A Lazy Man's Zone System

[GregY]

If I may dcy, going to any internet forum and deciding what your photo process will be, based on that alone, is like basing your understanding of current events on ****** cable news. There are lots of well written books on photography....(some have been mentioned. Adams, Horenstein, Lambrecht) .....any one of them would be more reliable than internet discussion.

Moderator note: comment edited and made slightly less specific, to make it less likely to bring rise to politics!

Thanks Matt.

 

[Alex Benjamin]

Well... It's not like I'm not using the camera. But during the work week I am at work. I shoot mostly on weekends. When I'm home at night and I'm bored I can't really do much more than plan what I want to do next.

Furthermore, I thought it would be a good idea to do a dedicated test and shoot the same handful of scenes over and over with different films and different developers. I suggested that idea in the forum, precisely in response to another comment about being willing to make mistakes. I received very positive responses for that idea. So I went ahead and spent over an hour in the hot New Mexico sun doing the shoot, then I started developing the films, and now the feedback I'm getting makes it sound like the whole thing was a huge mistake and a huge waste of my time because I shouldn't be trying out films and developers --- some of this from members that said the test was a great idea. And as I said in another thread, I didn't even start out looking for new developers. I had PC-TEA and was happy with it, and some members of this forum strongly nudged me toward D76 and D23, so I figured I'd follow that advice.

I understand that this forum isn't a single have mind and conflicting opinions are to be expected. That's just the nature of things. I'm just hoping for a little bit of understanding that I am receiving conflicting advice, sometimes from the same people, and I am doing my best to follow the advice without going crazy or making my life miserable.

Testing is a subject with which you'll always have the most contradictory views, especially if the zone system is involved, or even just mentioned. You have people here who have done every test possible — zone system, beyond the zone system, to infinity and beyond the zone system, etc. —, and others who have done no tests and just learned through experience.

Both make great pictures. Why? Because in the end, they both learn by looking — learning to look at the scene, learning to look at the negative, learning to look at the print. Now a test, any test, can be part of the learning process at any of these stages. But the test never serves as a short cut to reach your goal — of making nice prints from good negatives — faster. And they are usually most useful when you want to perfect your understanding of something you already have started to master.

When I'm home at night and I'm bored

Buy books by photographers, buy books about photography. You'll never be bored.

 

[joho]

Just an idea for dcy


film photography is at the level in the begining where one has to ——learn the practical way.

removing the light meter: use note pad to write f/stops/ 1/100 speed times

Step 1: Pick a film 100 ASA[135mm] DO A TEST RUN of six exposures 6x6=36 [*].


Step 2: family photo — do a sitting indoors with room lights use a tripod camera speeds and f/stops on lens
1/2sec-1/4sec-1/15sec-1/30sec-1/60sec-1/125sec
+5stop +4stops +3stop +2stop +1stop 100asa—normal


Step 2A: repeat with different combos [*]. use all 36 exposures. KEEPING NOTES AT ALL TIMES !!

Step 3: make 6contact sheets each different EXPOSURES

use d-23 film and what paper you use.



A Spartan view to using standers but this is the best way to get a basic idea.

 

[GregY]

Testing is a subject with which you'll always have the most contradictory views, especially if the zone system is involved, or even just mentioned. You have people here who have done every test possible — zone system, beyond the zone system, to infinity and beyond the zone system, etc. —, and others who have done no tests and just learned through experience.

Both make great pictures. Why? Because in the end, they both learn by looking — learning to look at the scene, learning to look at the negative, learning to look at the print. Now a test, any test, can be part of the learning process at any of these stages. But the test never serves as a short cut to reach your goal — of making nice prints from good negatives — faster. And they are usually most useful when you want to perfect your understanding of something you already have started to master.



Buy books by photographers, buy books about photography. You'll never be bored.

Well said Alex. & DCY....... make that drive to Santa Fe to see fine "real" photographic prints.

 

[MattKing]

Well said Alex. & DCY....... make that drive to Santa Fe to see real fine photographic prints.

And take a camera, and photograph whatever interests you.
You mentioned some well controlled ADHD. If you can channel that, don't channel it toward developer choice or technique or equipment.
Channel it toward experiencing - visually and photographically - the plethora of interesting things in the world around you!

 

[Paul Howell]

You might want to find a copy of The Zone System for 35mm Photographers by Carson Graves, there are a couple of editions out I have the second edition. He came up with system while teaching photography at a community college. Although I was taught to shoot a ring around in college in the 60s and by one of bosses (NOIC) while in the Air Force to find what would call a working ISO, Carson Craves method is more precise.

 

[Lachlan Young]

but because in principle setting yourself up to make great negatives whether using the Zone System or no system, is quite simple, and a lot simpler than the so-called “purists” would have themselves and others believe. It’s an easy thing with a lot of flowery language lumped on to it. In fact it is easier than this EZ method.

We probably shouldn't give away the secret that Sunny-16/ EV tables using pre-1960 film speed ratings is probably going to give better negative exposures than the intense effortfulness being expended on finding new ways to read meters and densitometers wrongly...

 

[What About Bob]

And take a camera, and photograph whatever interests you.
You mentioned some well controlled ADHD. If you can channel that, don't channel it toward developer choice or technique or equipment.
Channel it toward experiencing - visually and photographically - the plethora of interesting things in the world around you!

Well said, Matt.

Be observant and in the moment.

 

[Bill Burk]

I understand that this forum isn't a single hive mind and conflicting opinions are to be expected. That's just the nature of things. I'm just hoping for a little bit of understanding that I am receiving conflicting advice, sometimes from the same people, and I am doing my best to follow the advice without going crazy or making my life miserable.

You’re doing alright.

I think it’s cool that you picked an unusual developer, D-23 and are mixing it yourself. I can cheer you on but can’t give you comparable development times because I use D-76 from Kodak packages.

Zone System tests (and any EZ claim) are a sure way to expose a lot of film to find a personal film speed that is half the rated speed. An excellent exercise no matter how you approach it, but surely you found your speed by now.

I could devise a new test every five minutes but you’d probably do your own test anyway.

If you accept that 0.5 is a decent contrast to aim for, then for two stops exposure change you would expect one stop density change in the negative. Taking this into account you could take three shots of the same scene, doesn’t matter what it is, two shots normal and then change the film speed two stops lower for a third shot, then set the camera back to normal.

In this test you don’t even waste a single shot because you could print them all. You don’t even risk ruining anything by accidentally leaving the camera set wrong, because overexposure is graceful with black and white negative film.

But here’s the trick.

When you get the film developed, cut between the two thinner negatives.

Put them on top of each other over a light box and compare to the denser negative of the set.

If they look the same you have developed to 0.5 contrast. If the pair of thinner negatives sandwiched look darker than the thick negative you need to develop more. If the pair together look thinner than the dense one you have developed more than 0.5, and you might consider cutting back time for the next run.

 

[Craig]

DCY, I think you might have gotten a bit ahead of yourself here. The ability to evaluate different developers is based on the assumption that the negatives are correctly exposed. Based on what you have said, you have not yet achieved a complete understanding of the camera and it's light meter.

I'd take a step back and learn about light, and how to meter it. I'm not meaning the Zone system and all it's variants, I'm thinking of basic use of a light meter and it's limitations, such as you discovered with white sand. Once you have a complete grasp of how your camera meters, then you can understand what to do with the reading it suggests and when to use it or not. You'll learn to recognize the situations that might call for a different metering technique.

Then you can move to learning about exposing film (the Zone System is one method, there are many others), and then once you have mastered metering and exposing, then move onto developing.
There is no point in trying to perfectly develop a poorly exposed film.

I know it's been said before, but I would use one mainstream film and one developer for the metering and exposing phase of learning the craft of photography. The reason is simply to control the number of variables. I would probably also stick to a commercial developer, whatever you choose, and strictly adhere to the manufacturers recommendations.

Also best to use the same companies film and developer. They know the products, and they want you to succeed; they are not going to make recommendations that don't work.

Once you have mastered all 3 aspects (metering, exposing and developing), then experiment and make changes to your hearts content; but you need to have the foundation under your belt before you can make any meaningful evaluations of the results of your experimentation.

I am assuming in the above that the end goal is nice looking prints, rather than the experimentation being the end goal.

 

[Bill Burk]

p.s. On the Pentax 17 whenever you feel like doing that test of three of the same shot to check development, take one shot on +2 compensation and then set it back to zero and finish off with two more of the same picture.

You’re going to be less likely to accidentally leave the camera on the wrong setting this way.

It’s going to be obvious when you look at the negatives that there’s a dark one.

 

[tykos]

Then there's the "minimum time to maximum black" printing time. Assuming you judge it properly, what is that telling you? And of what value is it?

that should be the right time to print a frame: at that time you have max black in the blackest part of the image and the other tones of the image should be separated. If you expose more than that time, you'll crunch to black some of the non-black tones. Following this reasoning, this time is also needed to evaluate the whitest part of the image and therefore establish the right development time.

(not that is prohibited to crunch to black the amount of tones you like but that's the artistic choice while testing is all about the sensitometry. Once you know how your exposure+film+dev+paper+paperdev work (sensitometry), you can obtain the results suitable to you artistic view)

 

[npl]

I've seen it mentionned in p.1, "The Zone System for 35mm Photographers" is the book I would strongly recommend for roll film shooters wanting to start with the ZS.

It's a short and practical book that propose a method that doesn't rely on a densitometer and IIRC also gives advices on metering without a spot meter available. Seems right in the alley of OP's question.

 

[BCM]

*Someone* could have read about and learned the Zone System in the time it took to read all these posts.

 

[GregY]

*Someone* could have read about and learned the Zone System in the time it took to read all these posts.

Yes indeed

 

[dcy]

I'd strongly recommend to stop doing that. Take advice as input for your own decision-making, not as gospel. Whatever you do, there's always bound to be someone who thinks you did the wrong thing. Try not to give a f about it. It's the only way to survive.

Yeah. I kind of underestimated how much natural variance of opinion there'd be in a forum with a lot of experienced people. But I am feeling upbeat and I'm gradually re-calibrating how I read the advice I get --- a little less "gospel", a little more "Ford vs Chevy".

 

[dcy]

My point is just that every camera/metering mode has its own traits, for example, if it uses average metering over the whole frame, it might favor the background over the subject when there’s a big brightness difference. Or, when shooting close-ups, the sensor’s position above the lens makes it more sensitive to the top of the frame. The more you shot and check results, the more you’ll get used to these traits. This is a well-crafted and easy-to-use camera., but sometimes you still need to guide it and make some decisions yourself. As Matt said, you can sense when you can confidently leave things to it, and in those occasional, less common situations, do some refinement.

Yeah. I'm looking forward to getting to know the idiosyncrasies of my camera and how to use the controls to guide its decisions.

 

[0x001688936CA08]

For every person who has exhaustively tested their process and come to some acceptable point of understanding or quality, there are a hundred people who have spent their time making interesting pictures instead.

Seems like you might be trying to figure out which typewriter, ink and paper combo is best for you, before you've figured out what to write.

 

[dcy]

You mentioned some well controlled ADHD. If you can channel that, don't channel it toward developer choice or technique or equipment.
Channel it toward experiencing - visually and photographically - the plethora of interesting things in the world around you!

Wise words. Indeed, one of the reasons I got into photography is that it gets me out of the house and exploring the world on foot. --- There are only so many times you can photograph a bowl of fruit at home, and you can't do photography from a moving car. I find it helps my mental and physical health. Luckily, I now live in a part of the world with lots of sun, mountains, and things to see. I moved here less than a year ago. Before that, I lived in one of the more boring parts of the American Midwest. That... was not great.

 

[dcy]

Seems like you might be trying to figure out which typewriter, ink and paper combo is best for you, before you've figured out what to write.

Well... In fairness, my posts are a limited window into my life. It's not like anyone is going to come into a forum and ask "what should I photograph?".

 

[GregY]

DCY. check your inbox....

 

[0x001688936CA08]

Well... In fairness, my posts are a limited window into my life. It's not like anyone is going to come into a forum and ask "what should I photograph?".

Yes, fair enough.

I suppose what I was trying to say is that technical discussion is largely irrelevant and unresolvable unless there is some desired outcome or creative objective.

Why do you want to find a "personal ISO" anyway? You can go outside and shoot vaguely close enough to sunny 16 with any negative film and make a usable negative. I'm pretty sure the experiment you outline at the top is this thread is just the long way to sunny 16.

Garry Winogrand said something along the lines of "you have to grossly under or over expose film to not have a usable negative". Negative film is remarkably forgiving.

 

[Alex Benjamin]

Negative film is remarkably forgiving.

Well, unfortunately, my negatives have stopped forgiving my mistakes a long time ago...

 

[0x001688936CA08]

I have an idea that brother Ansel ever really used his zone system all that often.

He essentially admitted as much didn't he? I can't recall where I read or heard this, but Adam's talked about his transition to teaching, saying something like "what I was doing intuitively for many years needed to be formalised". Which seems to suggest that the zone system is entirely a post-hoc description of a way of working that he never actually practiced as rigorously as it he subsequently defined it.

 

[dcy]

DCY. check your inbox....

Yes! Response sent. Thank you for your patience!