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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?
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?