How has the tonal and dynamic range of black-and-white prints changed over time?
Asked 3/19/2016
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When looking at classic black-and-white prints by photographers such as Weston, Bullock, and Adams, the prints can appear to have softer blacks and fewer bright whites than many modern black-and-white prints. Has the tonal or dynamic range of black-and-white prints improved over the last 60ā70 years? Iām especially interested in how much of this comes from darkroom materials and paper, versus choices in exposure, film development, and printing style, and how modern prints compare with older silver-gelatin prints.
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source Ā· Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
10y ago
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Photographers like Weston used to look for wider tonal range. They would intentionally adjust exposure and developing time to get more tonalities and a creamy luminosity.
With film base (and paper), dynamic and tonal range are manipulated by exposure, processing time, temperature, and developer strength.
I used to shoot with Panatomic-X and I don't recall an issue with dynamic range; however, the latitude is limited. We used it because it was extremely fine grain.
On the other hand, if we wanted to decrease tonal range we would push a fast film like Tri-X and cook it in a hot developer, then print on high contrast paper. This also gave a sharp, noticeable grain. This style was more popular during the 70's.
Perhaps the most unusual but usually overlooked characteristic of Weston prints is that they were printed on Platinum paper--hard to find these days.
The luminosity commented upon can only be appreciated fully in MOMA or similar museums.
Here is a link to an interesting discussion comparing dynamic and tonal ranges in digital and analog format.
Originally by user49286. Source Ā· Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user49286
10y ago
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Black-and-white print range has changed, but not simply because older work lacked quality. Much of what youāre seeing is a mix of print-material limits and artistic choice.
Classic photographers often aimed for a wide, subtle tonal scale rather than crushed blacks and brilliant whites. Exposure, development time, temperature, developer strength, and paper grade all strongly affect tonal range. In film days, photographers could expand or compress tones deliberately: fine-grain films and careful processing could give smooth tonal separation, while pushing faster films and printing on higher-contrast paper produced harsher contrast and visible grain.
A key limitation is the print itself. A paper print reflects ambient light, so its maximum black and white range is inherently narrower than a display, which emits light. Older printing papers were also more limited than what modern viewing technologies can show. So even a āfull-rangeā darkroom print may look restrained compared with an image on an LCD or other light-emitting display.
So yes, modern output can appear to have greater dynamic range, but older black-and-white prints were often intentionally optimized for the materials and viewing conditions of their time, using the full practical range available rather than chasing the deepest possible blacks and brightest possible whites.
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