Re: [photo-3d] transparencies vs. prints

["Ferguson Studio" <larry@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Boris;

So sorry that it took me so long to get back to you about your letter.  I
had a museum tell me that full female nudity was Ok but full Male nudity
wasn't and that really set us back.  The exhibition catalog was already at
the printer and had to be pulled.  The images for the show had to be
reformatted and the resulting emotions both for me and the museum director
and curatorial staff had to be smoothed.  We're back on track again, but my
wife is still upset about not being able to see equal representation of the
sexes in this exhibition.

In regard to your previous message;  you have hit several factors right on
the nose.

You mention for example:  "When brightly illuminated", bingo!  The really
nice viewers that are available for slide viewers are really powerful and
are brighter than the ANSI standards for transparency viewing and
reproduction standards which gives you a false reality of how these images
look.

"The widest range of values is compressed", bingo!  Hit on it again.
Compressed to a three f/stop range.

"Goes against everything I can see with my own eyes", again, Bingo!  Your
eyes are marvelous instruments which have an extremely wide range of
interpretation.  The optical measuring instruments will really tell you what
is or is not possible in regards to tonality range and dynamics.  We can see
well at night time but photographic films do not.

In all actuality many people are misguided about this latitude thing in
regards to exposure of films.  They either are or they are not precisely
exposed.  You can tell the difference between prints made from properly
exposed color or BW negs and ones that have been either overexposed or
underexposed, you just need to have good training to see it.

The real problem with color prints isn't the neg but the print material
which has such a short range.  Boris, instead of trying to make traditional
color prints you should try scanning the negs on a Tango or Scitex machine
and then make a LightJet 5000 print, you will be amazed at the detail in
these images , from the highlights to the shadows which will all be fully
detailed !  Or take that color neg and make Colorlux prints (my personal
favorite), absolutely stunning!

You can really see this problem with the short range of color transparencies
when working with commercial reproduction of product images.  If we measure
the highlight and then the shadow these must fall within a three f-stop
range or they will not reproduce.  Which usually means that we must expose
for the highlight and then boost additional illumination into the shadow
areas in order to keep them open either with fill cards or additional light
units.
It looks to me like you do this all the time with your work.  Small studios
usually make this easy because light bounces all around off of the walls
filling in the shadows.

At my studio we now shoot almost all reproduction color work with negative
materials and then scan them.  No magazine or corporate client has ever
complained, in fact, they marvel at our ability to have the extended
tonality range.  This even includes our architectural work for Architectural
Digest Magazine or HDR Architecture and Engineering.

Optical test resolution charts will tell you a lot about lenses.  They are
available for purchase, just photograph it with your favorite slow speed
film and examine the results under a microscope.  It will really tell you
what is happening in regards to image sharpness.  I'm always amazed how many
people really think that a TV screen or computer monitor is sharp compared
to a 8x10" contact print.

All films are not created equal.  35mm XXX is not the same film as 4x5"
Professional XXX.  Not even the same emulsion!  Other films do have the same
emulsions for the different sizes.  But all lenses are not equal in their
sharpness.  Large format lenses are not as sharp, they don't have to be,
because the degree of enlargement is less to make the final print, they may
appear to be sharper to your eye, but optical resolution charts will tell
you differently.  That is why there have actually been very little changes
in lense design until recently (Schneider XL's for example having better
coverage).  Some very old lenses are as sharp as anything being made today.
It's hard for many people to believe this, but just ask Ron Wisner and he
will point the way.  Now there have been great improvements in optical
coatings which have helped to reduce flare and improve color.

They human eye is a wonderful thing, but both it and photographs are the
most questioned items in court trials !  I have been frequently called upon
to interpret images in court cases and have had to prove how images were
made purposely to skew information to the opposing sides point of view.
Recently I had the opportunity to explain the inverse square law about the
fall off of light when a train-car wreck night time scene was illuminated
evenly for a full mile.  How is that possible with a single set of car
headlights?  The photographer had actually lightpainted the scene and lied
to the court about what he had done.  We think we see something, but we
don't actually stop to think about what it really is.  After all, the
photograph is not reality, it is a two-dimensional abstraction of a
three-dimensional reality.

Boris;  you shot your twin rig Hasselblad set up and gosh was it ever sharp.
That's what a multi-thousand dollar lense can do for you.  You should try
the same thing with a Sputnik and then put these two together with your 35mm
slides onto a good quality microscope and they examine the sharpness.  Be
sure and photograph the same nude model holding the test resolution chart
(it always works better to photograph a nude model with the chart-doesn't
it?)  That's when you will see the difference.  You won't see it when making
a stereoview card.  The Sputnik is a perfectly nice camera to use once you
overcome it's manufacturing defects.

That's why we may have the problem here is that there is practical
photography and there is scientific application of photography.

By the way, I got the Rolleiflex SLX twin-rig and I'm really excited about
using it.

I'm looking forward to seeing your stereocards.

Larry