Why is paper "contrasty"?

I've thought this through but haven't completely verified it yet, but I
wanted to see what others reaction is. B&W paper used as a negative is said
to be "contrasty". What does this mean? B&W paper has a sensitivity range of
a little more than four stops for any given exposure. Burning and dodging
increase tonal range by shortening or lengthening the exposure. If you meter
a scene that has an eight stop tonal range and give the average exposure for
the scene using a paper negative, you risk having the highlights blown out
because they are more than two stops above average, and shadows go black
because they are more than two stops below average. If the scene has a tonal
range of only four or five stops, your negative won't be contrasty because
all the tones lie within the range of the paper. What, then, to do in
sunshiney scenes, for instance, where the tonal range might be eight or nine
stops? If you place the highlight tones of the main object of your
composition about two stops above average, you will get good tonality in
important spots, no blown out highlights, even though you may get lots of
black shadows. The implication is, much shorter exposure times (read higher
ISO) in bright scenes than in shadowiy scenes (effctively lower ISO), using
the same paper. My first tests suggest that a good ISO for Ilford multigrade
in bright sunlight might be as high as 15, while 5 works well in shaded
scenes. Any comments?
Received on Thu Jul 11 20:44:39 2002