Ok, so I'd like to call attention to what Rob is saying.
This statement shows two characteristics of the zone system that drive me nuts.
- The expected exposure accuracy.
- Just how close the zone system runs to under-exposure as a matter of course.
Minimizing exposure has benefits: minimizing grain and shutter time; but minimizing exposure means "your" EI has to be dang near perfect and your metering needs to be just right because when the target for "Zone I" is just a hair "thicker" than f+fb, then you are always just "that" one hair away from an underexposure. I will grant that when shooting at very small apertures, like f/32 with a slow film, shutter speed can be a big concern. We do need to ask ourselves how often most of us are there though.
The accuracy of the Zone system is not without practical benefit either: this makes 1st proofs/contacts easier/more standard to print; but what many people miss is that this "minimum exposure target" is really just the lower threshold of a wide range of exposure levels that can and will produce absolutely excellent, and IMO, no compromise prints.
Most people don't need to run as tight to the toe as the zone system asks, to do good work.
Again my school was different.
a) the zone system does not have problems, if you don't understand it or can't make it work don't use it.
b) the ISO has no safety factor, they don't even use a standard developer
c) the ASA standard used to have a stop safety factor before 1961
d) the mods should not be deleting posts with profanity only posts with push, pushed, or pushing
a) the zone system does not have problems,
Sometimes it does seem quite remarkable that people manage to make beautiful photographs without knowing the first thing about sensitometry, what a Zone is, or possessing a spot meter.
There are some really great and helpful concepts that come packaged in the zone system. It is worth learning.
It's also worthwhile knowing it's limitations and frailties and where other techniques have advantages.
It's not that I think there's anything wrong with being a tech-head about this, far from it.
This may be the last place on the planet where such discussions are taking place, and I suppose there's a chance that the generation of people discussing it may be the last who do so with the background of having used film in a time when this stuff was being researched and published in learned journals with proper scientific rigour.
But I also think discussions like this can lead an unwary or uninformed person who is new to film into thinking that they can't take good photographs without an array of expensive technology and a full understanding of some very arcane sensitometric mathematics.
Whether we thereby lose some great photographers to the lure of the graph-paper* and endless testing without making any beautiful photographs is a moot point. Perhaps we sometimes lose great sensitometricians to the lure of making beautiful photographs without caring about toes, shoulders, gammas and zones ?
* I have just been informed that apparently, in this modern age, some people no longer use graph-paper, preferring something called a "computer" ...
I agree with c) and d).
I believe I understand the Zone System rather well and you aren't getting what you think you're getting. To start, the target values are wrong and flare doesn't seem to play a factor.
The current ISO does have a safety factor. C.N. Nelson's Safety Factors in Camera Exposure is authoritative. It is the paper that lead to the 1960 standard (along with Simple Methods of Approximating Fractional Gradient Speeds). All available HERE.
Mark, because of Zone System testing methods, the results are different than the rhetoric would suggest. Think pre-1960 speeds with the one stop safety factor.
I understand the generalities:
- If shadow detail is insufficient, increase exposure.
- If the shadow detail is too dense, decrease exposure.
- If highlights are blown out, reduce development.
- If negatives are too thin, but there is sufficient shadow detail, increase development.
Yes,but Stephen, there are at least three blogs on the internet somewhere which say you should shoot at 2/3 box speed and develop in a monobath (etc.) for the best results, and as we know, what a stranger says in a blog trumps any so-called expert who understands sensitometry.
OIt is common for people to adopt a rather strange condescending attitude toward sensitometry "I don't need to know this, I'm an artist not a scientist" while at the same talking about which Zone to place shadows on, how to get N-5, pre-exposing negatives, print flashing, rating TMX at EI 80 vs 64 etc.
if you want to learn, might as well start by learning the right things.
i hope my comments don't tip the scale to turn this into a foodfight, because that wasn't my intent.
Yes,but Stephen, there are at least three blogs on the internet somewhere which say you should shoot at 2/3 box speed and develop in a monobath (etc.) for the best results, and as we know, what a stranger says in a blog trumps any so-called expert who understands sensitometry.
... I merely want to see what all of this "expose a 1/2 box speed for better negatives" thing is all about. ...
You're kidding, right?
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