Zone VI Modified Meters

[Paul Howell]

As I took Minor White's workshop in the 60s and I was never embedded in the Zone community, still have not come across any who were who raved about the Zone modified Pentax meters in the 80s or 90s. I can see the need for a 1/6 stop for slide film, not sure if it is an big advantage (if possible) in black and white.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Pentax engineers probably had credentials way out of Horowitz's league. They intended those meters for reliable consistency in pro movie and TV sets and not just photo studios, according to tightly defined IRE industry standards. The Zone System is like a frisbee toss game by comparison, or like woodworking with a set of dull chisels - not that precise at all, especially compared to color chrome film requirements.

In a different manufacturing field, I've often interacted with senior Japanese as well as German engineers, and they could be equally impressive once the specific target market was properly identified, along with the price parameters. Everything made in volume involves some kind of compromise.

 

[Kino]

I bought a Zone VI modified spot meter, but only because it was included with a 4x5 Zone VI camera outfit.

I have been happy with it, but should I need to replace it, I won't go through the trouble of finding another and just buy a newer copy of the Pentax Digital Spot meter.

 

[BrianShaw]

Pentax engineers probably had credentials way out of Horowitz's league. They intended those meters for reliable consistency in pro movie and TV sets and not just photo studios, according to tightly defined IRE industry standards. The Zone System is like a frisbee toss game by comparison, or like woodworking with a set of dull chisels - not that precise at all, especially compared to color chrome film requirements.

Have you actually looked into Horowitz' credentials and experience? I'm sure that all of the major meter manufacturers had excellent engineers as is exemplified by their products, but what makes you minimize Horowitz? Just curious. He probably would not disagree with too much of what you believe from your experience as he was skeptical of the Zone dial and certainly knew that an instrument tailored to a specialized application would be different from that of a general-purpose application. Those situations are apples v oranges.

 

[DREW WILEY]

I'm not minimizing him, but pointing out how he was playing along with a questionable marketing ploy, with no doubt an income perk of his own involved for designing certain things for Zone VI, a couple of which I am still happily using - just 15 minutes ago in fact.

I spent decades of my own juggling sales reps and bright-eyed bushy-tailed marketing MBA's, along with millions of dollars each year of my boss' money, and for all practical purposes, obtained a phD of my own, namely, in Detecting BS in such cases (In sales,
it's overwhelmingly "guilty" until proven innocent and actually informed).

And end result in this instance wasn't for sake of a more precise purpose at all - quite the opposite. The Zone System is like a rubber band which can be stretched all kinds of ways. The meter modification does nothing to pin that down any more precisely than an unmodified meter can do at the glance of the eye at the EV scale itself. Rather, it instills a misleading stereotype that every film is going to behave the same way Fred Picker trained his Triassic X what to do.

But this is just all retro fun n' chatter. I cut my teeth with a primitive externally-coupled CDs meter on an early Pentax H1 SLR. I quickly learned its idiosyncrasies through trial and error, and thereafter never botched even a Kodachrome exposure. The most important thing is sheer familiarity with your own meter. And if someone gave me one of those old modified spotmeters, I'm sure I'd take it for a walk and have some fun with it. But I am glad I never bought one.

 

[BrianShaw]

There is no doubt that great photography can be done with an off-the-shelf Pentax spotmeter, but your huff-and-puff together with the backpedaling is making me wonder where you are coming from. As long as you’re happy, so am I. BTW, I never used a Pentax spotmeter of any kind and have no complaints. Im not disappointed to have never bought one either. I cut my teeth on a Weston III and LunaPro…

Bye bye.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Where I'm coming from is decades worth of experience with many types of film, along with many more decades of experience from many others who count on their meters to perform reliably year after year. If had to start all over again, the first thing I'd do is buy a Pentax digital spotmeter again. That doesn't preclude the utility of other kinds of meters, but does speak to its versatility, and of spot meters in general if well made. It's like aiming a sniper rifle instead of a blunderbuss. But sometimes one needs a blunderbuss.

Otherwise, for forum purposes, there are all kinds of interesting subjects I have dabble in at one point or another. And when I found out about Zone VI Studios, was intrigued by what they offered, and among things I did purchase from them, there were some real winners as well as real disappointments. The marketing angle of Fred Picker was, however, well known to many as somewhat overdone, to say the least.

I don't know what you're implying by "backpedaling" or "huff and puff". I'd you'd ever seen how our Purchasing Dept actually treated sales agents who tried to get by on a bluff, everything I've ever stated on this forum would seem mild by comparison. They got one warning, period. And they could count on us actually testing out every claim they made, even if it that meant dissecting some expensive piece of equipment loaner sample and giving it back to them in a bag of loose parts. And I've also written equipment reviews for double the typical pay scale, because the editors knew that I didn't BS like most do.

In this case, much of what appears on that Paul Horowitz letter simply doesn't pass the smell test. And the only reason to point that out is that it's an interesting part of photographic history during the era the Zone System was been lionized by conspicuous names. ... kinda like debating just how often members of the famous F64 coalition actually shot their subjects at f/64 or not ... Or to what extent AA really did pre-visualize the endpoint to his shots or not - I'm skeptical of that too.

 

[Bill Burk]

The Zone VI Newsletter Number 37, November 1983 has the story.

They had to special order the IR blocking 15-layer interference filter.

The final pack has IR block, UV block (and you are asked to block UV on camera), and two color filters (not named).

Richard Ritter might be able to tell us more.

 

[Milpool]

This is in Richard Henry’s book, with detailed test results using proper references and standards (along with the unmodified Pentax).

The modified Pentax apparently had its Si photodiode receptor swapped out, added a UV cutoff filter, an IR-cutoff filter and two color compensating filters, all of this to somewhat flatten the spectral response curve and more closely match the meter’s response to panchro B&W film. In testing these modifications were found to work quite well (although from a practical perspective these improvements would be fairly small). Extra baffling was also added as part of the Zone VI modification to reduce flare. The improvement on that front was found to be measurable but minor.

 

[BrianShaw]

This is in Richard Henry’s book, with detailed test results using proper references and standards (along with the unmodified Pentax).

The modified Pentax apparently had its Si photodiode receptor swapped out, added a UV cutoff filter, an IR-cutoff filter and two color compensating filters, all of this to somewhat flatten the spectral response curve and more closely match the meter’s response to panchro B&W film. In testing these modifications were found to work quite well (although from a practical perspective these improvements would be fairly small). Extra baffling was also added as part of the Zone VI modification to reduce flare. The improvement on that front was found to be measurable but minor.

I'm not familiar with Richard Henry or his book, but that is a succinct statement consistent with what Horowitz and Picker has written at the time of the modification's conception. I doubt that anyone would disagree with the conclusions that Henry made, but I could be wrong...

 

[Milpool]

The book is called Controls in Black and White Photography. It’s a good reference on a number of topics and is unique in that Henry went to great lengths (extraordinary lengths in certain cases) to objectively, rigorously test various claims, received wisdom etc. and he shows the data. It’s also worth noting some of Picker’s claims about other things are handily destroyed in the book so it’s not as though Henry was exactly out to promote Zone VI products.

I'm not familiar with Richard Henry or his book, but that is a succinct statement consistent with what Horowitz and Picker has written at the time of the modification's conception. I doubt that anyone would disagree with the conclusions that Henry made, but I could be wrong...

 

[BrianShaw]

@Milpool Thanks very much for that citation. Just skimmed through the 1982 second edition on Internet Archive. Definitely some heavy reading as it is very citation oriented and data driven. Definitely responds to what was going on in photography during the 1980’s yet much still has applicability as well the historical insights. Need to buy a copy to read in detail when times get slow.