Quote:
Just in case you don't know this, film is the opposite of digital - when it comes to protecting the extreme tones.
In film...we protect the shadows from being 'clipped', because once they're gone ...gone forever. (In digital we protect highlights...because of clipping)
Because of this...when I shot film, if the film was rated for 400 - I'd set it to 200. MANY photographers still do this. In general, Meter for the shadow detail...expose for the highlights ...it's likely still the mantra.
When you do this, your tones will sing much more EASILY. Underexposure in film like digital, will also accentuate noise. Hope that may help.
My apologies if you already know stuff like this.....
Most of these images (processing-wise) feel flat. The best modern BW printing live or online should always show detail from pure black to white. These are good images comp wise, but to my eye processing-wise, the images do not sing. This is due imo to not enough tones being reproduced. Some shots are flat or underexposed - so they don't sing. Sometimes that evokes a mood when done deliberately...but overall people wanna see meat in the shadows and highlights.
On the bottom of every forum page is that tone 0-255 graph. with Ansel's zones :) Even with forum compression, my monitor shows differences in all of those tones - Of course, if this processing is intentional - you're golden! Cheers and hope that may help.