teching and rating film

[kingearl]

Hi.  I have been looking online for assisting positions, and I noticed that a few have requested people who are familiar with "teching, rating, and developing film."  Developing I understand, but what exactly do they mean by teching and rating?  

Thanks.

[kingearl]

Hi.  I have been looking online for assisting positions, and I noticed that a few have requested people who are familiar with "teching, rating, and developing film."  Developing I understand, but what exactly do they mean by teching and rating?  

Thanks.

Not to answer my own question, but it sounds like they may mean know my ISOs and the technical details of the film.  I just want to make sure I'm not missing anything...

[ckimmerle]

I guess it depends on how detailed one wants to "tech" film. The super-serious, anal-retentive, detail freak will expose a strip of film in a calibrated sensitometer and draw an  D-logE curve to find ISO, contrast, gamma and shoulder/toe shapes. For b/w shooters, a curve would be created for each film/developer combination.

Such detail can be of help when selecting film (and/or developer) to better reproduce a specific scene, but is a bit more effort than all but the most die-hard photogs are willing to expend.

Nowadays, the curves and the resulting data can be easily obtained via software, but in the pre-computer days we made the curve, and mined the data, by hand using a flexible edge and lots of patience. It was a great learning experience.

If you're more interested, do a Google search for "photographic sensitometry".