Over Expose, Over Develop

[Nokton48]

Plaubel Makina III Efke 100 by Nokton48, on Flickr

 

[Derek L]

I am a novice photographer. I recently read the following article: "The Zone System is Dead."

The author claims that, with modern film stocks, overexposing and overdeveloping negatives has no downsides (besides increased printing time and possible difficulty scanning) compared to exposing at box speed. He sometimes overexposes by 3 stops or more with no apparent ill effects. The key point here is apparently the increased exposure latitude of modern emulsions compared to the ones when the Zone system was devised: with more latitude, a precise exposure is no longer necessary, so one should err on the side of retaining shadow detail.

Can someone please articulate a definite drawback to using this method? I would have thought he would have problems with blowing highlights, but they seem fine in his examples. The only one I can think of is increased grain, and even then—the examples seem unobjectionable in this regard.

It really seems too good to be true, so naturally I am skeptical.

Thank you for your time!

 

[Ian Grant]

There's threads about this already, see here.

Ian

 

[KN4SMF]

I always took it with a grain of salt. Seems like so many consider the zone system as Adam's only method for contrast control. i never hear of any of his modern-day followers also acknowledge Adams also had graded papers at his disposal (there was no polycontrast at the time). He also used Beer's developer which in itself was a contrast control system. And another extremely important thing that often goes overlooked is that no exposure meter has a linear response to color temperature, and no 2 makes of meter have the same color response. It seems to me that by the time you add up all the variables, that the zone system may have been useful to a degree, but only to that degree. All that said, nowadays it might be best to just concentrate on getting everything on the negative, and dealing with it later. Especially on roll film.

 

[Derek L]

Thank you for your thoughts, KN4SMF.

Ian, I looked at that thread and it seemed to devolve into squabbling without any clear answers. Surely someone who opposes this method of exposure should be able to concisely describe a problem it causes. I've thought about it for a few minutes and all I can think of is the grain issue.

Again: I'm skeptical. I would love for someone to tell me what's wrong with this. But the fact that 5 pages of posts transpired without someone noting a real downside make me think the author is substantially correct.

 

[removed account4]

Hi Derek L

People write articles in bloggs and vlogs, post youtub vids mainly to cause outrage and get viewership.
if "the zone system was dead" there wouldn't be hundreds of thousands ( or more ) people using it in one form or another. Modern emulsions and
ancient emulsions all react similarly to light, they all record the reflection and the zone system is like a sliding scale to get what the exposer wants to get on
the film, paper, glass or whatever. i am not a practitioner but i do know the best way to figure out how i want to work with sheets or rolls of film
is to bracket a bit and bracket development a bit to find the sweet spot that i like how it looks.
i take (v)bloggs and you tub vds with a grain of salt seeing most people who post stuff like " XYZ IS DEAD" or "5 RULES LANDSCAPE PHOTOGRPHERS SHOULD NEVER DO"
just do it so people will post links to their stuff in arguments they have on other websites, and find new readers/viewers to their pages.
it is pretty funny, free advertising, free snacks ..
too bad the popcorn eating, soda swilling animated gif isn't still here, i'd use it ..
by the way, the CEO of eastman kodak announded film photography was dead about 16 years ago, seems to be alive still ...

very best regards
j

 

[Sirius Glass]

I am a novice photographer. I recently read the following article: "The Zone System is Dead."

The author claims that, with modern film stocks, overexposing and overdeveloping negatives has no downsides (besides increased printing time and possible difficulty scanning) compared to exposing at box speed. He sometimes overexposes by 3 stops or more with no apparent ill effects. The key point here is apparently the increased exposure latitude of modern emulsions compared to the ones when the Zone system was devised: with more latitude, a precise exposure is no longer necessary, so one should err on the side of retaining shadow detail.

Can someone please articulate a definite drawback to using this method? I would have thought he would have problems with blowing highlights, but they seem fine in his examples. The only one I can think of is increased grain, and even then—the examples seem unobjectionable in this regard.

It really seems too good to be true, so naturally I am skeptical.

Thank you for your time!

The author is partially correct. Correct about the exposure latitude and the endless, meaningless, wasteful testing. Only a few tests need to be done. There are useful parts of the Zone System:

1. Have your light meters calibrated.
2. Have you camera CLAes [Clean, Lubricated, and Adjusted] so that the shutter is calibrated and the camera works properly.
3. Shoot Box Speed unless you have a really good reason to do otherwise.
4. Take light readings without the sky in the field of view of the light meter.
5. If you choose to use the Zone System, take a reflective reading of the darkest area that you want detail and set that area in Zone 2 or Zone 3. The reduce the expose by three f/stops for Zone 2 or two f/stops for Zone 3.

 

[miha]

Hi Derek L

People write articles in bloggs and vlogs, post youtub vids mainly to cause outrage and get viewership.
if "the zone system was dead" there wouldn't be hundreds of thousands ( or more ) people using it in one form or another. Modern emulsions and
ancient emulsions all react similarly to light, they all record the reflection and the zone system is like a sliding scale to get what the exposer wants to get on
the film, paper, glass or whatever. i am not a practitioner but i do know the best way to figure out how i want to work with sheets or rolls of film
is to bracket a bit and bracket development a bit to find the sweet spot that i like how it looks.
i take (v)bloggs and you tub vds with a grain of salt seeing most people who post stuff like " XYZ IS DEAD" or "5 RULES LANDSCAPE PHOTOGRPHERS SHOULD NEVER DO"
just do it so people will post links to their stuff in arguments they have on other websites, and find new readers/viewers to their pages.
it is pretty funny, free advertising, free snacks ..
too bad the popcorn eating, soda swilling animated gif isn't still here, i'd use it ..
by the way, the CEO of eastman kodak announded film photography was dead about 16 years ago, seems to be alive still ...

very best regards
j

What John said!

 

[jim10219]

The zone system allows you to get more out of your film than just shooting it at box speed with an averaged light reading. Modern films and papers may have gotten better, but the zone system still allows you to get more from them. If the author thinks he doesn't need anything more than what modern films provide at standard settings, then maybe he doesn't. Maybe he doesn't shoot scenes with extremely wide dynamic ranges. Maybe he doesn't worry about controlling contrast in the negative. Maybe he doesn't need the zone system. That's fine if he's fine with it.

But for those of us who do need more, the zone system is still a useful tool. As film has improved, so too have the possibilities available with the zone system.

It's almost like saying as racecars have gotten faster and easier to handle, you don't need to be as good of a driver. That's true if you're comparing your times to records set 50 years ago. But if you're comparing your times to records set yesterday, you'll find that the skill to push a car to it's limit is just as important as it's ever been.

 

[Doremus Scudder]

[mount-soapbox]
The Zone System's primary characteristic is that it is a tool for visualization. It was devised to allow photographers to better predict and control what results they get and help with repeatability. No other exposure/development system does that. Sure, there are a lot of variables; there are in any system. Still, once calibrated, I know just about what density I'm going to get when I place a value in Zone III and what Zone VII is going to look like in comparison. I can stretch or reduce contrast to meet my needs. I can plan luminous or totally black shadows and rich mid-tones with lots of separation along with glowing highlights. Sure, I may have to tweak contrast in printing to get exactly what I want, but at least I was able to plan what I wanted and get my negative somewhere in the range of printing variables. As long as we don't have unrealistic expectations of the Zone System, it still serves as an excellent visualization tool and a more than adequate tool for exposure and development.
[/mount-soapbox]

Best,

Doremus

 

[Andrew O'Neill]

It's not dead for me.

 

[reddesert]

As a novice photographer, this is not the most important thing to worry about.

You can use the idea of the Zone system - that there are roughly zones 1-9 that can be distinguished on the finished print or positive image - to help understand visualization, without ever pull-developing a film ("N-1" development) or doing a long series of tests. Most films in Adams's day had more exposure latitude or dynamic range than the paper, and this is still true now even if you look at the positive image on a screen, so the hard part was and is understanding how the finished image should look.

There are other dubious assertions in the article (exposure latitude of film is greater for larger formats? maybe he means something about the effect of grain, but who knows), but it's not really worth getting into an internet argument about.

 

[MattKing]

What Doremus said.
What I find funny about the article referenced is that the photos used to illustrate the author's results all seem to have a particular style - one that would tend to result from over-exposing and over-developing one's negatives.

 

[Ian Grant]

Like Matt, Doremus, and others, I found the article not well thought out or a conclusive argument and not worthy of any respect for the writers views.

The Zone system is nothing more than a way to use a meter to determine how to "Expose for the Shadows, and Develop for the Highlights" and it works well is quite simple, doesn't need a lot of testing. It's also about getting the best from the films you use in terms of printable, predictable negatives.

Good negatives can be printed in different ways, the system advocated doesn't give flexibility.

Ian

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

Threads merged.

 

[4season]

While there are a lot of ways to getting a serviceable negative, if a person wants to know the actual science of how it works, I suggest consulting Beyond the Zone System by Phil Davis.

 

[bdial]

For reading, I'd recommend starting with The Zone VI Workshop by Fred Picker. It contains the clearest explanation of the process of recording the world on film that I've encountered. It's a tiny book, that will only take a couple of days to read.
The zone system has it's uses, but it's not the only path from A to B. Learning where to point your meter, and getting to understand the results you get is more important.
As for the linked blog I, like several others here, am dubious. Negatives that require a 9 minute exposure for a print are not the only way to get good tonality.

 

[pentaxuser]

This whole thread has prompted me to request that those who produce scans of negatives as positives tell us that. As a traditional printer my assumption is that a scan in the positive is always a scan of an actual print but these days this may not be the case. Indeed in most cases a scan of a negative may be where it all ends but I feel it important that we should say what has been done and even in the case of a print we need to learn what was done in printing terms which results in the authentic scan we see in front of us.

As an example of this issue is that when I see a lovely sepia toned "print" I have often asked what the person did, only to be told this was PS sepia

pentaxuser

 

[RalphLambrecht]

(I have searched the Photrio archive and nothing exactly like this was discussed, the closest was the question about the Ralph Gibson look (which uses the same methodology))

All these talks about XTOL and 777 got me googling again and I found this:
http://www.johnnypatience.com/the-zone-system-is-dead

Basically: over expose 1 to 2 stops (bring Zone II/III to Zone V), then also OVER develop by one stop). For example, shoot Tri-X at ASA 200, but use the timing for developing Tri-X shot at ASA800. This provides a dense negative with lots of info in the shadows, and rely on the modern film emulsions to hold highlight details.

The author says he has tried it with multiple film AND also dark room printing with the same results (in addition to scan and print).

I tried a few sheets of 4x5 with HP5+ and XTOL, and the results do look promising. These photos are not much by themselves, just for testing purpose, and yes, they are scans, but this is totally for illustration purpose. Check the linked article to see the author's darkroom prints.

Oh, I was also using swing to show off view camera capability of getting more things in focus despite using a 150mm lens at F5.6 ("equivalent" to 40mm at F1.5 or thereabout), and using a soft focus lens at that to show off some blooming effect.

I see no benefit in this method; I get he best negatives when exposing boxspeed +2/3 stop and developing to Nor mayne N-1/2;dense negativeshld a lot of shadow density but are a pain to print.

 

[Derek L]

For reading, I'd recommend starting with The Zone VI Workshop by Fred Picker. It contains the clearest explanation of the process of recording the world on film that I've encountered. It's a tiny book, that will only take a couple of days to read.
The zone system has it's uses, but it's not the only path from A to B. Learning where to point your meter, and getting to understand the results you get is more important.
As for the linked blog I, like several others here, am dubious. Negatives that require a 9 minute exposure for a print are not the only way to get good tonality.

Thanks, that book just arrived in the mail yesterday, and I need to take a look.

But, is there anything wrong with a dense negative besides the long printing time, particularly in terms of image quality? The author seems happy to trade off increased printing time for certainty he has detail in the shadows. For someone willing to make this trade, I honestly can't see a reason not to do it besides the possibility of increased grain.

What Doremus said.
What I find funny about the article referenced is that the photos used to illustrate the author's results all seem to have a particular style - one that would tend to result from over-exposing and over-developing one's negatives.

Thanks for this reply. What is characteristic of the style of an over-exposed and over-developed negative? What could one get from a thinner negative that's impossible (or at least difficult) with a denser negative?

The zone system allows you to get more out of your film than just shooting it at box speed with an averaged light reading. Modern films and papers may have gotten better, but the zone system still allows you to get more from them. If the author thinks he doesn't need anything more than what modern films provide at standard settings, then maybe he doesn't. Maybe he doesn't shoot scenes with extremely wide dynamic ranges. Maybe he doesn't worry about controlling contrast in the negative. Maybe he doesn't need the zone system. That's fine if he's fine with it.

What "more" is the author missing, exactly? The introduction of multigrade paper (which, if I recall my history correctly, Adams and other early proponents of the zone system did not have access to) seems to have largely obviated the contrast issue. So, as you say, if he's not shooting scenes with extremely wide dynamic ranges, then it seems his system works without downsides?

 

[MattKing]

Thanks for this reply. What is characteristic of the style of an over-exposed and over-developed negative? What could one get from a thinner negative that's impossible (or at least difficulty) with a denser negative?

Dark, contrasty shadows, highlights that tend to the specular, and most importantly, mid-tones that are overly dramatic and contrasty.
It is a very dramatic and popular style. But negatives that print easily with this style are difficult to print for emphasizing subtle transitions of tone.
This negative prints easily in a way that emphasizes those subtle transitions of tone and is almost ghost-like, it is so thin:

 

[Derek L]

That is a great answer, thank you.

 

[MattKing]

But, is there anything wrong with a dense negative besides the long printing time, particularly in terms of image quality? The author seems happy to trade off increased printing time for certainty he has detail in the shadows. For someone willing to make this trade, I honestly can't see a reason not to do it besides the possibility of increased grain.

Due to modern latitude characteristics, dense negatives do contain more retrievable information in highlight areas than the materials from past eras. But just because the information is retrievable doesn't mean that it is easy to achieve the highlight and midtone rendition that one might prefer. Highlights and midtones that are compressed aren't necessarily fatal, but they are less "pretty".
The highlights in the example I just posted are delicate and tend to "breathe". They come from somewhere in the middle of the straightest portion of the characteristic curve of the film - not near the shoulder.
For what it is worth, while I agree with erring slightly on the side of increased exposure, I truly believe that over-development leads to poorer negatives when subjects have anything approaching normal contrast.
Generally speaking, if I have a negative that requires printing with lower than normal contrast, the highlights and midtones tend to end up a bit "blah". And it is the highlight and midtone rendition that has the largest subjective effect on most viewers.
If, however, a negative is suited to printing with slightly increased contrast, that process tends to improve the rendition of those highlights and midtones.

 

[Ian Grant]

Adding to what Matt has just said a dense over exposed and over developed negative will lose sharpness and resolution of fine detail, also have increased grain which will be exaggerated in printing at a the higher contrast grade needed or in scanning. Having printed for other people I've seen this drop in quality and it's noticeable.

One of the finest grain films around EFKE Kb/R/Pl 14 (later renamed 25) made it clear in their data-sheet that the benefits of the fine grain high resolution emulsion would be lost with over exposure, note the name is the Tungsten ISO speed, the Daylight speed of EFKE 25 was 50 ISO.

Ian

 

[Derek L]

Thank you, Matt and Ian, for your wonderful answers. They are exactly what I was looking for.

Ian, what exactly is the mechanism that causes loss of sharpness and resolution in over-exposed and over-developed negatives? Is it just the increased grain, or is there some separate process at work?