Exposure is not how dark or how light an image looks!

You are correct in that overly dense or overly thin negatives hurt image quality. That's why the goal is generally to get good negative density.

Suppose we have a overly thin negative. Suppose it is about 2 stops too thin. When I go to make a print in the darkroom, I can stop the enlarger lens down, and/or use a shorter print exposure time. I can then get a print that doesn't look too dark. It won't be a good print. It may be lacking in contrast or shadow detail, however it won't be a dark print.

I can also take a negative with normal density, and use it to make a dark print, or a light print.

While negative density can dramatically affect image quality, it does not determine how dark or light the resulting print will be.

In retrospect, you do have a good point. I probably should have included a disclaimer that while exposure does not determine how dark or light the image looks, it does affect the quality of the final image. With film, the highest quality was generally achieved when the midtones of the image were near the middle of the film's "S" shaped response curve. With digital, the highest quality is generally achieved with the maximum exposure that doesn't blow out important highlights.

I hope individuals and their discussions can range freely from casual and informal to technical and formal. You'll decide in what manner you wish to discuss subjects for yourself and others will do the same.

Thank you for the easy to understand explanation.

In it, you make a good point that there could come a point where squeezing out that extra incremental amount of performance from the camera and the extra post processing as a consequence does not always result in a visible or worthwhile benefit in image quality.

Especially with today's modern AI driven noise reduction apps coupled with minimising visible noise in the raw data, visible noise in my images when viewed on screen or in print is not an issue for me.

Good prints with good tonality, from their subjective viewpoint, are what photographers from amateur beginners to seasoned professionals are trying to produce.

If the print has poor contrast and tonality, it will appear too dark in some image areas and too light in others. Whether or not it's considered too dark or light overall will be a subjective decision.

You can make prints to suit your judgement as to how light or dark you feel they should be, within the limitations of what you have to work with in the negative and what you are able to produce from it.

The contrast and tonality of the print will determine if you have the shadows as dark or highlights as light as you desire in your image. Contrast and tonality seem to have gotten lost in the discussion of light and dark.

If one thinks "Beginners' Questions" on a site that is mostly dedicated to digital is an appropriate place to bring up film, I have the right to say that it is problematic. As film is not something that most understand well, it may be a good practice to give things a peer review before lecturing beginners, simply to avoid spreading misconceptions and wrong analogies.

You have the right to say whatever you wish, as do we all.

I suggest beginners visit their local library and browse thru the photography section.

Not good enough if they are subjected to misinformation here. Comparisons between film and digital demand deep understanding of film, specifically latent image formation and processing, and local library photography section isn't where one can find adequate coverage of the matter. Not to mention such comparisons are often totally unnecessary. They add nothing and only confuse the reader.

Here is an idea: a post with recommended technical books that contain correct information about exposure, ISO, equivalency, diffraction, etc.

"A question that often arises is why some Kodak films have ISO ratings while others have EI (Exposure Index ratings), or some may have neither." -- 125px.com/docs/techpubs/kodak/cis185-1996_11.pdf

Thank you for the link to the article.
However, I was thinking of books you could find in a library.

The Focal Encyclopedia of Photography, The Manual of Photography, Way Beyond Monochrome, Michael Langford all give very good information, but they are not enough. Libraries are not enough. I don't know, for example, of any book on equivalency that fits this age.

AA's The Negative.

Davis' Beyond the Zone System

Joseph James' equivalency posts.

I think equivalency can be, and has been, well handled in publications that are well short of book length.

Density decreases with exposure in the case of a reversal (slide) film.
Don

: ) Yes, that's the obvious answer. I was inching towards something that incorporated the creative use of dark and light, beyond the dynamic range, which just describes two points in a photo, or a maximum range with a sensor. We have phrases already to describe aspects of this, like "high key" and "low key." Another word sometimes used is "contrasty" and then there is "soft toned" perhaps, or muted. We have lots of words that describe how we use light. Perhaps not as many words about how we use darkness, or shadows. Just thinking out loud. Exposure is one of the techniques we use to express creativity.

I've already done that a couple of times in this thread. A few days ago I recommended an excellent technical paper written by Karl Lang and yesterday suggested The Camera, a book by Ansel Adams. Others have now also added to the list.

Thanks for the idea.

Tonality

Yes sir... that's been gone over repeatedly in previous pages of this thread...

But, you made someone happy by bringing up the reversal process again, which reverses the exposure effects along with the film.

Best wishes to you.