Toe speed of TMAX 400 (was fridge and heat problems)

"Frank Pittel" wrote in message
...

I have come to think of scarpitti as a form of entertainment and his posts
are worth
reading for laughs. With him the key is not to take him seriously. Just
think back to
last year and the images he put on his website. He proudly demonstrated
that he can't
properly expose or process film and contrary to his claim of being one of
the worlds
greatest printers he stinks at that also.

This whole affair is making me sick, so I'm going to ignore the thread. M.S.
has his own style, regardless of what anyone here might thing of it and
Frank, you have yours. But photographic works speak through the print, not
on usenet where we just get into fights. Life is tough and short. Let's
lighten up.

Frank Pittel wrote in message ...
jjs wrote:
: "Michael Scarpitti" wrote in message
: HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA

: And there you are, the classic person-who-has-fallen-into-the-sewer.
: Killfile. Y'all do the same thing. Just put this unfortunate slug into your
: killfile, out of your misery. He has chosen to be the complete loser, the
: self-unemployed slug who is mumbling to himself on the street trying to get
: your attention with his desperate attempt to get your attention.

: Killfile. Forever.

: Scarpitti, you can come on back when you show an ounce of personal
: responsibility.

I have come to think of scarpitti as a form of entertainment and his posts are worth
reading for laughs. With him the key is not to take him seriously. Just think back to
last year and the images he put on his website. He proudly demonstrated that he can't
properly expose or process film and contrary to his claim of being one of the worlds
greatest printers he stinks at that also.



You wanna see one of my 'stinky' prints in person?

Michael Scarpitti wrote:
: Frank Pittel wrote in message ...
: jjs wrote:
: : "Frank Pittel" wrote in message
: : ...
: : jjs wrote:
:
: : As far as I can tell from his previous posts scarpitti knows what the
: exposure should
: : be without a meter ( he guesses ) and processes the film with the
: published development
: : times. The contrast is controlled by the paper grade he prints on.
: :
: : What you describe is the zone system which I and many others use and what
: scarpitti claims
: : is a fraud.
:
: : In a strange way I sympathize with Scarpitti's philosophy, but certainly not
: : his anger and arrogance. There is a place for his kind of
: : exposure/development and it's worked well for a lot of miniature camera
: : people who embraced it as a stylistic technique (or lack thereof). It's just
: : too bad he's trying to make his mark as the worlds most obnoxious and
: : intollerant person.
:
: The closest I've come to the scarpitti method is with my Woca (it's a holga with a
: glass lens) and then developed the film using N development. Since I rarely shot
: anything smaller the 4x5 I find myself developing most roll film in diafine. Unlike you
: I have no sympathy for scarpitti. Despite his claims of being the best at film
: processing of those following this newsgroup and being a world class printer. The
: images he put on his website were dreck. I have also found very little evidence of him
: having anywhere near the ability or knowledge that he claims. There are people on this
: newsgroup that when you read their posts you can tell that they have a vast amount of
: knowledge. There are also people with links to websites with examples of their work and
: it's clear that they are excellent photographers. Works like waffle boy and the rest of
: the dreck that scarpitti has posted demonstrates that he has the abilities of a student
: in an introductory to photography students. As a near professional student of the
: college of DuPage here in the Chicago area most of the prints made by the intro
: students create better prints then anything that scarpitti has posted.
:
: : I learned the Zone System from a great photographer in 1966, but my career
: : led me to photojournalism where for years I used mainly Tri-X and exposed
: : and composed to accomodate whatever processing it was to be subjected to
: : (Versamat was quite popular for some time. Horrors.) Later when I could do
: : my own processing (at a great paper, then a magazine), it was largely D-76
: : and Edwal FG7 with the film at 200 and 320 respectively, modestly
: : underdeveloped to hold the highlights. Now that I'm retired from that stuff,
: : I can go back with 4x5 and _really_ custom expose/develop. May I recommend
: : the book, "Way beyond Monochrome"? (Sorry, but I forgot who in this group
: : suggested it here first).
:
:
: I'm sure I'm going to upset a number of people when I say that photojournalism is a
: special case in photography. The need for quality exposure and processing is very low.
: After all the image quality printed in most newspapers is very low as a result of the
: printing process. The images in magazines is a bit better but with few exceptions
: they're all in color. This is the reason the photojournalism was the first to go
: digital. I am in no way diminishing the ability of the photojournalist as I believe they
: have a very difficult job working in difficult situations. Partial proof of this is the
: fact that now that you are a retired photojournalist you are taking the time to properly
: expose the film and you take the time to develop the film in such a way to get the best
: quality negative possible.
:
: Over the last year you and I have strongly disagreed about things ranging from politics
: to my feelings about TMX being the best film currently on the market ( I think you'll
: agree that it would be silly for me to use TMX nearly exclusively if I didn't. ) In the
: end I don't care what film or developer you use or how you develop your negatives.
: What's important is that we get the results that we each want. I've taken a look at
: "Way beyond Monochrome" in the past and for reasons I don't remember I didn't buy it. At
: your recommendation I will get it the next time I see it for sale. I've even gotten the
: "Film Developing Cookbook" and the book "Kodak Professional Black and White Films" that
: scarpitti is always quoting. Although I have issues with material presented in both
: books I found that I learned a lot from each of them.

: YOU 'have issues'? You know more than Kodak? Get lost, scumbag. You
: 'learned a lot', you say. Well, then, why do you think I mentioned
: them?

Yes I have issues with both of the books. The two biggest issues I have with the film
developing cookbook is the out of hand dismissal of T grained films and proprietarySP?
developers.

As far as claiming to know more then Kodak you frequently claim to know more then
Kodak. This is evidenced by your frequentSP? contradictions of statements clearly
made in the book "Kodak Professional Black and White Films". These claims include but
are not limited to your fantasy that Tmax is not suitable for outdoor use, that Tmax
film have a drop in their density curve. The charts for Tmax100 and Tmax400 clearly
show a straight line curve when the films are developed in the Tmax developers and an
upward bulge when developed in D76. Do you stand by your claim that you know more then
Kodak??

The biggest issues that I have with Kodak's book is procedure for determining proper
film speed and development times and the implication that the rated film speed and
published development times will give the best negative. Later in the text they do make
it clear that the published film speed and development times are simply recommended
starting points and testing is needed to determine the ideal film speed and development
time
Yes I have issues with both of the books. The two biggest issues I have with the film
developing cookbook is the out of hand dismissal of T grained films and proprietarySP?
developers.

As far as claiming to know more then Kodak you frequently claim to know more then
Kodak. This is evidenced by your frequentSP? contradictions of statements clearly
made in the book "Kodak Professional Black and White Films". These claims include but
are not limited to your fantasy that Tmax is not suitable for outdoor use, that Tmax
film have a drop in their density curve. The charts for Tmax100 and Tmax400 clearly
show a straight line curve when the films are developed in the Tmax developers and an
upward bulge when developed in D76. Do you stand by your claim that you know more then
Kodak??

The biggest issues that I have with Kodak's book is procedure for determining proper
film speed and development times and the implication that the rated film speed and
published development times will give the best negative. Later in the text they do make
it clear that the published film speed and development times are simply recommended
starting points and testing is needed to determine the ideal film speed and development
times. The second issue I have with the book is the limited number of film/developer
curves they present in their data sheets at the back of the book. Another issue I have
which isn't limited to the book is that they only show the compensation for times up to
100 seconds. While that's fine for most situations a number of times when using a small
aperture with my LF camera in low light situations I had metered exposure times of
over 100 seconds.

At no time do I feel I "know" more then Kodak. In fact it is you that frequently
contradicts the contents of Kodak's book.

As to learning something from both of the books I've never thought or claimed to know
everything and that there is nothing left for me to learn.
--




Keep working millions on welfare depend on you
-------------------

Michael Scarpitti wrote:
: Frank Pittel wrote in message ...
: jjs wrote:
: : "Frank Pittel" wrote in message
: : ...
: : jjs wrote:
:
: : As far as I can tell from his previous posts scarpitti knows what the
: exposure should
: : be without a meter ( he guesses ) and processes the film with the
: published development
: : times. The contrast is controlled by the paper grade he prints on.
: :
: : What you describe is the zone system which I and many others use and what
: scarpitti claims
: : is a fraud.
:
: : In a strange way I sympathize with Scarpitti's philosophy, but certainly not
: : his anger and arrogance. There is a place for his kind of
: : exposure/development and it's worked well for a lot of miniature camera
: : people who embraced it as a stylistic technique (or lack thereof). It's just
: : too bad he's trying to make his mark as the worlds most obnoxious and
: : intollerant person.
:
: The closest I've come to the scarpitti method is with my Woca (it's a holga with a
: glass lens) and then developed the film using N development. Since I rarely shot
: anything smaller the 4x5 I find myself developing most roll film in diafine. Unlike you
: I have no sympathy for scarpitti. Despite his claims of being the best at film
: processing of those following this newsgroup and being a world class printer. The
: images he put on his website were dreck. I have also found very little evidence of him
: having anywhere near the ability or knowledge that he claims. There are people on this
: newsgroup that when you read their posts you can tell that they have a vast amount of
: knowledge. There are also people with links to websites with examples of their work and
: it's clear that they are excellent photographers. Works like waffle boy and the rest of
: the dreck that scarpitti has posted demonstrates that he has the abilities of a student
: in an introductory to photography students. As a near professional student of the
: college of DuPage here in the Chicago area most of the prints made by the intro
: students create better prints then anything that scarpitti has posted.
:
: : I learned the Zone System from a great photographer in 1966, but my career
: : led me to photojournalism where for years I used mainly Tri-X and exposed
: : and composed to accomodate whatever processing it was to be subjected to
: : (Versamat was quite popular for some time. Horrors.) Later when I could do
: : my own processing (at a great paper, then a magazine), it was largely D-76
: : and Edwal FG7 with the film at 200 and 320 respectively, modestly
: : underdeveloped to hold the highlights. Now that I'm retired from that stuff,
: : I can go back with 4x5 and _really_ custom expose/develop. May I recommend
: : the book, "Way beyond Monochrome"? (Sorry, but I forgot who in this group
: : suggested it here first).
:
:
: I'm sure I'm going to upset a number of people when I say that photojournalism is a
: special case in photography. The need for quality exposure and processing is very low.
: After all the image quality printed in most newspapers is very low as a result of the
: printing process. The images in magazines is a bit better but with few exceptions
: they're all in color. This is the reason the photojournalism was the first to go
: digital. I am in no way diminishing the ability of the photojournalist as I believe they
: have a very difficult job working in difficult situations. Partial proof of this is the
: fact that now that you are a retired photojournalist you are taking the time to properly
: expose the film and you take the time to develop the film in such a way to get the best
: quality negative possible.
:
: Over the last year you and I have strongly disagreed about things ranging from politics
: to my feelings about TMX being the best film currently on the market ( I think you'll
: agree that it would be silly for me to use TMX nearly exclusively if I didn't. ) In the
: end I don't care what film or developer you use or how you develop your negatives.
: What's important is that we get the results that we each want. I've taken a look at
: "Way beyond Monochrome" in the past and for reasons I don't remember I didn't buy it. At
: your recommendation I will get it the next time I see it for sale. I've even gotten the
: "Film Developing Cookbook" and the book "Kodak Professional Black and White Films" that
: scarpitti is always quoting. Although I have issues with material presented in both
: books I found that I learned a lot from each of them.

: YOU 'have issues'? You know more than Kodak? Get lost, scumbag. You
: 'learned a lot', you say. Well, then, why do you think I mentioned
: them?

Yes I have issues with both of the books. The two biggest issues I have with the film
developing cookbook is the out of hand dismissal of T grained films and proprietarySP?
developers.

As far as claiming to know more then Kodak you frequently claim to know more then
Kodak. This is evidenced by your frequentSP? contradictions of statements clearly
made in the book "Kodak Professional Black and White Films". These claims include but
are not limited to your fantasy that Tmax is not suitable for outdoor use, that Tmax
film have a drop in their density curve. The charts for Tmax100 and Tmax400 clearly
show a straight line curve when the films are developed in the Tmax developers and an
upward bulge when developed in D76. Do you stand by your claim that you know more then
Kodak??

The biggest issues that I have with Kodak's book is procedure for determining proper
film speed and development times and the implication that the rated film speed and
published development times will give the best negative. Later in the text they do make
it clear that the published film speed and development times are simply recommended
starting points and testing is needed to determine the ideal film speed and development
time
Yes I have issues with both of the books. The two biggest issues I have with the film
developing cookbook is the out of hand dismissal of T grained films and proprietarySP?
developers.

As far as claiming to know more then Kodak you frequently claim to know more then
Kodak. This is evidenced by your frequentSP? contradictions of statements clearly
made in the book "Kodak Professional Black and White Films". These claims include but
are not limited to your fantasy that Tmax is not suitable for outdoor use, that Tmax
film have a drop in their density curve. The charts for Tmax100 and Tmax400 clearly
show a straight line curve when the films are developed in the Tmax developers and an
upward bulge when developed in D76. Do you stand by your claim that you know more then
Kodak??

The biggest issues that I have with Kodak's book is procedure for determining proper
film speed and development times and the implication that the rated film speed and
published development times will give the best negative. Later in the text they do make
it clear that the published film speed and development times are simply recommended
starting points and testing is needed to determine the ideal film speed and development
times. The second issue I have with the book is the limited number of film/developer
curves they present in their data sheets at the back of the book. Another issue I have
which isn't limited to the book is that they only show the compensation for times up to
100 seconds. While that's fine for most situations a number of times when using a small
aperture with my LF camera in low light situations I had metered exposure times of
over 100 seconds.

At no time do I feel I "know" more then Kodak. In fact it is you that frequently
contradicts the contents of Kodak's book.

As to learning something from both of the books I've never thought or claimed to know
everything and that there is nothing left for me to learn.
--




Keep working millions on welfare depend on you
-------------------

jjs wrote:

"Frank Pittel":

That's the scarpitti method. I develop the film properly and end up with a

negative

that has printable detail in the shadows and highlights. Since I've never

had to deal

with a 77 stop scene and never will I won't worry about how to deal with

it.

It is unfortunate that M.S. is so hostile. Simply stated, perhaps his method
is simiilar to my own. I expose the the important shadow and develop for the
important highlight detail, and work hard during the print stage. That's a
common-sense, short-cut description of the Zone System. I'm _sure_ that M.S.
has done the same thing.



Yes. Maybe. But on purpose or was it serendipity?

Michael Scarpitti wrote:
: Frank Pittel wrote in message ...
: jjs wrote:
: : "Michael Scarpitti" wrote in message
: : HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA
:
: : And there you are, the classic person-who-has-fallen-into-the-sewer.
: : Killfile. Y'all do the same thing. Just put this unfortunate slug into your
: : killfile, out of your misery. He has chosen to be the complete loser, the
: : self-unemployed slug who is mumbling to himself on the street trying to get
: : your attention with his desperate attempt to get your attention.
:
: : Killfile. Forever.
:
: : Scarpitti, you can come on back when you show an ounce of personal
: : responsibility.
:
: I have come to think of scarpitti as a form of entertainment and his posts are worth
: reading for laughs. With him the key is not to take him seriously. Just think back to
: last year and the images he put on his website. He proudly demonstrated that he can't
: properly expose or process film and contrary to his claim of being one of the worlds
: greatest printers he stinks at that also.



: You wanna see one of my 'stinky' prints in person?

No thanks. The prints you put on your website were bad enough.
--




Keep working millions on welfare depend on you
-------------------

Michael Scarpitti wrote:
: Frank Pittel wrote in message ...
: jjs wrote:
: : "Michael Scarpitti" wrote in message
: : HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA
:
: : And there you are, the classic person-who-has-fallen-into-the-sewer.
: : Killfile. Y'all do the same thing. Just put this unfortunate slug into your
: : killfile, out of your misery. He has chosen to be the complete loser, the
: : self-unemployed slug who is mumbling to himself on the street trying to get
: : your attention with his desperate attempt to get your attention.
:
: : Killfile. Forever.
:
: : Scarpitti, you can come on back when you show an ounce of personal
: : responsibility.
:
: I have come to think of scarpitti as a form of entertainment and his posts are worth
: reading for laughs. With him the key is not to take him seriously. Just think back to
: last year and the images he put on his website. He proudly demonstrated that he can't
: properly expose or process film and contrary to his claim of being one of the worlds
: greatest printers he stinks at that also.



: You wanna see one of my 'stinky' prints in person?

No thanks. The prints you put on your website were bad enough.
--




Keep working millions on welfare depend on you
-------------------

On Wed, 28 Jul 2004 10:25:03 -0500, Frank Pittel
wrote:

Michael Scarpitti wrote:
: Frank Pittel wrote in message ...
: jjs wrote:
: : "Frank Pittel" wrote in message
: : ...
: : jjs wrote:
:
: : As far as I can tell from his previous posts scarpitti knows what the
: exposure should
: : be without a meter ( he guesses ) and processes the film with the
: published development
: : times. The contrast is controlled by the paper grade he prints on.
: :
: : What you describe is the zone system which I and many others use and what
: scarpitti claims
: : is a fraud.
:
: : In a strange way I sympathize with Scarpitti's philosophy, but certainly not
: : his anger and arrogance. There is a place for his kind of
: : exposure/development and it's worked well for a lot of miniature camera
: : people who embraced it as a stylistic technique (or lack thereof). It's just
: : too bad he's trying to make his mark as the worlds most obnoxious and
: : intollerant person.
:
: The closest I've come to the scarpitti method is with my Woca (it's a holga with a
: glass lens) and then developed the film using N development. Since I rarely shot
: anything smaller the 4x5 I find myself developing most roll film in diafine. Unlike you
: I have no sympathy for scarpitti. Despite his claims of being the best at film
: processing of those following this newsgroup and being a world class printer. The
: images he put on his website were dreck. I have also found very little evidence of him
: having anywhere near the ability or knowledge that he claims. There are people on this
: newsgroup that when you read their posts you can tell that they have a vast amount of
: knowledge. There are also people with links to websites with examples of their work and
: it's clear that they are excellent photographers. Works like waffle boy and the rest of
: the dreck that scarpitti has posted demonstrates that he has the abilities of a student
: in an introductory to photography students. As a near professional student of the
: college of DuPage here in the Chicago area most of the prints made by the intro
: students create better prints then anything that scarpitti has posted.
:
: : I learned the Zone System from a great photographer in 1966, but my career
: : led me to photojournalism where for years I used mainly Tri-X and exposed
: : and composed to accomodate whatever processing it was to be subjected to
: : (Versamat was quite popular for some time. Horrors.) Later when I could do
: : my own processing (at a great paper, then a magazine), it was largely D-76
: : and Edwal FG7 with the film at 200 and 320 respectively, modestly
: : underdeveloped to hold the highlights. Now that I'm retired from that stuff,
: : I can go back with 4x5 and _really_ custom expose/develop. May I recommend
: : the book, "Way beyond Monochrome"? (Sorry, but I forgot who in this group
: : suggested it here first).
:
:
: I'm sure I'm going to upset a number of people when I say that photojournalism is a
: special case in photography. The need for quality exposure and processing is very low.
: After all the image quality printed in most newspapers is very low as a result of the
: printing process. The images in magazines is a bit better but with few exceptions
: they're all in color. This is the reason the photojournalism was the first to go
: digital. I am in no way diminishing the ability of the photojournalist as I believe they
: have a very difficult job working in difficult situations. Partial proof of this is the
: fact that now that you are a retired photojournalist you are taking the time to properly
: expose the film and you take the time to develop the film in such a way to get the best
: quality negative possible.
:
: Over the last year you and I have strongly disagreed about things ranging from politics
: to my feelings about TMX being the best film currently on the market ( I think you'll
: agree that it would be silly for me to use TMX nearly exclusively if I didn't. ) In the
: end I don't care what film or developer you use or how you develop your negatives.
: What's important is that we get the results that we each want. I've taken a look at
: "Way beyond Monochrome" in the past and for reasons I don't remember I didn't buy it. At
: your recommendation I will get it the next time I see it for sale. I've even gotten the
: "Film Developing Cookbook" and the book "Kodak Professional Black and White Films" that
: scarpitti is always quoting. Although I have issues with material presented in both
: books I found that I learned a lot from each of them.

: YOU 'have issues'? You know more than Kodak? Get lost, scumbag. You
: 'learned a lot', you say. Well, then, why do you think I mentioned
: them?

Yes I have issues with both of the books. The two biggest issues I have with the film
developing cookbook is the out of hand dismissal of T grained films and proprietarySP?
developers.

As far as claiming to know more then Kodak you frequently claim to know more then
Kodak. This is evidenced by your frequentSP? contradictions of statements clearly
made in the book "Kodak Professional Black and White Films". These claims include but
are not limited to your fantasy that Tmax is not suitable for outdoor use, that Tmax
film have a drop in their density curve. The charts for Tmax100 and Tmax400 clearly
show a straight line curve when the films are developed in the Tmax developers and an
upward bulge when developed in D76. Do you stand by your claim that you know more then
Kodak??

The biggest issues that I have with Kodak's book is procedure for determining proper
film speed and development times and the implication that the rated film speed and
published development times will give the best negative. Later in the text they do make
it clear that the published film speed and development times are simply recommended
starting points and testing is needed to determine the ideal film speed and development
time
Yes I have issues with both of the books. The two biggest issues I have with the film
developing cookbook is the out of hand dismissal of T grained films and proprietarySP?
developers.

As far as claiming to know more then Kodak you frequently claim to know more then
Kodak. This is evidenced by your frequentSP? contradictions of statements clearly
made in the book "Kodak Professional Black and White Films". These claims include but
are not limited to your fantasy that Tmax is not suitable for outdoor use, that Tmax
film have a drop in their density curve. The charts for Tmax100 and Tmax400 clearly
show a straight line curve when the films are developed in the Tmax developers and an
upward bulge when developed in D76. Do you stand by your claim that you know more then
Kodak??

The biggest issues that I have with Kodak's book is procedure for determining proper
film speed and development times and the implication that the rated film speed and
published development times will give the best negative. Later in the text they do make
it clear that the published film speed and development times are simply recommended
starting points and testing is needed to determine the ideal film speed and development
times. The second issue I have with the book is the limited number of film/developer
curves they present in their data sheets at the back of the book. Another issue I have
which isn't limited to the book is that they only show the compensation for times up to
100 seconds. While that's fine for most situations a number of times when using a small
aperture with my LF camera in low light situations I had metered exposure times of
over 100 seconds.

At no time do I feel I "know" more then Kodak. In fact it is you that frequently
contradicts the contents of Kodak's book.

As to learning something from both of the books I've never thought or claimed to know
everything and that there is nothing left for me to learn.


Fran, you're mlosing it. While I agree with a lot of what you've
written, and with some of the content of Scarpitti's posts, the tone
has gotten nutty. This time you repeated almost you whole text. A
while back, Scarpitti dropped a bit of his reactionary political
values into a post. You may even agree with some.

Still, the thread is about toe speed of TMAX 400, derived from fridge
and heat problems. The newsgroup is about photographic darkrooms
issues, and may be the only one that addresses them. The flame wars
take away from these issues and information and are wasteful.

A while back, John Douglas recommended that I cease responding to
anything posted to Scarpitti, as it feeds his sick activity. John and
I had engaged in at least one earlier flame war that ended in some
kind of exhaustion for all parties. We all continued to post, but
with some civility and addressing the subjects with on topic
information. That worked out then, but Scarpitti is a different sort
from the other participant. Scarpitti won't learn.

Anyone who engages him will be butting his or her head against
something obdurate. No good will come of it and there will be a waste
of time, effort and bandwidth.

Look at this post, where I quoted the whole previous message. I could
have snipped, but I had the idea that leaving it whole would
illustrate the folly of this flame war.

John was right, as far as I can see. I didn't killfile Scarpitti, so
I have seen all his posts. I never respond to him. I may respond to
someone responding to Scarpitti, but only to address an issue in the
thread. When he responds to one of my posts, I don't address his
response directly. Following John's advice has made for a more
enjoyable and peaceful experience here.

You may find that to be true for you, as well.


Robert Vervoordt, MFA

On Wed, 28 Jul 2004 10:25:03 -0500, Frank Pittel
wrote:

Michael Scarpitti wrote:
: Frank Pittel wrote in message ...
: jjs wrote:
: : "Frank Pittel" wrote in message
: : ...
: : jjs wrote:
:
: : As far as I can tell from his previous posts scarpitti knows what the
: exposure should
: : be without a meter ( he guesses ) and processes the film with the
: published development
: : times. The contrast is controlled by the paper grade he prints on.
: :
: : What you describe is the zone system which I and many others use and what
: scarpitti claims
: : is a fraud.
:
: : In a strange way I sympathize with Scarpitti's philosophy, but certainly not
: : his anger and arrogance. There is a place for his kind of
: : exposure/development and it's worked well for a lot of miniature camera
: : people who embraced it as a stylistic technique (or lack thereof). It's just
: : too bad he's trying to make his mark as the worlds most obnoxious and
: : intollerant person.
:
: The closest I've come to the scarpitti method is with my Woca (it's a holga with a
: glass lens) and then developed the film using N development. Since I rarely shot
: anything smaller the 4x5 I find myself developing most roll film in diafine. Unlike you
: I have no sympathy for scarpitti. Despite his claims of being the best at film
: processing of those following this newsgroup and being a world class printer. The
: images he put on his website were dreck. I have also found very little evidence of him
: having anywhere near the ability or knowledge that he claims. There are people on this
: newsgroup that when you read their posts you can tell that they have a vast amount of
: knowledge. There are also people with links to websites with examples of their work and
: it's clear that they are excellent photographers. Works like waffle boy and the rest of
: the dreck that scarpitti has posted demonstrates that he has the abilities of a student
: in an introductory to photography students. As a near professional student of the
: college of DuPage here in the Chicago area most of the prints made by the intro
: students create better prints then anything that scarpitti has posted.
:
: : I learned the Zone System from a great photographer in 1966, but my career
: : led me to photojournalism where for years I used mainly Tri-X and exposed
: : and composed to accomodate whatever processing it was to be subjected to
: : (Versamat was quite popular for some time. Horrors.) Later when I could do
: : my own processing (at a great paper, then a magazine), it was largely D-76
: : and Edwal FG7 with the film at 200 and 320 respectively, modestly
: : underdeveloped to hold the highlights. Now that I'm retired from that stuff,
: : I can go back with 4x5 and _really_ custom expose/develop. May I recommend
: : the book, "Way beyond Monochrome"? (Sorry, but I forgot who in this group
: : suggested it here first).
:
:
: I'm sure I'm going to upset a number of people when I say that photojournalism is a
: special case in photography. The need for quality exposure and processing is very low.
: After all the image quality printed in most newspapers is very low as a result of the
: printing process. The images in magazines is a bit better but with few exceptions
: they're all in color. This is the reason the photojournalism was the first to go
: digital. I am in no way diminishing the ability of the photojournalist as I believe they
: have a very difficult job working in difficult situations. Partial proof of this is the
: fact that now that you are a retired photojournalist you are taking the time to properly
: expose the film and you take the time to develop the film in such a way to get the best
: quality negative possible.
:
: Over the last year you and I have strongly disagreed about things ranging from politics
: to my feelings about TMX being the best film currently on the market ( I think you'll
: agree that it would be silly for me to use TMX nearly exclusively if I didn't. ) In the
: end I don't care what film or developer you use or how you develop your negatives.
: What's important is that we get the results that we each want. I've taken a look at
: "Way beyond Monochrome" in the past and for reasons I don't remember I didn't buy it. At
: your recommendation I will get it the next time I see it for sale. I've even gotten the
: "Film Developing Cookbook" and the book "Kodak Professional Black and White Films" that
: scarpitti is always quoting. Although I have issues with material presented in both
: books I found that I learned a lot from each of them.

: YOU 'have issues'? You know more than Kodak? Get lost, scumbag. You
: 'learned a lot', you say. Well, then, why do you think I mentioned
: them?

Yes I have issues with both of the books. The two biggest issues I have with the film
developing cookbook is the out of hand dismissal of T grained films and proprietarySP?
developers.

As far as claiming to know more then Kodak you frequently claim to know more then
Kodak. This is evidenced by your frequentSP? contradictions of statements clearly
made in the book "Kodak Professional Black and White Films". These claims include but
are not limited to your fantasy that Tmax is not suitable for outdoor use, that Tmax
film have a drop in their density curve. The charts for Tmax100 and Tmax400 clearly
show a straight line curve when the films are developed in the Tmax developers and an
upward bulge when developed in D76. Do you stand by your claim that you know more then
Kodak??

The biggest issues that I have with Kodak's book is procedure for determining proper
film speed and development times and the implication that the rated film speed and
published development times will give the best negative. Later in the text they do make
it clear that the published film speed and development times are simply recommended
starting points and testing is needed to determine the ideal film speed and development
time
Yes I have issues with both of the books. The two biggest issues I have with the film
developing cookbook is the out of hand dismissal of T grained films and proprietarySP?
developers.

As far as claiming to know more then Kodak you frequently claim to know more then
Kodak. This is evidenced by your frequentSP? contradictions of statements clearly
made in the book "Kodak Professional Black and White Films". These claims include but
are not limited to your fantasy that Tmax is not suitable for outdoor use, that Tmax
film have a drop in their density curve. The charts for Tmax100 and Tmax400 clearly
show a straight line curve when the films are developed in the Tmax developers and an
upward bulge when developed in D76. Do you stand by your claim that you know more then
Kodak??

The biggest issues that I have with Kodak's book is procedure for determining proper
film speed and development times and the implication that the rated film speed and
published development times will give the best negative. Later in the text they do make
it clear that the published film speed and development times are simply recommended
starting points and testing is needed to determine the ideal film speed and development
times. The second issue I have with the book is the limited number of film/developer
curves they present in their data sheets at the back of the book. Another issue I have
which isn't limited to the book is that they only show the compensation for times up to
100 seconds. While that's fine for most situations a number of times when using a small
aperture with my LF camera in low light situations I had metered exposure times of
over 100 seconds.

At no time do I feel I "know" more then Kodak. In fact it is you that frequently
contradicts the contents of Kodak's book.

As to learning something from both of the books I've never thought or claimed to know
everything and that there is nothing left for me to learn.


Fran, you're mlosing it. While I agree with a lot of what you've
written, and with some of the content of Scarpitti's posts, the tone
has gotten nutty. This time you repeated almost you whole text. A
while back, Scarpitti dropped a bit of his reactionary political
values into a post. You may even agree with some.

Still, the thread is about toe speed of TMAX 400, derived from fridge
and heat problems. The newsgroup is about photographic darkrooms
issues, and may be the only one that addresses them. The flame wars
take away from these issues and information and are wasteful.

A while back, John Douglas recommended that I cease responding to
anything posted to Scarpitti, as it feeds his sick activity. John and
I had engaged in at least one earlier flame war that ended in some
kind of exhaustion for all parties. We all continued to post, but
with some civility and addressing the subjects with on topic
information. That worked out then, but Scarpitti is a different sort
from the other participant. Scarpitti won't learn.

Anyone who engages him will be butting his or her head against
something obdurate. No good will come of it and there will be a waste
of time, effort and bandwidth.

Look at this post, where I quoted the whole previous message. I could
have snipped, but I had the idea that leaving it whole would
illustrate the folly of this flame war.

John was right, as far as I can see. I didn't killfile Scarpitti, so
I have seen all his posts. I never respond to him. I may respond to
someone responding to Scarpitti, but only to address an issue in the
thread. When he responds to one of my posts, I don't address his
response directly. Following John's advice has made for a more
enjoyable and peaceful experience here.

You may find that to be true for you, as well.


Robert Vervoordt, MFA

Robert Vervoordt wrote in message . ..
On Wed, 28 Jul 2004 10:25:03 -0500, Frank Pittel
wrote:

Robert:

The 'tone' of hostility comes from the rabid, foaming-at-the-mouth
zonehead klansmen who won't tolerate for a moment the possibility that
everything they 'know' is wrong. Their cherished, deeply-held beliefs
about exposure and development are in fact a religious cult. They
continue empty, meaningless, ritualistic practices that have no
relationship to or function for modern materials and equipment.

They 'place' this and and 'let fall' that and speak in Roman Numerals
about 'zones'.

The 'True Believer' will not listen, because he is faithful and
devout. He meets any scientific criticism with animosity, bile, and
hatred.

They have their bible (White's 'Zone System Manual'), their hymnal
(Adams's 'The Negative), and their high priest (John Sexton) a
dsiciple of their prophet (Adams).

Why it is necessary for me to point out the zoneheads' religious cult?
Is the world so ****ing blind?