives and to offer free processing of an equal 
number of negs in the future. They were also extremely apologetic.  I'm sure 
you're lab will make a good offer if you're not happy with the results. Best of 
luck.

And this brings up a question I've been wondering about. I read on 
cinematography-dot-com of at least one Cinematographer who (in his own words) 
habitually overexposes his shots by a half stop as insurance against 
underexposure. He goes so far as to set his light meter off by half a stop. I 
find this kind of strange, but he's a rather well known DoP seems to know what 
he's doing. Is overexposing by a half stop a more or less normal practice these 
days? I've always tred to be as spot on as possible regardless of whether I'm 
shooting stills or cine film. 
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