.backwards system zone the Working

[markbarendt]

This is a thought for roll film, and I'm sure it would take some testing to be workable, I also bet that it has significant limits, but here's my premises.

P1 - In general, development controls the shoulder, exposure controls the toe, nothing new there.

P2 - For a given film in a fixed development process in any given developer a defined contrast index in the finished negative is achieved.

P3 - You would decide where to place the highlights first, then for any given shot you would measure the subject brightness range and decide where to place the shadows in relation to the highlights."

P4 - In practice overexposure would expand the usable printable contrast range and underexposure would contract it. (I'm not claiming easily printable)

Is there a practical benefit here?

Does shooting to the shadows do the same thing?

Technically correct me if I'm off the field.

 

[R Shaffer]

Ciao Mark,

I'm no expert on these matters, but I recently read an article on Unblinkingeye about William Mortensen and his exposure & development methods.
Your proposal sounds a lot like his method. My understanding is that he was more mostly concerned about good highlight separation. He has a whole method
from lighting though development. It's an interesting read.

http://unblinkingeye.com/Articles/Mortensen/mortensen.html

 

[david b]

I shoot medium format film. twelve exposures.

I often meter the highlights and adjust according to those, rather than the shadow area.

I then process normally. Works fine.

 

[ic-racer]

P3 - You would decide where to place the highlights first, then for any given shot you would measure the subject brightness range and decide where to place the shadows in relation to the highlights."

You can 'expose for the highlights.' Its done with reversal films. With negative films the negatives will be dense but it certainly can be done.
(there was a url link here which no longer exists)

 

[Bruce Watson]

.sdrowkcab metsyS enoZ eht gnikorW

Fred Picker's book Zone VI Workshop pushes one in this general direction IIRC. Fred loved highlights and didn't care what happened to his shadows, so he devolved the Zone System down to "expose for the highlights and let the shadows fall where they may." Worked for him, and he produced some seriously gorgeous prints.

As they say, there are many paths to the waterfall. Pick the path with which you are most comfortable, and off you go.

 

[Maris]

I too use the Fred Picker system of exposing for the high values and accepting what I get in the shadows.

The principle is to give the Maximum Possible Usable Exposure. The highlights will be printable (just) and the shadows will then be as high up on the characteristic curve as they can get. The entire negative will hold as much information as can possibly be packed into it.

A nice consequence of having an information packed negative is that the number of printing options is maximised too. Variable contrast enlarging paper effectively covers the same range of possibilities as those envisaged in N-2, N-1, N, N+1, and N+2 negative modifications. It achieves this without locking out future options. For example I may pre-visualise and make a negative with N-1 treatment. Years later I might think an N+2 style would be better but the old N-1 negative can't deliver. A nice, thick N type negative would!

I've done a lot of Zone system expansions and contractions, extremes from N-5 to N+4, and have come to the conclusion that anything outside of N-1 to N+1 rarely yields photographs that are worth looking at. Sure, all the tones are there but Zone system gymnastics cannot turn crummy subject matter into great photographs.

Dense negatives are a pleasure to work with but I am using a large format camera on a tripod. Grain, sharpness, film speed, hand holdability, and depth of field are not obstacles. If I was using a miniature camera they could be.

 

[Doremus Scudder]

Mark,

Your ideas are basically sound. There is, however, one catch to your system.

First, as you assume, when using roll film with scenes of many different contrasts, you must develop the whole roll at one development time.

Most "place the highlights" systems are based on a "standard" development and simply let the shadows fall where they may. This is fine for normal and low contrast scenes.

The problem lies in the following scenario: Assume you have a very contrasty scene, say 7 or 8 stops between important high and low values. If you place the highlights in the "proper" place, say, Zone VIII, the important shadow values will fall too low on the film's scale, i.e., on Zone 0 or I. This means a loss of detail in the shadow areas of the negative that is impossible to recover.

If shadow detail is important, then we need to make sure that we have enough exposure to keep that detail. That means making sure we give adequate exposure.

I use the Zone System for sheet film, and expose for the shadows and develop to control contrast, but for roll film that is going to get a "standard" development time, I do the following:

1. If I'm using an averaging or center-weighted type meter ( in-camera or hand-held meter), I simply let it do its job. In low and normal contrast situations, this meter will give adequate exposure to ensure detail in the shadows. Of course, one must be on the lookout for high- and low-key situations when exposure compensation will be necessary.

However, when confronted with contrasty scenes, I know that the meter, averaging as it does, will underexpose the shadows. Therefore, I give more exposure in this case, which seems counterintuitive at first, but ensures that there will be enough exposure in the shadows to retain detail.
When working fast, I just add one stop for contrasty scenes and two for very contrasty scenes.

Note that this puts the high values way up on Zone IX or X and, with the "standard" development the roll will get, produces a negative with a wider than normal range. Fortunately, modern films hold detail well into Zone X and higher. This then needs to be taken care of in printing by using a lower contrast grade paper. The opposite is the case with low contrast scenes developed to "standard"; they will have a shorter range and will need contrastier paper.

When shooting roll film using a hand-held or in-camera spot meter, I can either

2. place the shadows, in which case I would want to overexpose low-contrast scenes by a stop to get the shadows up off the toe of the film's characteristic curve (this is not strictly necessary although it helps shadow separation a lot). Normal and high-contrast scenes would get no exposure compensation. Or

3. place the highlights, in which case I would need to overexpose contrasty scenes by one or two stops depending on SBR (which I would measure with the spot meter). Normal and low-contrast scenes would need no compensation.

Note that all three of these methods coupled with a standard developing time for the entire roll will result in the same kind of negatives: Normal negatives for normal-contrast scenes, low-range negatives with slightly more shadow exposure than normal for low-contrast scenes, which will then be printed on higher contrast paper, and high-range negatives with adequate shadow exposure from high-contrast scenes, which will then be printed on lower contrast paper.

Just placing the highlights without some kind of system to give more exposure to higher-contrast scenes would result in shadow detail being lost. Placing shadows is often the most foolproof and least fiddley of the methods since no exposure compensation is really needed. The problem comes when one does not have a spot meter to measure shadow values with. Then the averaging or highlight-placement methods are easier.

Somewhere here (or on another forum, I'm no longer sure...) I have developed this idea in more detail. Just search on my name if you are interested in the long(er) version.

Best and good luck,

Doremus Scudder
www.DoremusScudder.com

 

[markbarendt]

Ciao Mark,

I'm no expert on these matters, but I recently read an article on Unblinkingeye about William Mortensen and his exposure & development methods.
Your proposal sounds a lot like his method. My understanding is that he was more mostly concerned about good highlight separation. He has a whole method from lighting though development. It's an interesting read.

http://unblinkingeye.com/Articles/Mortensen/mortensen.html

Interesting read. I'll chew on that some.

 

[markbarendt]

Fred Picker's book Zone VI Workshop pushes one in this general direction IIRC. Fred loved highlights and didn't care what happened to his shadows, so he devolved the Zone System down to "expose for the highlights and let the shadows fall where they may." Worked for him, and he produced some seriously gorgeous prints.

As they say, there are many paths to the waterfall. Pick the path with which you are most comfortable, and off you go.

The book is on the way.

 

[markbarendt]

I've done a lot of Zone system expansions and contractions, extremes from N-5 to N+4, and have come to the conclusion that anything outside of N-1 to N+1 rarely yields photographs that are worth looking at. Sure, all the tones are there but Zone system gymnastics cannot turn crummy subject matter into great photographs.

Dense negatives are a pleasure to work with but I am using a large format camera on a tripod. Grain, sharpness, film speed, hand holdability, and depth of field are not obstacles. If I was using a miniature camera they could be.

I'm not looking to save/create trash.

My rollfilm is 135, my sheets are 4x5.

 

[Photo Engineer]

That is properly .... .sdrawkcab metsys enoz eht gnikroW

Please insure proper !hsilgnE

.uoy knahT

If this confuses you, read Arrowsmith by Sinclair Lewis.

PE

 

[markbarendt]

That is properly .... .sdrawkcab metsys enoz eht gnikroW

Please insure proper !hsilgnE

.uoy knahT

If this confuses you, read Arrowsmith by Sinclair Lewis.

PE

I had thought about using Hebrew in the title...

 

[Photo Engineer]

Having just gotten a note from a friend with Hebrew letters in it, I can guess how difficult the post would have been. I cannot read Hebrew. Sorry, one of my few failings.

PE

 

[johnnywalker]

It takes a good man to admit his shortcomings! You'll have time to take it up now that the book and DVD are finished. Congratulations by the way, and lots of pats on the back.

 

[Q.G.]

A book?
Give it a plug! At least give us the ISBN!

 

[Photo Engineer]

I'll comment elsewhere on that subject. Thanks for the comments though.

Emulsion making is like a foreign language. Very cryptic. Sometimes you have to do things sdrawkcab to get them to work.

PE

 

[Sirius Glass]

I'll comment elsewhere on that subject. Thanks for the comments though.

Emulsion making is like a foreign language. Very cryptic. Sometimes you have to do things sdrawkcab to get them to work.

PE

Would that be an hsilgnE or cirtem sdrawkcab?

And do you do it in the dark?

Steve

 

[Photo Engineer]

Steve;

We coat at Kodak in mg / square foot. You can see how eclectic it is.

PE

 

[markbarendt]

Would that be an hsilgnE or citrem sdrawkcab?

And do you do it in the dark?

Steve

Steve it is spelled cirtem not citrem. :rolleyes:

 

[Photo Engineer]

You see how bad my foreign language spelling is? For example, the French don't care what they say as long as they pronounce it properly. At least that is what I'm told.

PE

 

[markbarendt]

Back on subject for a moment.

This has been an interesting intellectual exercise but I think that I now see no benefit in shooting to the true highlights (not Pickers facial highlights).

 

[Sirius Glass]

Steve it is spelled cirtem not citrem. :rolleyes:

Thank you, I changed "citrem" to "cirtem".

My Bad!

Steve

 

[markbarendt]

I knew I liked France.

 

[Sirius Glass]

You see how bad my foreign language spelling is? For example, the French don't care what they say as long as they pronounce it properly. At least that is what I'm told.

PE

Mercy buttercups!

Steve

 

[Photo Engineer]

Wee wee wee.

PE