Ran across an interesting thread on zone system and developing

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cmedin

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http://www.digitaltruth.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=384&sid=07839d4d3e7051da473038ad57b780ca

I almost closed the browser window when 'Ornello' posted about the zone system being 'a fraud' but it got me curious as to how he would defend such a statement. Ended up being a very interesting read, and I was wondering if any of the more experienced darkroom workers might comment on his statements/arguments. It's a good six pages though so grab a cup of coffee or a cold brew before sitting down. 🙂
 
It's amazing how many great photos have been taken by practitioners of the zone system. It's also amazing how downright obnoxious and ignorant Ornello is. The word compensation comes to mind.

I did not read all of Ornello's comments because I did not have to.
 
OK guys, I don't mean to be rude here, but I was hoping for some comments on the things he's actually stating. Read the whole thing and there's a lot that seems to make sense in his rather lengthy monologues, and I was looking for some confirmations and counterarguments on the actual discussion. 🙂
 
Wow!

Adams and Ornello are both partially right. Strict adherance to the zone system is not required to obtain good prints. In practical terms, and especially when using 35mm film, all that is necessary is to have adequate exposure for shadow detail and not too much development and agitation, so as not to blow out the highlights. However, individual varied developing of sheet film in order to capture the full range of tones on the neg, I think, is a better plan than trying to compensate for a neg that's too flat or too contrasty, with paper grades, as Ornello suggests.

I only got to page 3. I've got more enjoyable ways of spending my time.
 
cmedin -- Thanks for the link. Very interesting discussion.

In general I believe that Ornello may be correct. His vehemence may be a little over the top but he is expressing an opinion that is contrary to what a generation thinks they know about black and white photography.

In 1941 William Mortensen published a book called "Mortensen on the Negative" (see Mortensen Revisited on the Unblinking Eye). Mortensen was making claims similar to Ornello's.

Mortensen took it a little further, he claimed that to under-expose and over develop will produce a negative that has a better gradation in the high values and thus would be more aesthetically pleasing.

Adams and the F64 group crushed Mortensen and the pictorialists. Interesting that the battle continues.
 
It seems like Ornello's argument was that compressing a certain range into a negative by way of altering exposure/development compromises the midtones, the loss of midtone range/tonality being a greater sin than that of dark shadows or blown highlights.

I did read the whole thing, and some of the quotes from the Kodak publications are interesting. 🙂
 
I read to page 3. Although I don't want to agree or disagree, what I got from the thread boils down to his dislike for the asthetic of a zone system (compressed tonal range in his words) image vs. a non compressed image (his method), where the highlights and shadows fall where they may. You can't really argue taste, and thus calling Ansel and the zone system a fraud, is a bit extreme.
 
>>>OK guys, I don't mean to be rude here, but I was hoping for some comments on the things he's actually stating. >>> Ok. Ornello is a moron. Not because what he is saying is completely baseless but because of the vehemence of his dismissal of Adams. There are many ways to skin this cat and the zone system is just one of them but to say that it is not applicable at all is a sign of sheer ignorance and arrogance. He claims he has lots of 35mm experience and "some" large format experience. Surely Adams had more experience and infinitely more photographic vision and acumen than this guy. A couple of particular comments. That the zone system is not entirely suited to rollfilm is true because rollfilm doesn't allow individual adjustment for each frame - but the basic principles of sensitometry still hold and Adams never claimed otherwise. So this is knocking down a straw man. His other major contention is that development should not be adjusted to control contrast because that can be done with paper. His contention is that the optimal negative is not always possible. f course not but that does not mean one does not try to achive the optimal negative. When I shoot 4x5 my negatives are much closer to how I visualize them than when I am shooting RFs on the street. There is no benefit to adjusting contrast on paper rather than getting it right on the negative if possible (and it isn't always possible for rollfilm for various reasons). But this only works for low contrast negatives - where the range of information is lesser than the film is capable of holding. His claim that there is no need to adjust contarst on the negative ever is absolute NONSENSE when dealing with high contrast situations because unless you shorten development to retain the extra information, that data is pushed over the film's shoulder and is LOST. Much like something that is blown out in a digital shot is lost once it hits pure white. There is no way you can retrieve that information by adjusting contrast with the paper. Anyway, I'll stop for now. Let me just say that of all the taunting of Adams for not being a scientist, this guy is an amateur hack. Having seen many Adams prints I have the deepest respect for his supreme craftsmanship and anyone who so rabidly dismisses his ideas in their entirety is suspect in my eyes. Well, it makes a splash on some net forum for a day I guess. Adams work and his efforts at teaching are not so ephemeral. -Anupam
 
Okay, I don't know why the formatting of the above message got screwed up. Hope you can make sense of it. -A
 
It seems like Ornello's argument was that compressing a certain range into a negative by way of altering exposure/development compromises the midtones, the loss of midtone range/tonality being a greater sin than that of dark shadows or blown highlights.

How exactly it compromises the midtones is not clearly spelt out, or at least I couldn't find it. It would seem that a steeper curve would mean less tonal separation. But if this guy is right, then couldn't we just stretch out the midtones again with paper grades? Would you have slightly greater midtone separation at the cost of blown highlights in a scene. Every digital camera does great on the midtones it's at the highlights and shadows that they struggle and we can change development on film to accommodate that extra information that would otherwise be clipped.

-A
 
I don't have the time to waste reading all that junk.

The forum is called the "Digital Truth forum."

Ansel's Zone System has very little to do with digital photography (not even around when he died), and is focused on B/W photography where the photographer can control the exposure and development of individual negatives.

It's a tool; not the 11th Commandment.

Don't read that junk.
 
If you had wasted some time reading 'that junk' you would've noticed that the Digital Truth forums (the entire site for that matter) is for/by film users. 🙂
 
The discussion in the other place was getting rather "religious" in nature, with those for and against Adams and Kodak. I don't think the so-called debate was very fact-based at all, still there were some ideas raised by both groups that seemed rather similar (about the how, rather than the why, of producing a difference in a negative).

Wasn't most of that Kodak documentation dealing with a film-positive print, as intended for projection ? That could have been taken rather out of context by Ornello. I didn't go and check for other posts by the protagonists, because I didn't really get interested in what any of them were shouting about. 🙁
 
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