A Brief And Concise Guide To Getting Better Negatives:

Photographic axiom: Expose for the shadows, develop for the highlights.

Everything that follows bellow extends from the wisdom of the above statement. In other words, the density of the shadow (thin) areas of the negative is controlled by the amount of exposure. The density of the highlight (dense) areas of the negative is controlled mainly by development.

Exposure: Below are some suggestions for methods of reading exposure that help you to get negatives that will more consistently yield good prints without a lot of struggle in the darkroom, so that controls such as burning and dodging are used primarily for creative effect and not to make up for defects in the density and contrast of the negative:

The sunny f-16 rule: Something every photographer should know and which will enable you to guesstimate an exposure reading outdoors even if you forgot your meter or the batteries in the meter went dead. First, set your shutter speed to the ASA of the film or the speed closest to it (i.e., for ASA 400 film, use 1/500 sec., for ASA 125 film, use 1/125 sec.). At this shutter setting, f16 will give you a good exposure in bright sunlight, f11 in slightly overcast, f8 in cloudy conditions and f5.6 in very overcast conditions. (Obviously this rule is of no use in indoor or low-light conditions.)

Gray card or gray-card substitute: Buy a gray card and carry it around in your camera bag. Or study the grad card enough that you are able to identify gray card-like surfaces in the scene. Take your reading the card or off of a similarly-toned surface in the scene, making sure that it is not in your shadow and that your viewfinder is filled with it when you take the reading. Then shoot away. There is no need to change the exposure for each frame unless the light in the scene changes.

Incident light reading: Most hand-held meters are capable of giving you an incident light reading (meters with a white dome over the photocell) which is a quick and accurate way of getting a general reading that will yield a well-exposed negative. When using an incident meter, remember that you must point the meter at the camera from the subject position, rather than at the subject itself.

Shadow-based readings: Use this method if you are consistently getting negatives which are too thin (underexposed) in the dark areas of your scene (requiring dodging of those areas in the darkroom). Locate in the scene the darkest area in which you would like to still be able to record full shadow detail (i.e., grass shaded under a tree, dark clothing in shade). Move in on this detail and fill your viewfinder with it and take a reading. Then close down two stops from this reading, recompose the scene and make as many exposures as you would like in that lighting situation. For example, if you shadow detail reads 1/125 sec. at f4, close your lens down to f8 and use this setting (or any reciprocal combination of f-stops and shutter speeds) for your exposure.

Averaging lights and darks: Similar to above shadow-based reading, but involves reading two surfaces: the darkest (shadow) and lightest (highlight) areas in the scene in which you would like to record detail. Example of highlight area: Light-colored textured clothing, textured concrete. Set the exposure right in-between the shadow and highlight readings. For example, if your shadow reads f4 and your highlight reads f16, then you take your picture at f8 or any reciprocal combination of f-stops and shutter speeds.

Depending upon the tone of your skin, you can take a reading off of the palm of your hand and determine your exposure from this. For example, a Caucasian palm is usually about one f-stop lighter than a gray card. Therefore, read the palm, open up one f-stop from that, and shoot away.

One other point: If you use one of the above methods and find that your negatives are still underexposed, without adequate shadow detail, you can tell the meter to give more exposure across the board by setting the ASA lower for that particular film. Many experienced photographers routinely rate Tri-X at 200 and ASA 125 films at 64. (Halving the ASA gives one stop more light to the film.)

Development: The amount of detail recorded in the highlight (dense) areas of the negative is controlled mainly by development. If the highlights are consistently too dense ("blocked up"), requiring a lot of burning in the darkroom, then you should reduce your development.

Conversely, you may find that your problem is not that the white areas are too white, but that they are too gray. In this case, the highlights are not getting developed enough and you should increase your development time.

To get started in "personalizing" your film development, make changes that either add or subtract 20% of the development time, depending upon whether you need to produce denser highlights in the negative (add development) or whether you need to "hold them back" from getting too dense or blocked up (subtract development). Typically, rolls of film that are exposed under bright, contrasty conditions will need less development than normal and rolls of film exposed under low-contrast, cloudy conditions will require more development than normal.

The main thing is to use the information above to arrive at a combination of exposure and development that produces a negative that will be easier to print. Over a period of 10-20 rolls, especially if they are exposed under the same type of light, you can make adjustments in exposure and development that will fine-tune your negatives to the point that they print with a minimum of dodging and burning in the lab. Above all, it is a good idea to bracket your exposures (one f-stop in either direction from what you think is the correct exposure) to assure that you'll have a printable negative. The bit of extra film that this requires will be well worth the inconvenience of having to reshoot.