The Zone System is Dead

Mainecoonmaniac · Mar 2, 2018

Patrick Robert James said:
When I shoot sheet film I use the iTFu* system, which is far superior in simplicity to the Zone system, and requires a lot less brain juice.

I make sure I get enough exposure on the neg, usually exposing a stop or two more than my incident meter suggests, then develop it in Pyrocat. The staining/tanning takes care of the highlights and I always get a printable neg.

ITFU* means Impossible-To-F#ck-Up.

*Patent pending.

ITFU is not necessarily "Fool proof". Can a fool F up something that is ITFU?

DREW WILEY · Mar 2, 2018

Hi Bob. All my meters are Pentax digital spotmeters identically calibrated. I'd trust em 100% of the time, and all these "shoot from the hip" yeehaw types 0% percent of the time. Despite Hollywood, Wyatt Earp actually told his deputies to take their time and aim carefully. As far as Brett Weston goes, he had worked in certain predictable lighting conditions for so long that he knew what to do from sheer trial and error experience. Besides, meters weren't all that good when he started out. Try making separations for your gum prints without the convenience of a densitometer. Same kind of problem.

jim10219 · Mar 2, 2018

Sometimes I use the zone system with my digital spot meter. Sometimes I use a calibrated incident meter. Sometimes I use an old selenium reflective meter that's always off. Sometimes I use Sunny 16. Sometimes I use my camera's TTL meter. Sometimes I just guess based on what the light looks like it might be. Sometimes I don't even factor in the light levels and just shoot and pray. And sometimes, I get decent shots with all of those methods.

My point is, if you're only comfortable with one way to meter the light, then you're doing yourself a disservice. It's okay to have a favorite, but each method has it's own strengths and weaknesses. And a good photographer knows how and when to use the right tool for the job.

John Earley · Mar 3, 2018

It's dead Jim!

keenmaster486 · Mar 3, 2018

Dammit Jim, I'm a doctor, not a photographer!

DREW WILEY · Mar 3, 2018

This thread was not logical to begin with, quoting another Trek character. For lots of folks, the Zone System is alive and well. And it is statistically probable that there
are many other planets in the cosmos where light is neatly segregated into eight discrete zones.

Fritzthecat · Mar 3, 2018

I'm sure by now the OP must feel like the guy who thought he was going to hit the biggest score of his life, when he stepped into a bank that was holding a large payroll. He shouts "this is a hold up" , only to realize half the city police force and the all local FBI agents were in line to cash their pay checks.

Craig75 · Mar 3, 2018

to be fair half the people commenting didnt even watch the video but just thought they'd try and be smart arses (and failed miserably)

zanxion72 · Mar 4, 2018

Craig75 said:
to be fair half the people commenting didnt even watch the video but just thought they'd try and be smart arses (and failed miserably)

That's what you think! Even if that was true, the odds of killing the tried, tested and found working just like that aren't that good. It may be yet another way of working things out, but by no way a killer. What I find amusing in this, is that there are more making simple things look like a science, than just walking out and enjoying the real fun of it.

Craig75 · Mar 4, 2018

zanxion72 said:
That's what you think! Even if that was true, the odds of killing the tried, tested and found working just like that aren't that good. It may be yet another way of working things out, but by no way a killer. What I find amusing in this, is that there are more making simple things look like a science, than just walking out and enjoying the real fun of it.

whatever. Some manners isnt going to hurt tho.

Oldwino · Mar 4, 2018

The Zone System isn’t dead, it just smells funny.

keenmaster486 · Mar 4, 2018

Zone woke up one day, had his morning coffee, and discovered to his great chagrin in the newspaper that his death had been announced, his life celebrated, and his funeral transpired all in the space of a few hours the previous day. Needless to say, he was beside himself, and was determined to rectify the unfortunate situation. After preparing himself for the day, he went out among the people to assure them that he was, in fact, still alive, and the calamity that was supposed to have befallen him had never happened.

But he was again unpleasantly surprised, as nobody seemed interested in his assertion. Nobody seemed to believe that he was actually himself! Several people remarked to their children how they ought to stay away from men like him, who unashamedly act the imposter for attention.

And then he came across an old friend. "Surely he will know me," thought Zone to himself. But the man simply passed him by, and, when confronted, insisted that he not be bothered for he had a great deal of work to do. Zone was by this time entirely mad with fright, as the whole thing seemed like some kind of nightmare. In desperation he ran across the street to the fStop, typical favorite meeting place in Silverton. He sat down and ordered a drink but was stopped by the bartender, who smiled a little when he began talking about "his old friend Zone," who had been "dead for years probably. I don't know, it's been so long since I've seen him."

It was then that Zone awoke. Of course the whole thing had been a dream, what else could it have been? But as he pulled out his phone to check the news, something caught his eye: a mysterious YouTube link labeled "Zone System dead."

Zone's morning coffee sat untouched that day.

Bill Burk · Mar 4, 2018

You can include the effect of enlarger flare then camera flare, say using the fixed-flare model, by enlarging the step wedge negatives instead of contacting. Enlarging will give you a print that includes the enlarger flare.

Then when evaluating the prints rather than selecting the step you originally selected, you can select the step .4 towards greater camera exposure at the darkest shadow step. This is because the influence of camera flare lifts the exposure of the shadows on the negative. And .4 is a typical amount of flare.

Bill Burk · Mar 4, 2018

Here’s my video illustrating why you need to consider 0.4 flare. You can see a close-up reading of a shadow rises in value by 4 marks in the spotmeter as more flare-inducing light enters its viewfinder.

Ian Grant · Mar 4, 2018

michael_r said:
The Zone System is mostly outdated and its controls were never really based on print quality anyway.

I'm still a fan of Ansel Adams though.

You need to see a John Blakemore exhibition, he puts AA to shame in the mastery of control he has using the Zone System.

Ian

Fritzthecat · Mar 4, 2018

Bob Carnie · Mar 4, 2018

Thats a nice little video.. thank you for posting it.

DREW WILEY · Mar 4, 2018

Yeah, Barnbaum had to place shadows on IV and always keep a 55 gallon drum of Farmers Reducer handy. Before that, Minor White made a formal religious cult
out of previsualization, with specific shades of gray having mystical significance. He was the grand high mystagogue of truly understanding light. And why not?
There can be little doubt that aliens had abducted him at some point in life. He even looked like the crazy professor in Back to the Future. Then at the other extreme there are all those machine-gunners whose own methodology is based on a wild guess and hoping the film has enough "latitude" - and the prints tend to look like it!

faberryman · Mar 4, 2018

DREW WILEY said:
Before that, Minor White made a formal religious cult out of previsualization, with specific shades of gray having mystical significance. He was the grand high mystagogue of truly understanding light. And why not?

Reading Minor White was like slogging through a swamp, with the destination often more edifying than the journey. Hard to underestimate his influence on photography as art though.

DREW WILEY · Mar 4, 2018

Gosh. What KIND of wretched film is Bruce talking about? Even Pan F isn't that squirrely. I can get texture down to Zone 1 with the right film and developer.
That ole "thick negative" philosophy again, it seems - another kooky religion.

Nihil Abstat · Mar 4, 2018

Fritzthecat said:

This is a long-winded way of saying give more exposure than the ISO calls for. I do, and I don't give a damn about zone system bullshit. The ISO ratings are predicated on a speed point that rests far down on the toe.

The fools that push film are totally ignorant of the fact that ISO speeds are already inflated and give poor shadow detail.

zanxion72 · Mar 5, 2018

Nihil Abstat said:
This is a long-winded way of saying give more exposure than the ISO calls for. I do, and I don't give a damn about zone system bullshit. The ISO ratings are predicated on a speed point that rests far down on the toe.

The fools that push film are totally ignorant of the fact that ISO speeds are already inflated and give poor shadow detail.

Don't think so! And bear in mind that primarily the zone system helps in predicting how many stops of light you can fit in the film you are using. Also, bear in mind that when going into using a system for the determination of the exposure and the development (and also for wet printing parameters) of your film, you rate it first with a test to determine what and how much it can record for the developer you will be using.
(I guess that you are aware that the speed of the film is dependent on the developer and the dilution you will be using)

I'd love to see a simplified workflow of this for casual users of 135 film.

RauschenOderKorn · Mar 5, 2018

Thanks for sharing your film calibration method. It´s a neat idea to vary the developer dilution in terms of f-stops.

Nevertheless, I think people are too obsessed with calibrating their film, printable negatives are not that difficult to produce either.

Ian Grant · Mar 5, 2018

DREW WILEY said:
Yeah, Barnbaum had to place shadows on IV and always keep a 55 gallon drum of Farmers Reducer handy. Before that, Minor White made a formal religious cult out of previsualization, with specific shades of gray having mystical significance. He was the grand high mystagogue of truly understanding light. And why not?

There can be little doubt that aliens had abducted him at some point in life. He even looked like the crazy professor in Back to the Future. Then at the other extreme there are all those machine-gunners whose own methodology is based on a wild guess and hoping the film has enough "latitude" - and the prints tend to look like it!

I first began using the Zone System after reading AA "The Negative", later I went on a workshop with Peter Goldfield and Peter Catrell which was an eye-opener.

Peter Goldfield was a true polymath, a pharmacist, actor/director , but more importantly a photographer and educator. He'd spent a year assisting Minor White and from that brought a very easy approach to using the zone system, no great mysterious process, something that could be taught and used quickly and easily. A very practical system that matched negatives to chosen papers, without the need for densitometers etc, to get good well exposed negatives that can be interpreted in different ways.

It only appears to be "a semi-religious cult" to those not using the Zone System, it's no more than a easy way of interpreting and controlling the old adage of "Exposing for the Shadows and Developing for the Highlights".

Ian

Doremus Scudder · Mar 5, 2018

Ian Grant said:
I first began using the Zone System after reading AA "The Negative", later I went on a workshop with Peter Goldfield and Peter Catrell which was an eye-opener.

Peter Goldfield was a true polymath, a pharmacist, actor/director , but more importantly a photographer and educator. He'd spent a year assisting Minor White and from that brought a very easy approach to using the zone system, no great mysterious process, something that could be taught and used quickly and easily. A very practical system that matched negatives to chosen papers, without the need for densitometers etc, to get good well exposed negatives that can be interpreted in different ways.

It only appears to be "a semi-religious cult" to those not using the Zone System, it's no more than a easy way of interpreting and controlling the old adage of "Exposing for the Shadows and Developing for the Highlights".

Ian

My one-and-only photography workshop was with a Minor White student. Lot's of esoterica, but lots of practical advice on using the Zone System facilely. I teethed on the old AA "Basic Photography Series," moved to the newer AA trilogy, but really found my best practice with "The New Zone System Manual" by Minor White, et al. I've been using my adaptations of the methods outlined there for 30+ years now. And, while I've simplified and modified the whole process over time to fit my idiosyncrasies, the basics are the same: figure out how your film works (E.I. and development times) and then use your meter and this knowledge to play the scale of grays in a scene to make your own music. For me, the creativity in the process comes from knowing about and utilizing the range of possibilities inherent in transforming a scene into a photograph. Call it a "Cult of Visualization" or whatever, it's what makes photography more than just a technical exercise for me. And, I do thing certain tones of grey have mystical qualities; Zone IV especially ...

Doremus

The Zone System is Dead

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