Beyond Calibration

By Chris Schneiter
Recently, I happened to watcha video from Bruce Barnbaumabout the importance of giving enough exposure when shooting film. This is something that I had discovered too. As an avid practitioner of the Zone System, I learned early on that if I placed my shadows in Zone IV instead of Zone III, they had more substance and were easier to print. His description of what was actually happening got me thinking though. His contention was that if you give more exposure to film, that it gives more contrast to the shadows, and therefore makes detail more visible. I began to relate that to what I've also observed in digital output.
I have noticed that in most cases, when I'm printing an image with a "Normal" tonal range, one with about a 5-7 stop range, with well separated highlights, and full shadows, that my calibration between monitor and printer seem to be fairly linear. The problem seems to come with very Low Key images, and even with images with a very wide gamut. Most of my...