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A lab tech in Rochester told me my scans were flat, now I meter for the shadows
Dropped off 4 rolls of Tri-X at a lab in Rochester and the tech asked if I was rating it at 400. I said yes but I was metering for the highlights out of habit. She said the shadows were muddy because of it. So I started spot metering for the dark areas and dropping the box speed to 320, and my prints stopped looking like gray mush. Does anyone else rate Tri-X slower than the box says?
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mia_park1mo ago
Oh man this one got me. I used to shoot Tri-X at 400 forever and thought muddy shadows were just "the Tri-X look" or whatever. Then a guy at my local shop asked why my negs looked so thin on the low end and I realized I was basically underexposing everything by metering for the bright spots. Started rating at 320 and metering the darks and wow, way more detail down there. My night shots especially stopped looking like a black hole with some random streetlamp floating in it. Still shoot 400 in good light but man, that lower speed really saved my indoor stuff.
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