Ah, where's your sense of adventure?
Has the Zone System been lying to me?
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Zone system assume you test your film, developer, .... Witout that ZS will not work as it is suppose to.
PS
There are 21 "zones" in a modern film, each one of which is spaced 0.15 (1/2 stop) apart. The zone system as we practice it here and as we discuss it, limits us to 7 zones out of the 21 possible zones.
So, the 7 zones we use are actually a sliding scale that can be moved up and down the film scale based on how straight the line of the films characteristic curve actually is. And the reason for 7 is that the average print can only print 7 due to the limits of the reflective material.
Black Satin 2.25 reflectance
4.5
9
18 average
36
72
95 White paper
This means 2.5 zone (0.3 log) above 18% and 3 zone below 18% (toward darks on the print). Summ=5.5 zonne in total
Daniel OB
www.Leica-R.com
PS
There are 21 "zones" in a modern film, each one of which is spaced 0.15 (1/2 stop) apart. The zone system as we practice it here and as we discuss it, limits us to 7 zones out of the 21 possible zones.
So, the 7 zones we use are actually a sliding scale that can be moved up and down the film scale based on how straight the line of the films characteristic curve actually is. And the reason for 7 is that the average print can only print 7 due to the limits of the reflective material.
Black Satin 2.25 reflectance
4.5
9
18 average
36
72
95 White paper
This means 2.5 zone (0.3 log) above 18% and 3 zone below 18% (toward darks on the print). Summ=5.5 zonne in total
Daniel OB
www.Leica-R.com
Last edited by a moderator:
Daniel, I must object, slightly. When you refer to seven zones it almost seems as though you mean to refer to steps in a range of subject luminances. The range of luminances in a subject may have a limit but it could well be greater than 21 stops. You say that the Zone System as we practice it restricts us to seven (II thru VIII) of 21 zones. But you refer to half stops of exposure. By my math that enables us to use 13 half-zones (II, II 1/2, III, III 1/2, IV, IV 1/2, V, V 1/2, VI, VI1/2, VII, VII 1/2, VIII), 15 if you include I 1/2 and VIII 1/2 which may yield differentiating testure to some degree.
Daniel, two neighbor zones are separated by 1 stop, not 1/3 of a stop. Although, why only 21 zones? Grays you can have on a continuous (notice, infinity) scale in analog. Only in digital you are limited by the number of bits.
In fact, there is a huge confusion about the zone system: it concerns grays only if you shoot a gray card or if you do portraits. Otherwise, it concerns details (not grays): you see or you don’t see full or partial details in shadows and in highlights (in negative, than in print, not in the real scene).
In fact, there is a huge confusion about the zone system: it concerns grays only if you shoot a gray card or if you do portraits. Otherwise, it concerns details (not grays): you see or you don’t see full or partial details in shadows and in highlights (in negative, than in print, not in the real scene).
Why 21 zones? In a normal B&W negative, the film has a contrast of 0.6, and will span a density of 0.1 to over 3.0 in 21 zones. Part of this must be toe and part must be shoulder which we don't want to use. We used the "center cut" in most cases and call the rest "latitude for over or under exposure".
A paper spans a density range of from 0.1 to 2.0 at a contrast of 2.5 to yield a print of contrast 1.8 or thereabouts. This is 7 zones.
PE
A paper spans a density range of from 0.1 to 2.0 at a contrast of 2.5 to yield a print of contrast 1.8 or thereabouts. This is 7 zones.
PE
I beleive where half or third stops come in in regards to the Zone System is say you have your high contrast subject area and you have Shadows and Highlights where you want detail but they are five stops difference. You don't want to risk the shadows on II and you don't wish to potentially sacrifice the highlights on VII so you place them on II 1/2 and VII 1/2 respectively to give yourself a wee bit of elbow room, as it were.
Extending the number of zones cannot be done inside the present scale, by splitting the 1 stop increment in lower increments. If one wants to extend their number, he should go 1 stop below zone 0 and above zone 10 (ex: new zone –1 and new zone 11). But this will be useful only when new, more sensitive media (film and paper or even digital), will be invented.
Well, as usual, I find the thread rather late and miss out on lots of the fun.
I remember going through all of this stuff, Tim. Let's see. That would have been 44 years ago. I was working with Minor White (I know it is crass to talk about MW, but I guess I'm gonna exhibit my lack of taste), and he had me so completely confused (you think you have it bad; I had to separate "zone" from "zen") that during the year between workshops, I read the original series of AA's books (which I heartily recommend over the later ones even though they are really stiff reading) and worked it out carefully. When MW came back I told him this, and he said something like "well, now you've done it, and so you've got it. No need to worry much about it anymore".
One further thing that he stressed was that the unique characteristic of photography is that it is a continuous tone medium. That is, it is a continuous spectrum of values, as opposed to virtually every other medium. For example, in printmaking, there is either ink or no ink and the eye fills in the grays. Charcoal drawings can also be continuous tone, by blending the charcoal in various degrees over the white of the paper. So, coming from the horse's mouth, I think there is a question really of just what a zone is. We talked about it, and Minor said very clearly that a zone is NOT a fixed value but, in fact, a range of values within that continuous spectrum, divided for convenience in handling. I have not seen mention of that in this thread, but I think it is essential to comprehend that if you are going to come to a real visual sense of the zone. So, instead of talking about the limited number of values that we have, let's recognize that we have really, if not an infinite number of steps on the scale, at least the 256 increments or so that we humans are supposed to be able to identify. From that total range, we slice parts out to make our zones. And of course, the photographic scale differs from the usual art school scale, or the digital scale, in that we have a peculiar curve shape where the blacks and whites are full of subtlety, and the midtones relatively abrupt.
Two years is not enough to really get this in practice.
I usually write way too much, and I'm going to do it again. I'm going to give you a brief synopsis of my own method of testing and analyzing a film, which I can do in an hour or so per development unit. I'm assuming 35mm here, because that is what I'm doing right now, but you can adapt for your own needs.
By the way, when you print your test patches (I wonder how you make them. There is no need for gray cards, etc. except to give you the comparison value for z5.) there is a neat trick to finding just where that black value is. If you are using an enlarger, you know that the center of the field is the brightest part of the projected light. The edges, and especially the corners are dimmer - they are farther from the lens, for one thing, and the difference in the distance amounts to lost light. Put a piece of processed film on the diagonal from the center to the corner, and print it so the film base is just barely visible in the print of the corner part, but merges completely with the black in the center part. This verifies that you are printing long enough, but not too long. Of course you want to be sure that your lens is stopped down far enough to eliminate any cutoff; that would make it too easy! and also would eliminate some of the precision.
I use a wall in a studio on the north side of a building which has north facing windows as a target. This gives me stable light on the wall. The wall I'm using now is white, but it doesn't matter much as long as the hue is fairly neutral. I used to use a garage door. Lens is focused at infinity; it should be out of focus. I start with one zone less than zone 0, then give one stop incremental increases up to 11 or 12. I'll process these strips at various times. On each negative, I write the zone number with a sharpie and print them using the method I describe above to validate my black. The zone 1 separation is hard to see; it should be. If it is too easy, you need to increase the speed; if you can't see it, decrease the speed. Typically, the z2 patch will turn out to be z1, really, because nominal speeds are seldom correct in use. The number written on the last patch where it could be seen ought to be z8, unless, of course, you make z2 into z1, in which case all the numbers change; z9 would be z8 etc. On the z9, you should not be able to see the number; it will be merged into the white. If your ISO rating and development times are right, z5 would look similar to the gray card.
I use a densitometer and plot curves, but always make visual tests as well. I don't want it to be just numbers. I want to see that scale's visual profile, and these prints give a sometimes surprising view of that. I do perform the tests, but otherwise it is not a "system" for me, it is just nature. I don't think much about it at all when I use it. It is pretty much entirely intuitive.
Don't be discouraged, it takes a long time to really make this yours, but if you keep at it, that will happen. I sympathize, though. I remember how much my mind used to hurt when I was learning it.
I remember going through all of this stuff, Tim. Let's see. That would have been 44 years ago. I was working with Minor White (I know it is crass to talk about MW, but I guess I'm gonna exhibit my lack of taste), and he had me so completely confused (you think you have it bad; I had to separate "zone" from "zen") that during the year between workshops, I read the original series of AA's books (which I heartily recommend over the later ones even though they are really stiff reading) and worked it out carefully. When MW came back I told him this, and he said something like "well, now you've done it, and so you've got it. No need to worry much about it anymore".
One further thing that he stressed was that the unique characteristic of photography is that it is a continuous tone medium. That is, it is a continuous spectrum of values, as opposed to virtually every other medium. For example, in printmaking, there is either ink or no ink and the eye fills in the grays. Charcoal drawings can also be continuous tone, by blending the charcoal in various degrees over the white of the paper. So, coming from the horse's mouth, I think there is a question really of just what a zone is. We talked about it, and Minor said very clearly that a zone is NOT a fixed value but, in fact, a range of values within that continuous spectrum, divided for convenience in handling. I have not seen mention of that in this thread, but I think it is essential to comprehend that if you are going to come to a real visual sense of the zone. So, instead of talking about the limited number of values that we have, let's recognize that we have really, if not an infinite number of steps on the scale, at least the 256 increments or so that we humans are supposed to be able to identify. From that total range, we slice parts out to make our zones. And of course, the photographic scale differs from the usual art school scale, or the digital scale, in that we have a peculiar curve shape where the blacks and whites are full of subtlety, and the midtones relatively abrupt.
Two years is not enough to really get this in practice.
I usually write way too much, and I'm going to do it again. I'm going to give you a brief synopsis of my own method of testing and analyzing a film, which I can do in an hour or so per development unit. I'm assuming 35mm here, because that is what I'm doing right now, but you can adapt for your own needs.
By the way, when you print your test patches (I wonder how you make them. There is no need for gray cards, etc. except to give you the comparison value for z5.) there is a neat trick to finding just where that black value is. If you are using an enlarger, you know that the center of the field is the brightest part of the projected light. The edges, and especially the corners are dimmer - they are farther from the lens, for one thing, and the difference in the distance amounts to lost light. Put a piece of processed film on the diagonal from the center to the corner, and print it so the film base is just barely visible in the print of the corner part, but merges completely with the black in the center part. This verifies that you are printing long enough, but not too long. Of course you want to be sure that your lens is stopped down far enough to eliminate any cutoff; that would make it too easy! and also would eliminate some of the precision.
I use a wall in a studio on the north side of a building which has north facing windows as a target. This gives me stable light on the wall. The wall I'm using now is white, but it doesn't matter much as long as the hue is fairly neutral. I used to use a garage door. Lens is focused at infinity; it should be out of focus. I start with one zone less than zone 0, then give one stop incremental increases up to 11 or 12. I'll process these strips at various times. On each negative, I write the zone number with a sharpie and print them using the method I describe above to validate my black. The zone 1 separation is hard to see; it should be. If it is too easy, you need to increase the speed; if you can't see it, decrease the speed. Typically, the z2 patch will turn out to be z1, really, because nominal speeds are seldom correct in use. The number written on the last patch where it could be seen ought to be z8, unless, of course, you make z2 into z1, in which case all the numbers change; z9 would be z8 etc. On the z9, you should not be able to see the number; it will be merged into the white. If your ISO rating and development times are right, z5 would look similar to the gray card.
I use a densitometer and plot curves, but always make visual tests as well. I don't want it to be just numbers. I want to see that scale's visual profile, and these prints give a sometimes surprising view of that. I do perform the tests, but otherwise it is not a "system" for me, it is just nature. I don't think much about it at all when I use it. It is pretty much entirely intuitive.
Don't be discouraged, it takes a long time to really make this yours, but if you keep at it, that will happen. I sympathize, though. I remember how much my mind used to hurt when I was learning it.
Oh yes, and do print with the paper you might be using and the print developer you might be using but remember that you may change later on, and you will still be able to print that negative. It is a big trap to be too rigid. Your job is to get the negative that gives you the greatest degree of freedom down the road, not to make the negative perfect.
Larry
Larry
OP
OP
Thanks Larry- I will keep this in mind as a double check, using my enlarging meter's densitometer mode.
Tim
Tim
I found this Paul Butzi article interesting:
http://www.butzi.net/articles/zoneVC.htm
To quote Paul:
"Based on this simple experiment, it's clear that there's an interaction between the film and paper that produces different results when film development is varied and then the contrast of VC paper is adjusted to compensate. For both Kodak PolyMax IIrc and Ilford MG IV fb, there's no discernable difference between reduced development of the film and normal development of the film, but a quite pronounced difference between normal development and increased development - increased development (with the paper contrast adjusted to compensate for the increased negative contrast) results in more highlight contrast, lower mid-tone values, and reduced shadow contrast.
As a practical matter, this can be used as one more creative control - if you would like the scene rendered with more highlight contrast, less shadow contrast, and darker mid-tones, you can plan your development so that you get a much harder negative, then print with the VC paper filtered to be much softer than usual."
http://www.butzi.net/articles/zoneVC.htm
To quote Paul:
"Based on this simple experiment, it's clear that there's an interaction between the film and paper that produces different results when film development is varied and then the contrast of VC paper is adjusted to compensate. For both Kodak PolyMax IIrc and Ilford MG IV fb, there's no discernable difference between reduced development of the film and normal development of the film, but a quite pronounced difference between normal development and increased development - increased development (with the paper contrast adjusted to compensate for the increased negative contrast) results in more highlight contrast, lower mid-tone values, and reduced shadow contrast.
As a practical matter, this can be used as one more creative control - if you would like the scene rendered with more highlight contrast, less shadow contrast, and darker mid-tones, you can plan your development so that you get a much harder negative, then print with the VC paper filtered to be much softer than usual."
I think that careful measurement will show that variations in film development will result in different paper responses. I have done this under carefully controlled situations with quantitiative measurement to prove it to my own satisfaction.
PE
PE
I did find Paul Butzi's results interesting. He did find differences for N+2 development, but he achieved close to identical results with N-2 and N development. I. myself, usually go +/- depending on the shot.
All things being equal, there will be a variation based on both film and paper development times. Perhaps Budding was able to compensate for the N-1 more easily, but I can see the effect with a densitometer quite easily and also with my eye.
PE
PE
Photo Engineer - I pointed out the article only. I, myself, have run no tests.
Sorry. That was meant to be "Butzi" and I had a senior moment. Thanks for the catch.
PE
PE
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