B&W Photography, Zone System and you

Spot meter and Zone System are your two best friends when it comes to individual development of, say, single 8x10 sheets. Determining your exposure is actually – be it shadow detail down to Z4, Z3 or Z2 or saving a highlights in Z8 – a big part of the fun when working with a big, slow camera.

Applying such nuance to the faster world of 35mm doesn’t work well ... unless every frame in the roll is of the same subject from the same vantage point at the same time. Said, comfort with the Zone System certainly helps me see shadows better – helps my basic Sunny 16 approach in some vague, inexplicable way.

Just opinion. What ever works ... works.
 
Chris: that is a stunning landscape.

I use a half-assed version of the zone system, but what I think is fairly in the spirit of Adams. He writes a lot about "visualization", being able to look at a scene and know what it will be like in the print.

I meter the most important area of the scene (often the highlit side of a face) and put that into the zone I want it to fall. Then I meter the other parts of the scene and see what zones they will fall into. I shoot roll film (usually 120) so I rarely adjust development, but at least I know what I'm getting into.
 
bmattock said:
... I don't wish to start a war, but I have never understood why people go to great lengths to gain manual control over and mastery of the other aspects of their cameras (focus, shutter speed, aperture) and then ignore exposure or just play it by ear with Sunny 16. Seems like saying "I'm going to build a strong house with three well-designed walls, and they toss some crap up for the fourth wall and hope the house doesn't fall down." Why not take control?
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No war imminent b, just enjoy crossing my fingers when I have a small, simple, un-electric camera in hand. Guess I've always preferred being out of control as opposed to being in.

Great 'fourth wall' analogy tho ... my hope is that if the first three walls are well built and well utilized the house will stand.
 
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I once tried to read a book on the zone system when I was in the library, it looked interesting. Seemed like you really needed to understand each film, ie. spend a lot of time checking how it responded to exposure and developers. If I had a dark room and a large format camera I'd be all over it. As it goes now, I meter the sky and the darkest part of the picture and pick a shutter speed in the middle, seems to work well for me, when I remember to do it that is 🙂
 
BillP said:
I have no truck with any form of organised religion. If the zone system works for you, good for you, but I just can't be arsed.

Regards,

Bill
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Bill, I am an athiest. I have no need for religion either. The zone system is just an exposure technique that simply works. Some people have methods that work that don't involve the zone system, and that's cool. Others are too stupid or lazy to understand the technical aspects of sensitometry that the Zone System attempts to make into a real-world usable exposure determination method, so they make fun of it as a religion because they can't fault it on technical grounds (which they don't understand).
 
The greatest problem with Zone System...that for the most part, it's functional benefits are wipped out as it is rather a excuse for Photo Babble. what is Photo Babble...it is mindless dialog of the vasts majority of self styled...mostly large format shooters who need some way to find a tool pretend that they are some how superior. Obsssive expression to ride the coatails of the F64 Gang. That being said Zone was only ever designed to allow for tayloring custom developing, filter usage and exposure into a somewhat predictable "single" negative to be printed on number 2 paper.

The hard core Zone flunkies probably waste more film and paper than any group and in the end....actually produce almost nothing. Also it was not designed for usage with slide film like K2 Really only B&W as that was what was only what realy true artisits shot with.

You hear some much phony dialog from these clowns ....Oh if only your highlights were .001 less dense..that kind of crap. It's like hearing a similar dialog about....Oh only Hypo developers really work for Zone system.

I have a 5x7 and on the rare occaision I feel the need to use it....it is because I need to process each sheet of film in a manner that is dramatic.....water bathing and so on.

Uderstand the concept takes all of about 10 min and does not ensure you will have anything but a way to engage in photo babble at your next fine art cocktail party.

In the end you can excuse yourself for why the techincal excellence of your print makes up for a total lack of apperciation for it's lack of appeal to people who are only interested in beautiful or interesting photos that do not requre a 45 min validation. I think we there was a childs bed time story.....The Emperor's New Cloths.

Zone system should never be the reason your work is superior....actually if it is superior no one should "need "to know !!!

Best Regards....Laurance
 
Man this keeps coming up, so eventually I gotta remember the name of the book that gave me my "AH-HA!" moment with the zone system back in school. Trying to read Adam's version makes my brain boil, but someone wrote a "Zone system for 35mm" which, in a nutshell talks about basically metering for the shadows, because if you want detail in them and you lose it in the neg, it's gone. I never worried about adjusting time for contrasty/flat light, because in a roll of 36 exposures I find my light changes significantly enough that processing the roll for the light is pointless. Actually, I usually just process a minute over the recommended time and it seems to work well as a method. I think pure zone system photography is good for those who want to work REAL slowly with view cameras etc., but pieces of it can come in real handy even for 35mm shooters. Even if you only get a bit of it, it's helpful.
 
I guess anyone who says "Hmm, harsh sunlight today. Better shoot my tri-x at 200 and cut back dev. time" is practicing a simplified zone system aren't they?

Cheers,
Gary
 
williams473 said:
Man this keeps coming up, so eventually I gotta remember the name of the book that gave me my "AH-HA!" moment with the zone system back in school. Trying to read Adam's version makes my brain boil, but someone wrote a "Zone system for 35mm" which, in a nutshell talks about basically metering for the shadows, because if you want detail in them and you lose it in the neg, it's gone. I never worried about adjusting time for contrasty/flat light, because in a roll of 36 exposures I find my light changes significantly enough that processing the roll for the light is pointless. Actually, I usually just process a minute over the recommended time and it seems to work well as a method. I think pure zone system photography is good for those who want to work REAL slowly with view cameras etc., but pieces of it can come in real handy even for 35mm shooters. Even if you only get a bit of it, it's helpful.
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Are you thinking of the book by Carson Graves?
 
gns said:
I guess anyone who says "Hmm, harsh sunlight today. Better shoot my tri-x at 200 and cut back dev. time" is practicing a simplified zone system aren't they?

Cheers,
Gary
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Dear Gary,

No, they're not. They're practising basic sensitometry, which antedates the Zone System by well over half a century.

This is why the Zone System is often derided as a religion. A book called 'Really Easy Sensitometry' would not sell as well as a book called 'Zone System for 35mm' or 'A Zone system for All Formats', because the title didn't contain the invocation to the Blessed Ansel, the magic words 'Zone System'.

Nor would Really Easy Sensitometry need to be as thick as a Zone book. A 48-page pamphlet could contain all the sensitometry you need to know, and tell you how to get results that at least equal any Zone practitioner of similar artistic and technical ability. In fact you could probably get it into 16 pages. But there's more profit in a big, thikh book...

Part of the appeal of the Zone System for some people really does appear to be the jargon and the overcomplication; the feeling of being one of the Elect who has managed to read all through the Sacred Works.

At best, the Zone System is a way of understanding some aspects of sensitometry, with the aid of the truly brilliant Naming of Zones. People like Christopher, you will notice, say that they find it an easier way to understand sensitometry than some of the others they have tried, and they aren't obsessive about it.

At worst, it's jargon-laden mumbo-jumbo practised by rotten and obsessive would-be photographers who would be well advised to learn to walk (or even crawl) before they try to run.

And of course there are countless gradations in between best and worst.

Cheers,

Roger
 
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Well, they are both using the same principles to manipulate the characteristic curve towards a more usable or desired result.

Cheers,
Gary
 
gns said:
Well, they are both using the same principles to manipulate the characteristic curve towards a more usable or desired result.

Cheers,
Gary
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Dear Gary,

True enough, but to conflate the two is a bit like conflating the workshop manual for a 1979 Ford with the whole of automotive engineering. The Zone system is a partial (and jargon-laden) restatement of a much greater and more illuminating whole, namely, sensitometry.

I just find other explanations of basic sensitometric principles easier to understand -- including the book by Dunn and Wakefield that Christopher mentioned.

Cheers,

Roger
 
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gns said:
I guess anyone who says "Hmm, harsh sunlight today. Better shoot my tri-x at 200 and cut back dev. time" is practicing a simplified zone system aren't they?

Cheers,
Gary
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Like Roger Hicks said, it is basic sensitometry. But notice that several respondents to this thread declared that they never change developing time for different light conditions, ever, and that doing so is a waste of time.
 
Chriscrawfordphoto said:
. . . several respondents to this thread declared that they never change developing time for different light conditions, ever, and that doing so is a waste of time.
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Dear Christopher,

As in "F____ it, I'll fix it in the darkroom"

The better the printer you are, the easier you can deal with a difficult negative. On the other hand, I (like you) would rather produce a negative that's easier to deal with, whenever possible.

Yes, because I mostly shoot 35mm, I have a standard time. But for a whole roll of flat subjects I'll add 50%, and for a whole roll of contrasty ones, I'll cut 15%.

This 15/50 rule works well enough for me. Sometimes I'll even go outside those figures. The exact figures are a matter of personal taste: someone else might use 20/40 or 10/60. Chances are that if they do, they know why they are doing it -- which I think we agree is what it's all about, whether they acquire that knowledge from the Zone System or elsewhere.

Cheers,

Roger
 
Roger Hicks said:
Dear Christopher,

As in "F____ it, I'll fix it in the darkroom"
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Yeah! LOL Or "I'll fix it in Photoshop". Fixing in the DR or PS is pretty easy if the subject is too flat, but contrasty subjects can be a pain. I find that constrasy negs are easier to fix in the darkroom than they are when scanned into photoshop, and that is part of why I go to the trouble of using the zone system. I can't do darkroom printing anymore, the chemicals cause me skin allergies and sore throats, even with good ventilation. I can process film, since it is done in those little metal tanks, but not printing. So, I use a Nikon film scanner and 'print' using photoshop to adjust contrast, dodge and burn, etc. I think the scanner is a lot less tolerant of contrasty films than the enlarger and low-contrast grade paper is.
 
Sensitometry is the study of how the materials behave (not a method of working). Mister tri-x/200 and Mr. Zone system are both applying that knowledge to practice. One's method just being a bit more elaborate or controlled. They differ in degree, not substance.

Cheers,
Gary
 
gns said:
Sensitometry is the study of how the materials behave (not a method of working). Mister tri-x/200 and Mr. Zone system are both applying that knowledge to practice. . . They differ in degree, not substance.

Cheers,
Gary
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Dear Gary,

Exactly -- and the Zone System is a subset of sensitometry.

All sensitometry is applied, or it is worthless. Once you have absorbed and learned to apply the principles, the route by which you absorbed and learned to apply them does not matter very much.

Sensitometry may be applied in a number of ways, with or without any reference to the Zone System. This is why I say that someone who cuts EI and decreases development isn't using the Zone System: he's using basic sensitometry, which was well known, well understood, and widely applied long before the Zone System was invented.

'Expose for the shadows -- develop for the highlights' has been a well known principle since the 19th century; the Zone System is merely a highly formalized, and some would say overcomplicated, restatement of this. It adds nothing except the naming of Zones. This is, as I have repeatedly said, a work of genius which makes it much easier to analyze a photograph tonally; but it is far from essential, and it is the only thing that the Zone System brings to sensitometry. The rest, it either oversimplifies (reducing to rote) or overcomplicates (photographing grey cards).

Once you understand speed points, the H&D curve, gamma (and its derivatives) and the time/contrast curve in a given developer, you don't need the Zone System. Personally, I find it easier to think in terms of the speed points, the H&D curve, gamma (and its derivatives) and the time/contrast curve in a given developer than to use Zone System jargon.

Cheers,

Roger
 
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