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- Path: sparky!uunet!walter!att-out!rutgers!rochester!rit!isc-newsserver!ritvax.isc.rit.edu!ANDPPH
- From: andpph@ritvax.isc.rit.edu
- Newsgroups: rec.photo
- Subject: film latitude
- Message-ID: <1992Nov16.013008.3489@ultb.isc.rit.edu>
- Date: 16 Nov 92 01:30:08 GMT
- Sender: news@ultb.isc.rit.edu (USENET News System)
- Reply-To: andpph@ritvax.isc.rit.edu
- Organization: Rochester Institute of Technology
- Lines: 34
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-
- It seems to me that there is an awful lot of talk about "latitude" without
- regard often for the fact that latitude is intimately connected with the scene
- contrast. In fact, when photographing under contrasty conditions (again,
- contrsty would have to be defined first!) I believe that it is possible that
- many film have no latitiude at all... to the point that one has to either
- sacrifice the shadows (normally not done) or the highlights (more often the
- case).
-
- So saying a film has a latitude of 1, 2 or 3 stops means nothing unless we know
- something about the scene "brightness" range. It might be better to simply
- specify the useful log exposure range of a film, no?
-
- On the other hand, there are conventions about what a "standard pictorial
- scene" is in terms of contrast.... basically about 160:1 which is about 7 1/3
- stops, if you specify it in stops or a log exposure range of about 2.20.
-
- If your film can only accomodate a log exposure range of 8 stops then you
- basically have a latitude of 2/3 stops, etc. for a "standard scene".
-
- In a remote way this is what the Zone System is all about but it sure seems a
- much more straightforward way of controlling the process and predicting
- results.
-
- ... just my 2c worth, andy
-
- ..... \
- .....| |.. \
- | Andrew Davidhazy, RIT, High Speed Photography Lab. \
- :____________________________________________________ |'''''''\ \
- : IN%"andpph@ritvax.isc.rit.edu" fax 716-475-5804 |......./ /
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