The Zone System is Dead

[removed account4]

Talk about optimized print control and actually representing that on the WEB? Isn't that about the same as being given a Handl score and performing it with a gut-bucket, handsaw, washboard, and kazoo? Get real.

i've heard a hell of a handl score played on a washboard, spoons and jaw harp. it was probably better than the one i heard by the NYSO ...
the web is able to give ideas of what photography is like. often times i see much hailed photographs in person and thought the bad reproductions
in high end magazines and websites made them look much better. in the end it really doesnt' matter .. plenty of people talk up a blue streak on the interwebs
and you see their oeuvre ( or is it oeufs ) and scratch your head and wonder what they were talking about because there is no congruency ...
all i gotta say is take from the zone system what you want leave what you want. if something like the zs or btzs or wbtzs or wwbtzs can help figure out
how to expose film and process it so you can figure out how to print it, great, if it is just over exposing your 40year old film by 7 stops souping in
pee after you ate asparagus and then power printing it on lupex or 60 year old azo great .. in the end who cares .. if it makes you happy do it ...
im gonna listen to my friend play the sawzall and hammer-drill at like 630, its a black tie affair. he said it will be like frank zappa playing the bike.

YMMV

 

[DREW WILEY]

Well, maybe if I ever own a digi camera and set up a copy station again. Might be fine for basic tutorials, but hardly suited to any kind of nuanced visual communication.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Jnanian - so you're advocating making asparagus prints? Or is that just the film developer?

 

[removed account4]

Jnanian - so you're advocating making asparagus prints? Or is that just the film developer?

only for the oxylate film developer, print developer is a whole different meal, and takes about a day to make...

Well, maybe if I ever own a digi camera and set up a copy station again. Might be fine for basic tutorials, but hardly suited to any kind of nuanced visual communication.

weird, the whole advertising and pr industry is run on digital imagery on the internet and in print, nuanced and lush, it is weird how it isn't suited for any sort of nuanced visual communication..
YMMV

 

[DREW WILEY]

Advertising is inherently a game of "gotcha" - grab your attention as quickly as possible using some cute novel trick or loud hues (sheer color noise), or big scale. But that's all it has to do. I'm more interested in making highly nuanced prints which do draw you in, but also have lots of layers of detail and subtle content, or in the case of color work, sophisticated hue relationships, that keep rewarding the viewer year after year. 99% of what I print does not in fact translate well on the web.

 

[eddie]

I... the controls are quite limited in the context of print quality. Printing is where the control is at.

It's been about 40 years since I did Zone testing in school, but the success of our calibrations were based on the tones as they appeared on our chosen paper (I remember mine was the old blue box Oriental Grade 2). So, I'm a bit confused by your statement, as the negative and paper have a "symbiotic " relationship. The control is in both parts of the process.

As far as the OP's system (or anyone else's), I don't think it matters how you get there, but you need to have enough understanding of your materials to get the results you want, and be able to repeat them. Although I no longer drag out a densitometer, that old ZS knowledge is subliminally there when I meter/expose/develop/print.

 

[eddie]

Yes. I mean the density range I chose to most closely translate what I wanted onto the paper. Whether N, N+, N-, the goal was to develop the film so the negative printed without extra printing gymnastics.
From looking at your work, I think you're doing the same thing, so it may just be a semantics issue.

 

[Peter Schrager]

Not semantics. I don't view expansion/contraction as the powerful control I once thought it was.

Yes but I do use N+1 and it does work

 

[Sirius Glass]

At the risk of sounding flippant (which I do from time-to-time ), I was under the impression that this was precisely why the Zone System was invented. Yes, with modern VC papers, exact tailoring of the negative to a specific paper grade isn't needed so much, but there are still scenes that print a whole lot better on whatever paper grade if we realize that expanded or reduced development is needed to get the many tones present onto the paper...

The point was that people spend time with useless and endless testing to change the IE, however the latitude of film is much greater now than then the Zone System was developed. The effort needs to be put into printing, not the endless and useless testing that results in half an f/stop reduction. Half an f/stop in the wide latitude of today's film is as useful as spitting into the wind.

 

[MattKing]

Shooting using the Zone System is more like driving stick shift.

Without the "synchromesh" of variable contrast papers!!
How is that for a metaphor stretched too far!

 

[Kawaiithulhu]

At five pages this thread is gaining traction

I think that the important part to any of these systems is that anyone who is interested in finer control over their art needs to cultivate scientific thinking. Systems like Zone and yours here are frameworks which the scientific mind may use to achieve the results wanted.

That and without careful thinking you may spin out and end up in a creative ditch.

 

[zanxion72]

At five pages this thread is gaining traction

I think that the important part to any of these systems is that anyone who is interested in finer control over their art needs to cultivate scientific thinking. Systems like Zone and yours here are frameworks which the scientific mind may use to achieve the results wanted.

That and without careful thinking you may spin out and end up in a creative ditch.

Well said!!!

 

[Fritzthecat]

Amazing, through all the back and forth of this thread, the OP has remained remarkably silent, not one time returning to defend his POV or logic. Are we the victims of a grenade throwing troll?

 

[removed account4]

Advertising is inherently a game of "gotcha" - grab your attention as quickly as possible using some cute novel trick or loud hues (sheer color noise), or big scale. But that's all it has to do. I'm more interested in making highly nuanced prints which do draw you in, but also have lots of layers of detail and subtle content, or in the case of color work, sophisticated hue relationships, that keep rewarding the viewer year after year. 99% of what I print does not in fact translate well on the web.

IDK drew sounds like the same old digital is like bubblegum music
commentary that people who have an axe to grind always say..

un- nuanced or not sophisticated and layered?
it is the same now as it was when they were shooting 4x5 or 8x10 chromes
or their $10K hassy 15-20years ago
to make blanket statements about a whole industry's worth of photography and claim it is crap
because it is digital and therefore dumbed down to be presented as just a unsophisticated, "shiny thing" is kind of "out there"
its like suggesting that every landscape photograph is a snapshot,
or that people that go to exotic locations to do image-making ( with film or sensor ) do it because
their work needsuch a location as a crutch because it is lame and all it has going for it is exploiting the location ...
i wonder if jerry uelsmann's work is also dumbed down. unsophisticated, and un-nuanced / crap because it is digital ?

my friend's sawzall and hammer drill duet was masterful btw the tools whined together in a block of carbon steel ... it was something else...

 

[trendland]

Amazing, through all the back and forth of this thread, the OP has remained remarkably silent, not one time returning to defend his POV or logic. Are we the victims of a grenade throwing troll?[/QUOTE]

So the difference of a person with special opinions to some issues AND a troll is to defend the opinon with logic ?
.....
with regards

PS : If you like ZS it is not forbidden to use it - if you don't like ZS it is still alowed to avoid ZS .....

 

[Raghu Kuvempunagar]

Amazing, through all the back and forth of this thread, the OP has remained remarkably silent, not one time returning to defend his POV or logic. Are we the victims of a grenade throwing troll?

OP can defend himself but I can understand his silence as most of the discussion in this thread is on Zone System and very little on OP’s proposal. The ‘brazen’ title of the thread is to be blamed partly.

 

[Willyekerslike]

The ‘brazen’ title of the thread is to be blamed partly.

Quite, if the OP had added ? to the title I think the content of the thread would have been much much better.

As it is the Zone stystem will live on while ever there are folks using it......

 

[RauschenOderKorn]

Are we the victims of a grenade throwing troll?

No, No, No.
If you look at the end of the video the credits, the op has been reading/participating (?) here before and he thanked PE for the encouragement to do the video. He knew what he was up to.
Besides it is interesting to see how other people work, especially if it is not conventional.
And about the title of the thread: well, you attract flies with honey, so he gave us what we wanted.

 

[ypkennedy]

No, No, No.
If you look at the end of the video the credits, the op has been reading/participating (?) here before and he thanked PE for the encouragement to do the video. He knew what he was up to.
Besides it is interesting to see how other people work, especially if it is not conventional.
And about the title of the thread: well, you attract flies with honey, so he gave us what we wanted.

OP could not have said it better himself. Vielen Dank.

 

[Ian Grant]

Not semantics. I don't view expansion/contraction as the powerful control I once thought it was.

Well I partially agree, but it largely depends what films and developer you are using, and also papers, I haven't used N+/-1 development controls for well over 20 years, maybe I never have, but +/-2 definitely. I've used VC papers almost exclusively since about 1990, not by choice but when Agfa stopped Record Rapid it was replaced by MCC a VC paper and I quickly learned ho to get the same (or rather very similar)results

Yes the ZS was supposed to calibrate negative processing to a chosen Grade of Graded paper, VC papers these days are superb and I don't find using them an issue. Neither has been switching from Record Rapid/MCC to Forte Polywarmtone (not a lot left now), and more recently to Ilford MG Warmtone paper.

Expansion and contractions are only useful in certain circumstances, definitely not all. I've shoot a lot in fog/sea mist, if I used the ZS pedantically I'd kill the atmosphere completely. This is where craft is important it (by experience) over-rules other conventions.

Ian

 

[Mainecoonmaniac]

I think we're probably closer in opinion than I originally thought. I agree with much of what you're saying - especially that the Zone System should not be used pedantically and that mastery of craft and experience are critical if one is to avoid the potential pitfalls of using any system simply by rote.

If a photographer makes the Zone System a religion, it stop being a tool.

 

[DREW WILEY]

I'd agree that the ZS relies too much on dev exp and contr when there are other tools to help do this. I particularly dislike scrunching micro-tonality in order to sandwich the targeted endpoints of film, and would rather have my cake and eat it too by masking the film. Don't think I've done any "minus" dev for the past decade. But I don't believe in throwing away any useful tool either.

 

[Stephen Benskin]

The problem with contact printing step wedges is that it completely ignores the flare that is always present in-camera and when enlarging. In-camera flare affects the shadow detail and effective film speed and changes the distribution curve around in the low-density values (shadows here).

Actually, that is the reason to contact the step tablet with testing film. The object is to determine the measured response of the film to levels of exposure. Flare is nearly impossible to measure and control. Plus, it's associated with the camera image and not the film's characteristic curve. The ISO B&W speed standard incorporates flare into it's methodology.. Camera image flare doesn't change the shape of the film curve but how the exposure is distributed on the film curve. Proper contrast determination requires factoring in the apparent reduction of the subject luminance range into all calculations.

 

[MattKing]

Nice to see you back, Stephen.

+1

 

[E. von Hoegh]

The zone system as Ansel devised it was simply applied sensitometry, adapted to the then available materials which have undergone great changes since. Ansel even wrote about how to use it with color materials. A solid understanding of ZS was very valuable to me, sometimes I still use it, and sometimes I don't, but always I have the understanding of the chain: scene range-exposure-development-print.
It's not dead, just in it's chrysalis.