Zone System film development

pbromaghin · Dec 31, 2024

I have recently dipped my toes into the Zone System - not to the point of actually using it yet, and am full of questions. As part of that, I have been figuring out a very slick gizsmo called "The Zone Systemizer", developed by John Dowdell III and Richard Zakia, both connected with the Rochester Institute of Technology. Basically, you enter your film ISO and the spot meter readings for the lowest textured shadow and highest textured highlight. It then calculates the development required (expansion or contraction) and camera exposure settings. It came out in 1973 and in the preface for the accompanying text, Adams says that with newer thin-emulsion films, expansion and contraction development often isn't effective.

It sounds like he's talking about tabular grain films, but they didn't really reach production until the 80's.

1) Is that what he means?

2) What films are still amenable for this? (I would assume the new Ferrania P30 and P33 would, being old style emulsions brought back to life.)

3) What developers are more, or less effective than others?

There will likely be many more.

Paul Howell · Dec 31, 2024

By the 70s Trix and other film emulsions had gotten thinner. If you look at a Diafine data sheet you will see which films are thicker. A divided developer part A soaks in, the part B activates the developing agents. The thicker the emulsion the more film speed. When I stated using Diafine in the 70s Trix was rated at 2400, new E.I is 1600. ILford films are slower in Diafine than in ID 11, so very thin. My guess is that double X, maybe Catlab 80 are of an older thicker emulsion. Below is a link the the data sheet.

AA used many developers, although D 76 was not a fav, he did use Edwal FG7, D 23 HC 110, along with several Ansco developers. When using the zone I tend to use HC 110 B or G.

Unless you are intrested in visualization, I recommend looking into Phil Davis's Beyond the Zone System. I use the Zone as taught by Minor White, but feel that BTZS has advantages. One of which is BTZS uses an smart phone app that all the data is fed into and exposure and development times are provided.

https://www.sagradapelicula.com/sites/default/files/docs/quimicos/Diafine-data.pdf

Andrew O'Neill · Dec 31, 2024

N+, N- are still applicable for modern films... You will find that some expand better than others. For example, HP5 doesn't expand well with many developers. You can get a good N+1, but beyond that, low zones build up too much density. You'll have better luck in a high contrast developer like D-19. TMY responds well to N+ development. FP4 is another.
As far as gizmo's to help with figuring out exposure, and N times, I've always stayed away from them. It's too easy to do in your head.

koraks · Jan 1, 2025

pbromaghin said:
It sounds like he's talking about tabular grain films, but they didn't really reach production until the 80's.

1) Is that what he means?

Not quite. I don't think there are any 'thick emulsion' films around of the type that was used/common up to the 1970s. I also don't know whether 'thin/thick emulsion' is really the most appropriate nomenclature. I suspect it has more to do with the degree of hardening of the gelatin emulsion, than its actual thickness in terms of how much gelatin per square meter of film (a more hardened gelatin layer of the same weight will be thinner, though - so it would still be sort of accurate).

I'm also not sure whether the 'thin/thick emulsion' distinction (with the possible conceptual inaccuracy; see above) is all that relevant. What you want (apparently), is a film that allows expansion and contraction. In practice, all films allow this, but the question is to what extent this comes at the cost of linearity. Whether or not this loss of linearity (e.g. shallowing out of the curve towards higher densities/highlights) is a problem, or actually helps your artistic intent, is entirely up to you to decide. I think Zone System approaches tend to implicitly assume that you want to preserve perfect linearity (and then people will end up burning & dodging the prints, breaking whatever linearity was there in a drastic way!)

pbromaghin said:
2) What films are still amenable for this? (I would assume the new Ferrania P30 and P33 would, being old style emulsions brought back to life.)

I've not done systematic testing on this, but I've never worked with a film that didn't expand or contract significantly. I do a lot of alt. process printing, which in practice requires a lot of expansion (far beyond what Zone System approaches would generally need) and there are few films that won't allow a very serious tilting of the curve. Again, the question is what this does to linearity. A film like HP5+ or Fomapan 400 will behave quite differently from FP4+ or Fomapan 200.

pbromaghin said:
3) What developers are more, or less effective than others?

The easy answer would be that you probably want to steer clear of compensating developers (pyrocat comes to mind, and anything relying on reduced agitation or very dilute soups) since these are purposefully used to break linearity and create a more distinct shoulder of the curve. AFAIK stuff like plain old D76 is very suitable (hey, isn't it great for just about anything, anyway...).

But...I admit my blood is too thick for serious Zone System work, so take the above with a grain of salt. If you read between the lines, there's some cynicism there, which I admit to. So maybe I'm not the best reference for this.

pentaxuser · Jan 1, 2025

Weren't two of Peter's key questions, asked presumably in anticipation of using the Zone System:
(1) Do tabular grain films negate the use of the zone system
(2) If not then what developers might be better than others

If so it looks to me that Andrew O'Neill gave a fairly comprehensive reply

In fact doesn't everyone use the Zone System whether they think they do or not? Well perhaps not in the case of those who randomly press the shutter with a fully manual camera with no thought or checks on light, shutter speed, DoF etc but in terms of the end result everyone desires a printable/scanned negative that will give them a print that resembles what they saw at the time?

To do this they employ a system that is covered or at least governed by the principles of the Zone System, don't they - even if that system is inside the fully automatic camera the use? Yes, in the latter's case they need to be aware of which situations the super duper automatic camera will fail to optimise the negative taken but in order to compensate for such shortfalls they need to know what to do and what they need to do is governed by the Zone System?

I cannot say what has motivated Peter to consider consciously using the zone system and maybe that the nub of his thread or not but if it is then don't we need to know what he needs to know about the use of the Zone System that will result in an ímprovement in his negatives from his current level of negative and then address this directly such as Andrew did?

pentaxuser

koraks · Jan 1, 2025

pentaxuser said:
In fact doesn't everyone use the Zone System whether they think they do or not?

No. I don't regard "ahh, let's soup this film a little longer 'cause the light seemed a tad flat" as "using the Zone System". If someone cooks their potatoes a little longer than usual and then runs a truck over them, that doesn't make them Paul Bocuse either. There's plenty of Zone System threads here on Photrio and elsewhere that show the difference rather clearly, IMO.

Paul Howell · Jan 1, 2025

John Saxon use Tmax 400, I have used it, due to current price I now use Foma 400, not sure how Tmax 400 would do with a + or 13 which I think is the extreme, I have used on occasion + - 2, but my style is more + - 1 which is very doable with Tmax 400.

Doremus Scudder · Jan 1, 2025

The Zone System's main advantage is the visualization aspect; i.e., imagining what you want your print to look like in terms of contrast, shadow and highlight density, tonal separation, specific tones for certain things, etc.

How you arrive at a development and printing strategy based on your meter readings and knowledge of how your materials work depends on all the above.

Today's films don't like extreme contractions or expansions. Also, today's VC papers offer a lot more contrast control at the printing stage, including split-printing techniques. Often, a combination of "classic" Zone System development adjustment and contrast control at the printing stage is the best solution these days.

As a ZS user with modern materials, I'll often indicate things like, "N+1 and print at grade 4 filtration" or "N-1 and print with grade 1 filtration," or even "N and deal with the contrast problems with the printing." You get the idea.

That doesn't mean the ZS is invalid, just that it needs to take into account the way materials work these days.

I don't like to use more expansion or contraction that one Zone either way, meaning no more development schemes than N, N+1 and N-1 for me. The rest I deal with when printing.

You can play around with your Zone Systemizer and adapt it to modern materials.

Hope that helps a bit.

Doremus

pbromaghin · Jan 1, 2025

Andrew O'Neill said:
As far as gizmo's to help with figuring out exposure, and N times, I've always stayed away from them. It's too easy to do in your head.

Easy-peasy if one knows the equation. Would you have any suggestions on where to learn it?

pbromaghin · Jan 1, 2025

pentaxuser said:
Weren't two of Peter's key questions, asked presumably in anticipation of using the Zone System:
(1) Do tabular grain films negate the use of the zone system
(2) If not then what developers might be better than others

You restate the questions much more clearly than the original. Thank you.

pentaxuser said:
I cannot say what has motivated Peter to consider consciously using the zone system and maybe that the nub of his thread or not but if it is then don't we need to know what he needs to know about the use of the Zone System that will result in an ímprovement in his negatives from his current level of negative and then address this directly such as Andrew did?

I realized a while ago that I do film photography because it is difficult. After falling down the rabbit hole almost 20 years ago, the Zone System is just one more unexplored (by me) passageway. You might say I want to learn the Zone System because I want to learn the Zone System.

Paul Howell · Jan 1, 2025

One way to know if T films are viable for zone is to test and see. Although you shoot a ring around, (very early days of the Zone) due to high cost of Tmax 400 and 100 if you don't own a densitometer I would invest in one. Other option is to use either 120 or or 35mm Tmax and test with a ring around. Once you find your E.I you can experiment with development to see how a T film behaves -1 to -3 to +1 to +3. When I took the Minor White Zone Workshop in the late 60s he was of the opinion that - 3 was a good idea, on the other hand +3 is adding time which a different breed of cat than going -3. Looking at Diafine times, Tmax seems to have the thickest emulsion. I have not tested Foma 400 at -3 or +3, might shoot a few sheets to see.

Andrew O'Neill · Jan 1, 2025

pbromaghin said:
Easy-peasy if one knows the equation. Would you have any suggestions on where to learn it?

Equations are not necessary. Once I know what the subject luminance range is (after taking a reading of the shadow and high light areas), I then know how to expose and develop.

Maris · Jan 1, 2025

Every Zone System thread deserves a curmudgeon. I'll be it.

For the first twenty years of large format photography I ran the full Zone System with all the calibrations, exposure nuances, and development adjustments
to fit the negative to the printing paper. This was in the days when some papers came only in widely spaced grades like soft, normal, and hard.

Now I do the opposite. I fit the printing paper to the negative by using the closely spaced grades of modern and excellent variable contrast photographic paper.

The key is a fully exposed negative with detail in the shadows and the highlights. Modern light-meters make this easy.
I give normal development (one time calibration required) to produce a negative that prints easily on grade 3 with minimal local burn/dodge adjustments.

Once this is in place I do a version of Zone System expansions and contractions. Printing on grade 4 instead of 3 is equivalent to a N+1 expansion. On 2 instead of 3 is a N-1 contraction.
The one negative can do N+, N-, either, neither or both. It's not locked into a result that fails if you guessed wrong about an initial development adjustment.
I reckon my "anti-Zone System" is more versatile and potentially more creative than the old Zone System. And it also works well for the hard workers shooting 35mm and roll-film
where the individual development of negatives is not really practical.

pentaxuser · Jan 1, 2025

koraks said:
No. I don't regard "ahh, let's soup this film a little longer 'cause the light seemed a tad flat" as "using the Zone System". If someone cooks their potatoes a little longer than usual and then runs a truck over them, that doesn't make them Paul Bocuse either. There's plenty of Zone System threads here on Photrio and elsewhere that show the difference rather clearly, IMO.

I thought I had explained what I meant by saying everyone uses the Zone System whether they think they do or not in my lengthy post but clearly not or at least not by your definition of "using the zone system"

However I am not sure I can improve on what I wrote so let's leave it in the setting that it we disagree

What counts is that we answer Peter's questions as clearly and succinctly as possible

pentaxuser

Andrew O'Neill · Jan 1, 2025

Maris said:
Every Zone System thread deserves a curmudgeon. I'll be it.

For the first twenty years of large format photography I ran the full Zone System with all the calibrations, exposure nuances, and development adjustments
to fit the negative to the printing paper. This was in the days when some papers came only in widely spaced grades like soft, normal, and hard.

Now I do the opposite. I fit the printing paper to the negative by using the closely spaced grades of modern and excellent variable contrast photographic paper.

The key is a fully exposed negative with detail in the shadows and the highlights. Modern light-meters make this easy.
I give normal development (one time calibration required) to produce a negative that prints easily on grade 3 with minimal local burn/dodge adjustments.

Once this is in place I do a version of Zone System expansions and contractions. Printing on grade 4 instead of 3 is equivalent to a N+1 expansion. On 2 instead of 3 is a N-1 contraction.
The one negative can do N+, N-, either, neither or both. It's not locked into a result that fails if you guessed wrong about an initial development adjustment.
I reckon my "anti-Zone System" is more versatile and potentially more creative than the old Zone System. And it also works well for the hard workers shooting 35mm and roll-film
where the individual development of negatives is not really practical.

That's pretty much what I do for roll film. I do full exposure, and "soft" development. Then let paper grades do their thing... or the scanner. Sheet film on the other hand, I still treat it like I did in my early days, in regards to the ZS. Cheers, Maris, and Happy New Year!

Milpool · Jan 1, 2025

pbromaghin said:
I have recently dipped my toes into the Zone System - not to the point of actually using it yet, and am full of questions. As part of that, I have been figuring out a very slick gizsmo called "The Zone Systemizer", developed by John Dowdell III and Richard Zakia, both connected with the Rochester Institute of Technology. Basically, you enter your film ISO and the spot meter readings for the lowest textured shadow and highest textured highlight. It then calculates the development required (expansion or contraction) and camera exposure settings. It came out in 1973 and in the preface for the accompanying text, Adams says that with newer thin-emulsion films, expansion and contraction development often isn't effective.

It sounds like he's talking about tabular grain films, but they didn't really reach production until the 80's.

1) Is that what he means?

2) What films are still amenable for this? (I would assume the new Ferrania P30 and P33 would, being old style emulsions brought back to life.)

3) What developers are more, or less effective than others?

There will likely be many more.

Any general purpose film can be used with the Zone System.

Any general purpose developer (that is to say, almost any developer) can be used with the Zone System.

The Zone System minus the gobbledygook is really quite simple:

1. Give sufficient exposure to get all the information

2.* Develop to a gradient that expands/contracts a scene luminance range into a roughly normal negative density range

*Debatable how useful this step is for anything beyond mild adjustments particularly on the contraction (N-) side since you are ultimately trading one problem for another. In other words for scenes with significantly higher than normal contrast there is no free lunch.

GregY · Jan 1, 2025

TMY-2 ..... TMax 400 is a superb film....no matter how you work with it.....

Milpool · Jan 1, 2025

GregY said:
TMY-2 ..... TMax 400 is a superb film....no matter how you work with it.....

It really is fantastic.

Sirius Glass · Jan 1, 2025

Maris said:
Every Zone System thread deserves a curmudgeon. I'll be it.

For the first twenty years of large format photography I ran the full Zone System with all the calibrations, exposure nuances, and development adjustments
to fit the negative to the printing paper. This was in the days when some papers came only in widely spaced grades like soft, normal, and hard.

Now I do the opposite. I fit the printing paper to the negative by using the closely spaced grades of modern and excellent variable contrast photographic paper.

The key is a fully exposed negative with detail in the shadows and the highlights. Modern light-meters make this easy.
I give normal development (one time calibration required) to produce a negative that prints easily on grade 3 with minimal local burn/dodge adjustments.

Once this is in place I do a version of Zone System expansions and contractions. Printing on grade 4 instead of 3 is equivalent to a N+1 expansion. On 2 instead of 3 is a N-1 contraction.
The one negative can do N+, N-, either, neither or both. It's not locked into a result that fails if you guessed wrong about an initial development adjustment.
I reckon my "anti-Zone System" is more versatile and potentially more creative than the old Zone System. And it also works well for the hard workers shooting 35mm and roll-film
where the individual development of negatives is not really practical.

Well said. With the greatly improved latitude of exposure of the modern negative films and "the closely spaced grades of modern and excellent variable contrast photographic paper" I have not needed to use the Zone System film development regime and only use the Zone System exposure regime with split grade printing to get the results that I want.

RalphLambrecht · Jan 1, 2025

Andrew O'Neill said:
N+, N- are still applicable for modern films... You will find that some expand better than others. For example, HP5 doesn't expand well with many developers. You can get a good N+1, but beyond that, low zones build up too much density. You'll have better luck in a high contrast developer like D-19. TMY responds well to N+ development. FP4 is another.
As far as gizmo's to help with figuring out exposure, and N times, I've always stayed away from them. It's too easy to do in your head.

agreed

koraks · Jan 2, 2025

pentaxuser said:
we disagree

That's correct. Also given the context of your longer post, from which I only quoted a small part. I think it's very clear that there's a whole world outside the archetypes of "press the shutter and what gives who does the rest" and "pre-vis, meter carefully, adjust development to exposure, print carefully and think in terms of pre-defined density brackets along the way". I'd go so far as to state with certainty that the vast majority of photographers who have risen above the "just press the button" stage are NOT using the zone system. It's a fairly small and particular niche.

In that sense I'm also very happy with @Maris' response (which I don't find curmudgeonly worded at all!)

Doremus Scudder · Jan 2, 2025

Milpool said:
Any general purpose film can be used with the Zone System.

Any general purpose developer (that is to say, almost any developer) can be used with the Zone System.

The Zone System minus the gobbledygook is really quite simple:

1. Give sufficient exposure to get all the information

2.* Develop to a gradient that expands/contracts a scene luminance range into a roughly normal negative density range

*Debatable how useful this step is for anything beyond mild adjustments particularly on the contraction (N-) side since you are ultimately trading one problem for another. In other words for scenes with significantly higher than normal contrast there is no free lunch.

This really about sums up the exposure and development part of the Zone System. The devil is in the details, of course: What constitutes "sufficient exposure" and what is a "normal negative density range." Still, after figuring all that out, that's about it...

...except for the real purpose the Zone System was invented, namely being able to visualize in your mind's eye what results are possible from a specific scene and then being able to choose from among those myriad possibilities that which you find most expressive and then being able to realize that goal through appropriate development and printing methods.

Exposure and development are fairly simple; knowing what you want and how to achieve it - less so.

Best,

Doremus

MattKing · Jan 2, 2025

Actually, if anyone takes to heart the "visualization" emphasis part of the Zone System, then they are well ahead of the game.

Doremus Scudder · Jan 2, 2025

Maris said:
Every Zone System thread deserves a curmudgeon. I'll be it.

For the first twenty years of large format photography I ran the full Zone System with all the calibrations, exposure nuances, and development adjustments
to fit the negative to the printing paper. This was in the days when some papers came only in widely spaced grades like soft, normal, and hard.

Now I do the opposite. I fit the printing paper to the negative by using the closely spaced grades of modern and excellent variable contrast photographic paper.

The key is a fully exposed negative with detail in the shadows and the highlights. Modern light-meters make this easy.
I give normal development (one time calibration required) to produce a negative that prints easily on grade 3 with minimal local burn/dodge adjustments.

Once this is in place I do a version of Zone System expansions and contractions. Printing on grade 4 instead of 3 is equivalent to a N+1 expansion. On 2 instead of 3 is a N-1 contraction.
The one negative can do N+, N-, either, neither or both. It's not locked into a result that fails if you guessed wrong about an initial development adjustment.
I reckon my "anti-Zone System" is more versatile and potentially more creative than the old Zone System. And it also works well for the hard workers shooting 35mm and roll-film
where the individual development of negatives is not really practical.

Not curmudgeonly at all, Maris.

Actually, this is just a modern version of the Zone System taking the capabilities of newer VC papers into account. I find results are better if I rely on the contrast controls when printing now, only using expansions and contractions when I really need extreme changes that outstrip the limits of the paper. I rarely develop more than N+1 or N-1 any more.

Exposure and development are the easy part, as I mention above. Using your meter and knowledge of materials and processes to be able visualize and predict results is the more difficult part, and one that some would-be ZS users ignore. I'll go as far as to say that, if you're not using the ZS to visualize with, you're not using the ZS.

Best,

Doremus

Paul Howell · Jan 2, 2025

if you're not using the ZS to visualize with, you're not using the ZS.

+1, this is the core of the ZS, just find your personal E.I shoot a ring around, develop at recommend time and temp for given developer and find the ISO that suits your needs.

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