40oz
...
I tend to push TriX much more than I expose it at 400 EI. The reason I do it is to use an appropriate shutter speed to stop subject movement or eliminate camera shake. Exposing at 800 doesn't require any kind of over-development in most cases. Just under-exposing by one stop is within the latitude of the film. Of course, if your meter says 800 EI and the scene is evenly lit, you'll have different results than if the scene is dominated by a few bright sections.
I try to expose based on the development times I plan on using. So I use 1600 EI as a way of saying I am developing in D-76 1:1 for 13.25 minutes. A meter might give me a shutter speed/aperture combination for that rating, but I adjust the camera settings to fit the scene - slower shutter or wider aperture for a constrasty scene, or the recommended settings for an evenly lit scene.
You are using exposure to control where the details in the scene show up on the "curve" of the negative. I don't know how to say it. The scene has a wider range of light values than the film can handle without losing detail. At some point, either the high points are cut off at the same level of white, or the low points are too low to show up as anything other than pure black.
I think it is important to understand that while many people use the term "highlights" to refer to the brightest features in a scene, it really means any area lighter than the surrounding. So a face lit fom the side will be "highlighted" by the light, even if it is darker than the brightest parts of the image. When you "expose for the shadows," you are setting exposure such that the darker parts of the scene show detail on the negative. When you "develop for the highlights," you are trying to bring out the details (highlights) in the shadow areas.
Consider at night, you can have a bright light and pitch black all in one scene. In this case, you want to calculate the exposure for the details you actually want on film. If you are trying to capture a neon sign, you would expose so it was bright, and let everything else fall into shadow, appearing black on a print. If you are trying to capture the texture of the wall behind it, you need to expose so the wall is dark but still retains detail, and let the neon sign blow out to pure white when printed.
When I "expose for the shadows," I am trying to get the details under a bridge arch, for example. So if I am using a meter that averages a scene, such as on my Canonet, I will use a slower shutter speed or open up a stop or two more than the camera suggests. Basically, I am over-exposing the rest of the scene to make sure the details under the arch show up on film. This causes some of the brightest lights to blow out at 1600 EI, but that is fine, IMHO, because the alternative would be a black scene with a few properly exposed street lights :/ When I process the roll, I develop for TriX at 1600 EI. This means I leave it in the developer longer. This results in less of a difference between the brightest and slightly less bright parts, but that's OK, because it also means the subtle details of the stonework under the bridge arch are more visible.
Basically, when you under-expose a film and develop normally, you lose detail in the shadows first, while the brighter parts are bright enough to show up. The *print* will show all the darker areas as pure black, while the brightest areas will be the only areas showing any detail, albeit the bright areas will be gray, not white.
Developing clears the unexposed parts of an image, the "shadows." Anything exposed to light will stay, blocking light on the negative when you print. Developing longer retains more of the exposed portions of the film, or rather, darkens the highlights on the negative and making them lighter on the print. At the same time, it also darkens the shadow areas on the negative, making them lighter on the print as well. But it has more of an effect on brightest areas, turing streetlights into white beachballs, for example.
Pushing *seems* to decrease the range of light values the film can capture. It doesn't decrease the smoothness of tones, and grain really isn't a problem at 1600 EI in D-76 1:1, for me anyway. Even at 8x10 from 35mm, it is present if you really look, but nowhere near as obvious as a scan would imply. And the only time you lose shadow detail when pushing film is if you expose as such. You will lose more detail in the bright sections than you ever do in the dark ones, or you aren't developing long enough for your exposure. Your meter might rate a scene at a given EI, but that doen't mean everything in the scene will show up equally on the negative. If you are losing shadow detail, you need to increase exposure or increase development time, whichever is more feasible. But you will have to accept some blown highlights. If rendering naked bulbs as globes of light is unacceptable, you will need to accept that you aren't exposing for the shadows anymore.
I try to expose based on the development times I plan on using. So I use 1600 EI as a way of saying I am developing in D-76 1:1 for 13.25 minutes. A meter might give me a shutter speed/aperture combination for that rating, but I adjust the camera settings to fit the scene - slower shutter or wider aperture for a constrasty scene, or the recommended settings for an evenly lit scene.
You are using exposure to control where the details in the scene show up on the "curve" of the negative. I don't know how to say it. The scene has a wider range of light values than the film can handle without losing detail. At some point, either the high points are cut off at the same level of white, or the low points are too low to show up as anything other than pure black.
I think it is important to understand that while many people use the term "highlights" to refer to the brightest features in a scene, it really means any area lighter than the surrounding. So a face lit fom the side will be "highlighted" by the light, even if it is darker than the brightest parts of the image. When you "expose for the shadows," you are setting exposure such that the darker parts of the scene show detail on the negative. When you "develop for the highlights," you are trying to bring out the details (highlights) in the shadow areas.
Consider at night, you can have a bright light and pitch black all in one scene. In this case, you want to calculate the exposure for the details you actually want on film. If you are trying to capture a neon sign, you would expose so it was bright, and let everything else fall into shadow, appearing black on a print. If you are trying to capture the texture of the wall behind it, you need to expose so the wall is dark but still retains detail, and let the neon sign blow out to pure white when printed.
When I "expose for the shadows," I am trying to get the details under a bridge arch, for example. So if I am using a meter that averages a scene, such as on my Canonet, I will use a slower shutter speed or open up a stop or two more than the camera suggests. Basically, I am over-exposing the rest of the scene to make sure the details under the arch show up on film. This causes some of the brightest lights to blow out at 1600 EI, but that is fine, IMHO, because the alternative would be a black scene with a few properly exposed street lights :/ When I process the roll, I develop for TriX at 1600 EI. This means I leave it in the developer longer. This results in less of a difference between the brightest and slightly less bright parts, but that's OK, because it also means the subtle details of the stonework under the bridge arch are more visible.
Basically, when you under-expose a film and develop normally, you lose detail in the shadows first, while the brighter parts are bright enough to show up. The *print* will show all the darker areas as pure black, while the brightest areas will be the only areas showing any detail, albeit the bright areas will be gray, not white.
Developing clears the unexposed parts of an image, the "shadows." Anything exposed to light will stay, blocking light on the negative when you print. Developing longer retains more of the exposed portions of the film, or rather, darkens the highlights on the negative and making them lighter on the print. At the same time, it also darkens the shadow areas on the negative, making them lighter on the print as well. But it has more of an effect on brightest areas, turing streetlights into white beachballs, for example.
Pushing *seems* to decrease the range of light values the film can capture. It doesn't decrease the smoothness of tones, and grain really isn't a problem at 1600 EI in D-76 1:1, for me anyway. Even at 8x10 from 35mm, it is present if you really look, but nowhere near as obvious as a scan would imply. And the only time you lose shadow detail when pushing film is if you expose as such. You will lose more detail in the bright sections than you ever do in the dark ones, or you aren't developing long enough for your exposure. Your meter might rate a scene at a given EI, but that doen't mean everything in the scene will show up equally on the negative. If you are losing shadow detail, you need to increase exposure or increase development time, whichever is more feasible. But you will have to accept some blown highlights. If rendering naked bulbs as globes of light is unacceptable, you will need to accept that you aren't exposing for the shadows anymore.
kaiyen
local man of mystery
Simon Larby said:
Well, I guess I should say "thanks" for keeping this discussion on a mature level. All I said was that I thought the thread was weird and that the suggestions were going in differing directions. _You_ said that it sounded like I was disparaging people.
Well thank god for that, otherwise there's no reason to go on. I do promise I'll try to have a few more nuggets in my posts that make sense, I really do. Perhaps I'll add things like "gravity exists" and "tides are created by the moon" or something in my posts to give you something with which to work.
And I very much acknowledge your "your mileage may vary and therefore you'll get different suggestions" bit at the end, but that and a little smiley at the end of a post is like saying "you're an idiot....no offense."
No offense, by the way.
allan
kaiyen
local man of mystery
Don't worry, my last post in this thread. By the way, gravity does, indeed, exist.
Technically you can avoid the blown out beachballs by keeping your development times down. But then your whole image, including your midtones, will stay down, too. Midtones are especially important because that's where stuff like skin falls. We all know what tone skin should look like. So it's important to get that right.
anyway. good luck. post your results if you want, and many folks will give you excellent feedback.
allan
Technically you can avoid the blown out beachballs by keeping your development times down. But then your whole image, including your midtones, will stay down, too. Midtones are especially important because that's where stuff like skin falls. We all know what tone skin should look like. So it's important to get that right.
anyway. good luck. post your results if you want, and many folks will give you excellent feedback.
allan
Ororaro
Well-known
kaiyen said:
What do you mean? Expose properly and then underexpose by 2 stops to to get proper shadow detail?
This doesn't make any sense.
kaiyen
local man of mystery
The confusion was my fault, sorry.
You're not actually underexposing. You are decreasing the exposure as _compared_ to your meter to get the correct your exposure. I think that sounds better...
Basically, your meter says "hey! I think that's middle grey!" But it's actually a shadow (presuming you are metering just your shadows). Shadows are 2 stops darker than middle grey. So the "correct" exposure is actualy 2 stops down from what you metered. So that's proper exposure.
sorry.
allan
NB23 said:
You're not actually underexposing. You are decreasing the exposure as _compared_ to your meter to get the correct your exposure. I think that sounds better...
Basically, your meter says "hey! I think that's middle grey!" But it's actually a shadow (presuming you are metering just your shadows). Shadows are 2 stops darker than middle grey. So the "correct" exposure is actualy 2 stops down from what you metered. So that's proper exposure.
sorry.
allan
Ororaro
Well-known
kaiyen said:
I think you're presuming too much of anything and you're creating confusion.
If a meter measures light correctly, then there's no need to start presuming it reads 2 stops over.
Sparrow
Veteran
That depends what you’re pointing it at, if you’re aiming at a Grey-card it will be correct; anything else will be out one way or the other
planetjoe
Just some guy, you know?
I have to preface this in the spirit of Kaiyen, saying that I am not in expert in anything, either. Believe me, I'd tell you if I were.
Kaiyen, I can appreciate your insights. I also like that you stress that different developers give different inherent emulsion speeds, which is absolutely true. You are also correct in that this two-part "pushing" relationship doesn't give speed or "extra" performance (on either end of the scale) for free. Others have also said this.
But I have to add that I think your assertion about shadow detail always being lost is not entirely accurate, as far as I understand. As you said, developing always affects the highlights; the high-density areas of emulsion are driven to development early. But the shadow areas, which are pretty much set by the exposure, develop more slowly. This is why one would soup longer (or at higher temperatures) when pushing.
To use the Zone analogy again, underexposure moves Zone 0 up a few steps, placing shadows into the midrange. Highlights are actually already sacrificed somewhere above Zone 7. Now, as a Zone practitioner would say, extended development (N+1 or whatever) will compress the exposure range. In my experience, however, this doesn't save the highlights. But it does develop the shadows reasonably well.
My experience is that pushing is done for a lot of reasons, some of which are generally practical, and some of which are matters of personal taste. For me, it's a little of both.
Okay, so really lay into me, now. Just kidding.
Cheers,
--joe.
Kaiyen, I can appreciate your insights. I also like that you stress that different developers give different inherent emulsion speeds, which is absolutely true. You are also correct in that this two-part "pushing" relationship doesn't give speed or "extra" performance (on either end of the scale) for free. Others have also said this.
But I have to add that I think your assertion about shadow detail always being lost is not entirely accurate, as far as I understand. As you said, developing always affects the highlights; the high-density areas of emulsion are driven to development early. But the shadow areas, which are pretty much set by the exposure, develop more slowly. This is why one would soup longer (or at higher temperatures) when pushing.
To use the Zone analogy again, underexposure moves Zone 0 up a few steps, placing shadows into the midrange. Highlights are actually already sacrificed somewhere above Zone 7. Now, as a Zone practitioner would say, extended development (N+1 or whatever) will compress the exposure range. In my experience, however, this doesn't save the highlights. But it does develop the shadows reasonably well.
My experience is that pushing is done for a lot of reasons, some of which are generally practical, and some of which are matters of personal taste. For me, it's a little of both.
Okay, so really lay into me, now. Just kidding.
Cheers,
--joe.
40oz
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NB23 said:
I think what kaiyen is saying is if you use a *spot* meter, you meter off the darker parts, then stop down 2 stops to put those parts on the darker half of the exposure. Otherwise they will come out as middle tones and your brighter parts will be over-exposed re the development. I think if you weren't pushing, you'd stop down four or five stops for the same area. Basically, he's trying to suggest a way to expose for the reduced range of pushed development.
I think it would be well to remember that if one doesn't understand a post, it may be a confusion of language and not a sign of ignorance on the part of the poster. These are rather complex topics, and discussing them requires a certain amount of assumptions and things left unsaid, if only for brevity.
40oz
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planetjoe said:
I'm certainly no expert, especially not in the Zone system. But under-exposure won't put shadows in the midrange, over-exposure would. Accidental under-exposure would make shadows out of the tones you wanted to be midtones. *Extending development* could bring your shadows up into the midrange. You could save a roll that you under-exposed per 400 EI due to unexpected conditions by developing for a longer period of time, thereby raising regions that would be too dark into a printable range, at the expense of the brightest tones.
If you intentionally exposed for longer development, you would still try to put your shadows as shadows, and your midtones as midtones, only for a different EI than 400. You just don't have as much room above the midtones for variations in illumination - a candle and a headlight could both render the same blown-out white. And the longer development would mandate less exposure for a given level of light.
You could accidentally over-expose and therefore put your shadows as mid-tones and mid-tones as highs. But it is only under-exposed or over-exposed if you process for a different EI than you expose for. I don't consider it under-exposure when I use TriX at 1600 EI. It may not give the same results as TriX at 400 EI, but that is intentional.
m_arch
Waiting for the sun
After reading Ansel Adams's "The Negative", the meaning of the phrase "expose for the shadows" seems clear.
To expose for the shadow, First visualize the darkest area of the photo where you would like to have detail. Take a SPOT METER READING of that area. The meter will tell you the appropriate reading to make this shadow area appear middle grey, "placeing" it in zone V. To make the area appear darker, and maintain detail, take the meter reading and reduce your exposure by two stops. You've now "placed" it in zone III, the darkest zone where detail will still appear.
After you have done this you can take a separate reading to determine where the higlights in your image fall (zone VII+ is about the lightest area where detail appears, a spread of +-5 stops). My understanding is that pushing and pulling effects the tonal ranges more as you move towards the top of the scale. Pushing or pulling does not move the zone scale relative to the exposure. It compresses it or elongates it, changing the overall contrast of the negative, with the less dense areas of the negative changing the least .. so if you underexpose an image initially, you can not do anything in the developement process to bring out detail in the shadows. However, if your meter reading of the highlighted area suggests that your highlights are too blown out or too grey, you can still effect them during film processing.
Rules of thumb like add/subtract x stops for high contrast scenes, low light, etc. may be helpful, but I don't think they get at the way the zone system really works.
To expose for the shadow, First visualize the darkest area of the photo where you would like to have detail. Take a SPOT METER READING of that area. The meter will tell you the appropriate reading to make this shadow area appear middle grey, "placeing" it in zone V. To make the area appear darker, and maintain detail, take the meter reading and reduce your exposure by two stops. You've now "placed" it in zone III, the darkest zone where detail will still appear.
After you have done this you can take a separate reading to determine where the higlights in your image fall (zone VII+ is about the lightest area where detail appears, a spread of +-5 stops). My understanding is that pushing and pulling effects the tonal ranges more as you move towards the top of the scale. Pushing or pulling does not move the zone scale relative to the exposure. It compresses it or elongates it, changing the overall contrast of the negative, with the less dense areas of the negative changing the least .. so if you underexpose an image initially, you can not do anything in the developement process to bring out detail in the shadows. However, if your meter reading of the highlighted area suggests that your highlights are too blown out or too grey, you can still effect them during film processing.
Rules of thumb like add/subtract x stops for high contrast scenes, low light, etc. may be helpful, but I don't think they get at the way the zone system really works.
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kaiyen
local man of mystery
First, I am also not an expert. I have never claimed to be one, I just develop film, read books and other stuff, and etc. Joe, I have no intention nor the knowledge to "lay into you." This is to make sure that you don't take my comments the wrong way. I am responding. Not attacking.
YES. I did not mean to imply that I made some original or first-time assertion with that. I quoted text from others merely as jumping off points for my comments. Not to improperly edit out others' accurate statements.
No, it's not entirely accurate, but I was, believe it or not, trying to keep my post short
. You do lose shadow detail. That happens with underexposure (look at any H&D graph and you'll see it). But it's not completely lost.
Technically, and as Victor illustrated with the graphs, you can actually pull the shadows up a bit with extended development, but not in anywhere near a linear fashion re: increase in highlight density. It's been seriously compromised with underexposure. This is a fact. Compromise is a better word.
If you look at an H&D graph (or what Victor has posted), you'll see that you're not doing much in the shadows with extended development. But you are pullling the midtones up. You have sacrificed (perhaps partially, not totally, but at least somewhat) your shadows, but you extend development to get your midtones there. This is my assertion and my belief. And it's what A&T say in the cookbook.
Another way of saying it would be that underexposure took what you would normally visualize as Zone III and moved it into Zone I. Same thing, different words. I am not contradicting you.
extended development shouldn't do much to the exposure range, just the dmax and contrast. You are moving the highlights up. You may get some benefit in the shadow areas, but that is dependent on developer, technique, and sometimes luck
So I completely failed to stop posting in this thread. Sorry.
allan
planetjoe said:
YES. I did not mean to imply that I made some original or first-time assertion with that. I quoted text from others merely as jumping off points for my comments. Not to improperly edit out others' accurate statements.
No, it's not entirely accurate, but I was, believe it or not, trying to keep my post short
. You do lose shadow detail. That happens with underexposure (look at any H&D graph and you'll see it). But it's not completely lost.Technically, and as Victor illustrated with the graphs, you can actually pull the shadows up a bit with extended development, but not in anywhere near a linear fashion re: increase in highlight density. It's been seriously compromised with underexposure. This is a fact. Compromise is a better word.
If you look at an H&D graph (or what Victor has posted), you'll see that you're not doing much in the shadows with extended development. But you are pullling the midtones up. You have sacrificed (perhaps partially, not totally, but at least somewhat) your shadows, but you extend development to get your midtones there. This is my assertion and my belief. And it's what A&T say in the cookbook.
Another way of saying it would be that underexposure took what you would normally visualize as Zone III and moved it into Zone I. Same thing, different words. I am not contradicting you.
extended development shouldn't do much to the exposure range, just the dmax and contrast. You are moving the highlights up. You may get some benefit in the shadow areas, but that is dependent on developer, technique, and sometimes luck
So I completely failed to stop posting in this thread. Sorry.
allan
S
Simon Larbalestier
Guest
kaiyen said:
Allan
i added the smiley to make my post seem light not call you an idiot?
I'm merely responding to what you wrote and don't really see the need for your sarcasm. I'm not making any "milage speeches" just pointing out that others have different ways of working and no one way is necessarily correct which is the way i interepreted your post.
Please accept my apologies if i offended you.
Simon
kaiyen
local man of mystery
40oz said:
I think a lot of what we are talking about is in the terminology, and how we use it. I find this particular phrasing interesting, in a very enlightening way. To me, since I believe that there is only one true speed for a film in a given developer, if I find it to be 400 for TXT, then 1600 is a a 2 stop underexposure, regardless of development. Just because I can development it through a combination of chemical and technical means to get useful results doesn't mean that I didn't underexpose. But that's _my_ perspective and wording.
Yours, again, is equally valid. And I again find the wording quite useful. Depends on how people prefer to say it.
allan
Roma
Well-known
Melanie,
Yes, you basically underexpose and overdevelop when it comes to pushing. In most cases you do it so you could get the higher shutter speeds in any given situation. You do sacrifice some detail in shadows and get higher contrast because of overdevelopment (since you mainly bring up highlights and some mid-tones during the development).
On that note, I do it all the time and like the results that Ilford DDX gives. Even though people state that Delta 400 and T-max 400 don't push well, I like what I see when I push both of those with DDX up to ISO 1600. You just have to carefully select the enlarger exposure time when you print and the results are very good.
Many times when I meter and want to do it quickly, I point the palm of my hand to the light sourse and take a meter reading (for caucasian skin this should be about zone 6), then I'll take a meter reading of the palm of my hand away from the light (180 degrees from the first reading) for the quick shadow metering (for caucasian skin this should be about zone 4). Your meter will see both of these readings as zone 5 (the middle grey), so I compensate by dialing -1 stop from my second reading to get good shadows.
I use both readings for a consistency check. If there is more than a 2 stop difference between the first and the second reading, it means that the scene is high-contrast and I need to adjust my development to contain the highlights. If it's less than 2 stops, the scene is low contrast and I adjust development to get punchier highlights.
I hope this helps and best wishes,
Roman
Yes, you basically underexpose and overdevelop when it comes to pushing. In most cases you do it so you could get the higher shutter speeds in any given situation. You do sacrifice some detail in shadows and get higher contrast because of overdevelopment (since you mainly bring up highlights and some mid-tones during the development).
On that note, I do it all the time and like the results that Ilford DDX gives. Even though people state that Delta 400 and T-max 400 don't push well, I like what I see when I push both of those with DDX up to ISO 1600. You just have to carefully select the enlarger exposure time when you print and the results are very good.
Many times when I meter and want to do it quickly, I point the palm of my hand to the light sourse and take a meter reading (for caucasian skin this should be about zone 6), then I'll take a meter reading of the palm of my hand away from the light (180 degrees from the first reading) for the quick shadow metering (for caucasian skin this should be about zone 4). Your meter will see both of these readings as zone 5 (the middle grey), so I compensate by dialing -1 stop from my second reading to get good shadows.
I use both readings for a consistency check. If there is more than a 2 stop difference between the first and the second reading, it means that the scene is high-contrast and I need to adjust my development to contain the highlights. If it's less than 2 stops, the scene is low contrast and I adjust development to get punchier highlights.
I hope this helps and best wishes,
Roman
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kaiyen
local man of mystery
40oz said:
Basically, yes. My point is that if you meter anything other than something that is middle grey (and you are metering only that, either by way of a spot meter or filling the metering pattern), then it will come out middle grey. If you wanted it to be a shadow area, it won't be. Meters work a certain way. I am not presuming that, I know that. And that is not meant as a snotty comment - it's hard to convey the tone in which I mean that statement in this forum. Please understand that.
I could indeed qualify every statement I make, every sentence, but that would be the world's longest post even on a simple topic. There are some things we know for certain (meters read everything as middle grey, exposure affects shadow density, development affects highlight density, etc), but the rest is a lot of discussion.
Please, no one take offense by anything I say. I write to help, not to criticize. I will at times attempt to correct if I have convictions about the accuracy of my interpretations and understanding. But I do that with respect as well.
allan
S
Simon Larbalestier
Guest
m_arch said:
This is very well put and largely how i understood the zone system when i followed it some years ago. Now i look for the brightest spot in the image that is not a reflection or sunspot and set this at Zone VII then i look for the area where i want detail and set this on a Zone 11 or Zone III assuming that when i print Zone I registers as pure black. I can then adust my initial exposure and then subsequent development to factor in these two points. A spot meter makes this method much more precise.
I think this is one of the most intesting threads i've read in a long time that wasn't "gear" related and i'm bookmarking it for future reference.
visiondr
cyclic iconoclast
Thank you all for a very useful thread. Now, I think I get it. I can't wait to get out there and do some pushin'
Ron
Ron
S
Simon Larbalestier
Guest
BTW welcome to RFF m-arch
40oz
...
m_arch said:
At the risk of piling words upon words until we have a mountain without meaning, I wanted to address this post.
To start, a link to an image in my gallery, pushing TriX two stops:
http://www.rangefinderforum.com/photopost/showphoto.php?photo=55042
There is no such thing as "under-exposure" until after development, IMHO.
The zone system worked great for Adams, and it includes concepts that can help all photographers. But it is a mistake to sit down with Ansel Adams books and think you can apply everything in them to 35mm film, in every situation. Some of it just doesn't apply. Ansel Adams was concerned with capturing as much detail as he could on film. For him, determining how to fit a scene into the range the negative could capture was of paramount importance, and while he was perfectly aware of practices that would reduce the capturable range, that isn't what his books are about.
He knew that a given reading on his meter would result in a given tone on his negative after a standard development. This development process was designed to maximize the range of light values with distinct tones. He would adjust development to fit a scene, plus or minus one measure. If a negative exceeded the capabilities of his system, if the areas of the scene where you wanted detail showed on the negative to be clear with no detail, one said the negative was under-exposed. Nothing you did in printing would allow that detail to be reclaimed. In that context, with the restrictions of only N-1, N, and N+1 development, it is certainly rational to say " if you underexpose an image initially, you can not do anything in the developement process to bring out detail in the shadows." Of course, if you don't restrict yourself to the Zone system, one can certainly develop an acceptable image that would be under-exposed and have no shadow detail if done per the Zone system.
Leaving behind Adams' books is a good start for pushing film, or just exploring the possibilities of what film can capture. If you are willing to forego the ten zones, and make do with 7 or 5 or whatever, you have a level of freedom that the the Zone system doesn't allow. Knowledge of the concept of zones is far more valuable than restricting oneself to only practicing the Zone system as described by Adams.
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