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The zone system
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Hi film users
This Ansel Adams zone system, is it the bee knees for black & white photography, both taking the image and developing the print. Are there film users who follow this system to the letter of the law or you do chop and change as you please. I’ve no idea how it works and before I travel down that road I’m wondering is it necessary, if I have to learn this one where do you start.
Thanks in advance.
Paul
The Zone system is only really applicable if you use individual sheet film or shoot a whole roll of a subject with the same contrast range.
I use it for certain images and only with my large format, sheet film based gear. It IS worth doing…..as it also teaches you how to think in grey values :).
There is an “evolved” model that has also been around for a while now; it’s called the BTZS (Beyond The Zone System) – http://www.btzs.org/” onclick=”window.open(this.href);return false;If I shoot 35mm or MF and have high contrast scenes that need taming I just meter as well as I can (which occasionally means I don’t have time to meter at all) and e.g. use Diafine developer to compensate. If a whole roll has low contrast I adjust normal development with other developers, but all of that is of course a compromise. Quite a few photographers who say they (spot-)meter “with a nod and a wink to the Zone system”, do not use the Zone System sensu stricto by any stretch of the imagination – I call that “improvised spot-metering”, that’s all.
The Zone System is basically just a protocol for getting consistent (and predictable) contrast results and begins with film testing, extending to subject & light, spot-metering, film, lens and filtering choices and ends in the darkroom. You also need to record contrast information for each image as that influences how each negative gets developed (N, N+1, N-2 etc.). It allows you to make a call, on location, as to how you want the final image to look contrast and detail wise.
However, it is needless to say that with standard averaging-metering techniques many a photographer produce outstanding work without the need to resort to this and I’m NOT talking about playing with digital HDR manipulation :roll: :)Metering discipline obviously gets those consistent results though, esp. when you’re after the maximum possible expansion of grey values and you want as much detail in the highlights and shadows as you can. The Zone/BTZS systems are excellent tools there, although perhaps not the only valid ones these days.
Bottom line: You can achieve (although PERHAPS a bit less predictably so) -e.g. Edward Weston didn’t use a spot-meter for a long time, if ever – superb results in b/w without getting into the Zone System. Standard metering gets more often than not what you’re after – but sometimes, and with the right gear, the Zone/BTZS System really helps. If nothing else, it provides a superb education. Your call :)Thanks for that reply,
Still a little lost all the same, what I do at the moment is , set up camera and get my composition together, take a spot meter reading and work out extra stops for filers etc., allow for shadow detail without blowing out highlights, take the shot, maybe bracket if I need too, process film, and then I split print. Most times I get the image I’m after but I’m always trying to improve what I do, is this process for taking an image what everyone else does (within reason). I use mainly a polariser (when needed) and dark yellow filter which is almost orange so suits the Irish landscape.
Hi Paul,
Opinions vary, I have found, and there is a lot of good discussion out there, with as many experienced & dedicated film users utilising it, as are not. Adams created it obviously, drawing a lot of inspiration from sensitrometry, and was its biggest proponent, but then again Weston another great photographer didn’t for much of his career, as mentioned.
One of the great positives of the zone system is the highlighted importance of metering for adequate shadow detail, ie spot-metering the darkest shadow you wish to retain detail in, and using your reading to place that shadow on zone 3 by taking 2 stops from your metered shadow. This will always ensure you have the shadow detail, a lack of which is one of the few things you can’t work around in the darkroom, unlike under/ over-developed negatives.
I found the book, The Practical Zone System very straightforward and illustrative, although I have never been a zone system user.
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