zone system, help

AshleyC

AshleyC

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can someone explain , simply if possible, the zone system. Im about half way through ansel adams "The Negative" book and while some of it makes perfect sense he did start to lose me towards the end of the chapter regarding the zone system.

This is how i see it, so correct my mistakes!

Zones 0 to 10, 0 being total black, 10 being total white.

The basic premise seems to be that a spot meter reading of any point in a scene will return an exposure setting as if it was based on mid grey, zone V.

So if you spot meter a shadow area it will return a mid zone reading to you, if you take the shot based on that reading then the shadow area will be over exposed.

When you look at the area with your eyeballs and you think that the shadow area needs to be zone 3, dark but with a bit of detail, then you take the meter reading and drop it by 2 stops? you need to adjust it down by 2 stops to get what you see the shadows to actally be?

But doing this will underexpose the highlights by 2 stops too. So he seems to say expose for the shadows, develop for the highlights. If youve pulled the highlights down then you must over develop a little to get the detail back and it shouldnt affect the shadows too much.

The trick seems to be working out how to adjust the development time up or down based on where in the zone scale youre placing things.

Im still reading through it but is that correct so far?
 
Let me know when you've figured it out. I love Adam's work but I've spent over 30 years years trying to get me head round the Zone System :thinking:
 
Yep, I had a read of it a while ago and came away very confused....as is often the case.
 
yeah that site backs up what i think about exposures so thanks for linking it :) I just need to work out the development side now and all these n-1 and n+2 things. to google, batman!
 
essexash said:
Zones 0 to 10, 0 being total black, 10 being total white.

The basic premise seems to be that a spot meter reading of any point in a scene will return an exposure setting as if it was based on mid grey, zone V.

So if you spot meter a shadow area it will return a mid zone reading to you, if you take the shot based on that reading then the shadow area will be over exposed.

When you look at the area with your eyeballs and you think that the shadow area needs to be zone 3, dark but with a bit of detail, then you take the meter reading and drop it by 2 stops? you need to adjust it down by 2 stops to get what you see the shadows to actually be?

But doing this will underexpose the highlights by 2 stops too. So he seems to say expose for the shadows, develop for the highlights. If you've pulled the highlights down then you must over develop a little to get the detail back and it shouldn't affect the shadows too much.

The trick seems to be working out how to adjust the development time up or down based on where in the zone scale you're placing things.
Click to expand...

You aren't far off really and are getting the hang of it.

If you meter a shadow area the meter will give you the exposure needed to bring that shadow area to Zone 5, this is true for whatever you point it at. If you prefer your shadows in Zone 3 then yes you take that Zone 5 reading and knock a couple of stops off it, if you meter highlights and you like them in Zone 7 then add a couple of stops to the reading.

Remember that he made this system for sheet/plate film where he could develop each shot differently from the last, if you are shooting 35mm or 120 then you can't really use the system to its full effect. But then modern films are much better than anything Ansel had when he developed the system in the 1930/40/50's, B&W film usually has a greater range than the 10 stops of the zone system.

The system was really designed for dark room prints, prints have less range than the film so when he exposes he tries to keep the tonal range within what his printing papers could handle even if the film could handle more than the papers. This is why dodging/burning and dev techniques are so important if you print with dark room papers, you need to know what you are doing to get the most from the negative and the papers.

The Zone System is a total system designed with the print in mind as a final product of that system, when he talks about pre-visualisation he means the print not the negative and if you don't intend to make those kind of prints then you can tweak the system to your workflow.

Personally i've tweaked my exposures so they scan well, i didn't really think about this at first i just noticed subconsciously that if i exposed my shadows areas in Zone 5 they always scanned much better and the image looked how i wanted, so i exposed my film shots that way.
I guess this is the film equivalent of the digital 'expose to the right' technique used to maximise dynamic range of digital raw's, since the scanner is the end point for my negatives it kind of makes sense since it is a digital camera, albeit an odd sort of one. Modern negative films (colour and B&W) tend to handle highlights much better than digital sensor so can handle my technique.

Err anyway not sure if that is any help, you can try asking Woodsy as well if he is around as he is very good with the system as well.
 
This all makes much more sense. Although part of my confusion may have been muddling it up with zone focusing!!!
 
Morinaka said:
Remember that he made this system for sheet/plate film where he could develop each shot differently from the last, if you are shooting 35mm or 120 then you can't really use the system to its full effect. But then modern films are much better than anything Ansel had when he developed the system in the 1930/40/50's, B&W film usually has a greater range than the 10 stops of the zone system.
Click to expand...

Thanks for that (y) it does all start to make more sense once you realise its an exposure AND development system, not just exposure. It seems to be n+1 adds about 10-15% dev time to a negative as a ballpark figure to test with, and same for -'s,

I was planning to get into it with my 5x4 stuff, once i find a decent dev tank and spot meter i can get going with it all.
 
Morinaka. That is a very helpful post. Thank you.
 
Morinaka said:
The Zone System is a total system designed with the print in mind as a final product of that system, when he talks about pre-visualisation...
Click to expand...

He never did. He used visualisation. The pre is superfluous and as an intelligent person, Ansel never used it.

Edward Weston and Minor White did though.


Steve.
 
Steve Smith said:
He never did. He used visualisation. The pre is superfluous and as an intelligent person, Ansel never used it.

Edward Weston and Minor White did though.
Click to expand...
You are indeed correct, the first chapter of The Negative is called 'Visualization and Image Values', and the pre is not needed, mentally noted for the future.
 
Actually, the first chapter of all three books, The Camera, The Negative and The Print have visualization in the title.

(we will forgive his use of a z instead of an s as he was American!).


Steve
 
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