Jean-David Beyer wrote in message ...
Brian Kosoff wrote:
I think the reason why many people here say that they have even
development is that they are either shooting and processing scenes
with uneven, irregular backgrounds which essentially camouflage any
un evenness, or they are not perceptive enough to see a difference.

I am not convinced. It is usually true that if I point a camera
somewhere, that what is photographed is not all that even, and the
unevenness of the subject matter can conceal unevenness of emulsion over
the size of the negative (I have never seen that, and imagine it does
not occur), unevenness of processing, etc. But the opposite is true,
too; some people photograph something like an "even" sky and see a
variation. I notice that the sky, even a clear blue sky, is not all that
even in practice; at least here in New Jersey. What appears even can
vary quite a bit if you actually measure it with a spot meter. It is
pretty obvious on the ground glass, too, if you use something like a
90mm lens on 4x5. So just as unevenness in processing can be obscured by
unevenness in subject matter, so also unnoticed unevenness in subject
matter can mistakenly appear to be the result of uneven processing.

I would never use actual negatives (or transparancies) of real subjects
to evaluate evenness in processing. For measuring uniformity of
processing, you need a means of making uniformly exposed negatives.
While not trivial, anyone who is processing his own films is probably
able to come up with a means of making such negatives.



Precisely. Fogged film is probably ideal.