Journal of the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (1950-1954)

i Q i > 0 UJ i O Ajipno way in which the tone-reproduction quality changed with camera exposure. The smoothness of these curves also provides some assurance that there were no important errors introduced which raised or lowered the relative quality of a particular print from a negative at one camera exposure level. For example, if one of the prints in a series from a given scene had been either too light or too dark relative to the other prints in the series, the point representing this print on the quality curve might be expected to cause a deviation from a smooth curve. An inspection of the curves shows that such occurrences were very infrequent. The first question which one might Ajipno hope to answer by inspecting the curves presented here is, "What is the range of camera exposures which will yield negatives from which high-quality prints can be made?" To answer this question, the desired quality level must first be chosen. It will be noted that the peaks of a very few of the curves fall in the "excellent" region. Although many of the judges rated some of the prints from each scene as "excellent," disagreement among the judges as to which prints were "excellent," as well as the fact that some judges gave all the prints a lower rating, produced an overall rating of "good" for the prints in the vicinity of the peak of the curves in most cases. It is likely that the variations Sorem: Effect of Exposure on Tone-Reproduction 31