How well should zone system calibrations translate from roll to sheet film?

Gerald C Koch said:

My point was that what is being described isn't necessarily the Zone System but what any experienced photographer desires to do. But if the tonal scale of the negative doesn't fit the scale of the paper then you are not going to get the best print. One is leaving some tonality on the table so to speak. Of course there are exceptions like high key images.

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Yes you're right because the Zone system isn't rocket science it's just a logical way of exposing for the shadows and developing for the highlights, and when needed making the necessary adjustments. People were doing that before the Zone system the difference is that with better light meters you can measure when you need to make those adjustments.

I do sometimes make adjustments when shooting 120 particularly if it's a day where I'm shooting quite a few images so more than one film,

The irony is that many of Ansel Adams well known images were made before he and Minor White came up with the Zone system.

Ian

I use the Zone System to get particular area in the zone that I want it to print in. I always use N, never needed to use N-1, N-2, N+1, or N+2.

The Zone System seems to mean a lot of things to a lot of people. I consider the Zone System really just a way of exposing and developing such that I allow myself to print the scene how I intended it to look in the final image. I have been able to achieve this using roll films as well as sheet film. Yes, having to commit 12 images or what have you to a single development scheme like N or N+1 isn't ideal all the time, but it hardly disqualifies me from calling my workflow "using the zone system," when I have my own film calibrations, careful metering and exposure, and selective development.

The Zone System provides a defined and structured method of calibrating your unique environment.

It adjusts film speed to your particular shutters, lenses and processing.
It adjusts development to your thermometer, chemistry, agitation, etc.

All of those personal factors are critical to each individual's results.

The fact that they are INDIVIDUAL factors is why nobody can agree on the details.

- Leigh

A question for you all--

I started recalibrating yesterday using the following process:

1. Go outside in open shade, tape a piece of regular white printer paper to the wall. Focus camera at infinity and fill frame (mostly) with out of focus white paper, evenly lit.
2. Remove dark slide 1/3 of the way and expose for Zone I at my best guess for EI (EI 250 for HP5+, which is what I landed on when calibrating roll films)
3. Replace dark slide, switch film holder around and repeat with Side B, using a different EI to see how it compares (EI 320 in this case).
4. Go back into darkroom, reverse film sheets in holders by rotating 180 degrees.
5. Repeat steps 1-3, only now exposing the other end 1/3 of the sheet for Zone VIII at the respective EI.
6. Develop sheets in dark room using best guess for dilution/time. Since I was noticing extremely flat negs using my roll film calibrations of EI 250 in HC-110 Dil H for 7 mins, I decided to go with HC-110 Dil B for 7:30 since "shuffling the deck" tray agitation seems to produce much less contrast than inversion agitation in a daylight tank.
   1. Get developer mixed up (400ml water to 12.9ml HC-110 syrup for 1:31) in 5x7 tray, and stable at 68 deg F.
   2. Pour stop and fixer in respective trays, turn off lights
      
   3. Place each negative into the developer, start timer
   4. Agitate by pulling the bottom negative out, dropping it on top of the surface of the dev, and gently pushing it down to submerge it, for the first 30 seconds
   5. Repeat this agitation 3 times (number of negatives in soup + 1) every 60 seconds for duration of timer, so both negatives get equal amount of time on top of the "stack"
   6. Stop bath for 1 min
   7. Fix for 7 mins in fresh fixer, turn lights on
      
   8. Rinse for 10 mins in water, soak in Photo Flo for 1 min
   9. Hang to dry by corners for several hours
7. I now have 2 negatives: One exposed at EI 250 with a stripe of Zone I, a stripe in the middle of no exposure for FB+F, and a stripe of Zone VIII, and the other exactly the same only exposed at EI 320.
8. Use light table and spotmeter with reverse mounted 50mm lens on it to get transmission density readings (where 1 full EV value translates to 0.3 density value). I made sure the lens was kept at f/1.4 and focused at infinity the entire time; the spot meter was arbitrarily set to ISO 100 for the duration of density testing.
   
9. Film base + fog came out equal to 0.10 density (this seems normal)
10. Zone I area however came out to 0.68 density GREATER than FB+F, instead of the target 0.10 density above FB+F, indicating that I'm rating my flim WAY too slow at 250. Like several stops. Which would mean I should be rating my HP5+ at like EI 640+ or something; this just seems wrong, especially considering with roll film HP5+ I found my EI to be 250.
    
11. Zone VIII area came out to 1.55 density greater than FB+F, instead of the target 1.25, indicating that I overdeveloped, but not by a huge amount. I can buy that.

Can anyone help me interpret these results? I can't help but thing I did something wrong here. I know for sure my shutter is accurate as I had it tested around the same time I got my 4x5 camera, about a month ago. All shutter speeds were right on until I got up to 1/125, but I didn't use any speeds higher than 1/60 for my calibration exposures.

Edit: It makes sense to me that my problem with using the roll film calibrations for sheet film comes down to differing agitation. Doubling my developer concentration seems to be resulting in basically "push processing" the film but not agitating enough to keep the highlights developing faster than the shadows. This would explain an extremely dense Zone I without a similarly "way too dense" Zone VIII.

For my next test I'll try EI 320 and EI 400, and go back to Dilution H at 7 mins, just increasing the agitation to a full shuffle through the deck + 1 more shuffle, every 30 seconds instead of every minute.

Are there any other agitation methods anyone can recommend other than shuffling the deck? When I have tried agitating by lifting corners and edges like I do with prints, I ended up with overdeveloped negative edges (thought it was light leaks for a long time before I finally put my finger on what was causing it).

Seems to me you forgot to stop down four stops from your meter reading to place that Zone I reading on Zone I

Bill Burk said:

Seems to me you forgot to stop down four stops from your meter reading to place that Zone I reading on Zone I

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+1

Thanks for the replies, but I'm 100% sure I didn't do this.

Can you talk about the details a little more? What was the light meter reading and the f/stop and shutter speed displayed and used...

I'm sure you didn't use an incident meter and then shoot off white paper? Right?

Did you shoot in bright daylight? Was the reading one of the highest numbers on your meter dial?

I shot in open shade in a fairly narrow alley between my apartment building and the next one over. It would have been open shade even if it was sunny, but it was also overcast.

I used a Minolta Spotmeter F, so no worries on incident metering

I don't remember the exact settings (next time I'm writing them down haha), but roughly remembered, the meter said Zone V was f/16 and 1/30, so I shot the Zone I stripe at f/45 and 1/60. After reversing the film in the darkroom to expose the other side for zone 8, it had gotten a tad darker according to the meter. IIRC the meter said something like f/14 and 1/30, so for Zone VIII I exposed at f/14 and 1/4 second.

During my initial roll film tests, I remember being surprised to find that my film speed seemed to slide around based on development time and dilution a lot more than everyone seems to say. The books make it sound like once you have a film speed, you could quadruple your development time and you'd still only gain maybe 2/3ds of a stop of density at Zone I (aside from obviously blowing your contrast out to the moon). I found that my Zone I density was affected fairly significantly by changes to my development time and especially dilution. I'm not sure if this has to do with my water (it's very hard and comes out of the tap at about pH 8.0, so the alkalinity may be speeding up development in the shadows even after the highlights are quickly exhausted or something), or some other factor.

So at this point my working hypothesis is that my film speed calibrations for roll film will be very close to correct for sheet film, but my agitation for roll film is so much more vigorous, that by comparison my sheet film agitation is practically equivalent to stand development. When I tried to increase my contrast by using Dilution B instead of Dilution H, it was like stand developing in more concentrated developer - doesn't affect the highlights a whole lot because of local exhaustion, but brings out detail twice as fast in the shadows.

My next trial will involve twice as much agitation (once through the stack every 30 seconds instead of every minute), but going back to dilution H. We'll see if the results from that next test poke holes in my theory that increasing my agitation is really the key to getting more normal results.

At some point you might also think about using distilled water instead of tap water.

I don't find significant changes in development time when I change agitation (stack per minute vs stack per 30s). So no need to change what feels natural. I don't even think the dilution was a problem. Just pick a dilution that you want to use.

I don't have (sensitometer-exposed) Zone I exposures exceed about 0.20 density above B+F. That's where the idea that shadow densities are not much affected by development. Exposures about 1/10th of Zone V will simply not develop up no matter what you do.

I seriously suspect you are overexposing your Zone I. Maybe not by setting the wrong f/stop and shutter speed (now that you described what you did and what you've found in the past it starts to make sense). By definition of Zone System testing, Zone I can get more exposure than you planned due to errors in the marking of the f/stops and the accuracy of the shutter.

If you're going to be using this shutter at 1/60 and f/45 then go ahead and adjust your EI dramatically... Otherwise you might want to check your shutter

Well I can't explain why, only take educated guesses, but this increased agitation seems to have made a huge difference. I tried rating two sheets at 320 and 400 respectively, went back to dilution H, and agitated every 30 seconds instead of every 60. My results came out way more normal. I'm just a hair too fast (Zone I areas came out at 0.06 and 0.04 density above FB+F respectively, so next trial will be EI 200 and 250). Development was slightly too short as well (Zone VIII areas came out at 1.05 and 1.04 density above FB+F respectively, so I'm increasing my time by 45 seconds). Think I'm about there.

Thanks for everyone's help trying to figure out where I went wrong with those first sheets. I concede that I may have somehow significantly overexposed my Zone I areas on the last couple of sheets.