Zone System/under over exposure

If one uses the Zone System, is it a fact that you won't have under or over exposed negs?

So when I shoot a snow scene, for example, and meter the highlights and shadows of the scene, and of course develop properly, I won't need to bracket because I'm using the Zone System? Thanks for the imput.

Only if you know exactly what you are doing from experience and

if you are a good zoner and are controlling the film development

development and matching the negative exposure and

development to the paper you anticipate using. Life is short; film

is cheap.

Raven: Ellis is right on. I still like to bracket at least one stop

on the side of overexposure, knowing that I can print through the

density if I need to. Also, the perfectly exposed neg is not always

the one that gives the best "feel" to the print. Besides, you need a

backup neg for when you step on one in the darkroom.

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Regards,

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Doug.

Unless it�s a really tricky exposure, I usually don't bracket - but

I've been using the same film for years and feel comfortable with

it's characteristics. But I do shoot two plates and "bracket" the

film development. I develop one as I had marked in the field. If that

neg is bad for some reason, I have a backup (stuff happens :-). If

it's good, then I'll develop the other from one to one half stop more

or less and evaluate it during printing. This helps with graded paper.

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... and if it's a tricky exposure? I bracket the exposure and bring

home 4 plates :-)

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I agree � film�s cheap, but the scene at the moment of exposure is

priceless.

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Doug

Raven, Yes to all of the above. Once you get to know your film/dev.

combination under exposure becomes a thing of the past unless there's

a fault with shutter/f stop settings also long time exposures are

difficult to predict accurately.

<p>

I always take at least two shots of the same image but they are 99%

of the time the same exposure. I do this to try and safeguard against

developing faults, dust, scratches or whatever bedevils one on the

path to perfection (which I shall never obtain).

Regards,

Raven, I have found in talking with others that most times, when an

overexposed negative makes for a better end result, it was not really

overexposed at all. Rather, the first (under) exposure failed to

account for things like reciprocity departure or bellows factor. Other

posts point out similar failings that result in miserexposed images.

I, like Trevor prefer to make two identical exposures most of the time.

This, to insure I've got a backup negative in case dust or scratches

become a problem, but also to give me a second chance to process

differently if I feel doing so can improve the printability of the

negative. I don't think bracketing when using the Zone system

technique is really necessary except at first, when perhaps you are

still trying to get a grip on all of your controls or when a

particularly difficult or rare situation arises and you want to defer

certain decisions until you're in the darkroom.

Raven,

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The Zone System is all about when to over and under expose. Ever see

those wonderful images where the white trees seem to �glow� against

the dark background? Generally this effect is created by

underexposing the negative by about a stop to a stop & 1/2 and then

giving N+1 or N+2 or sometimes even N+3 development. The same is

true for Adams' famous image of the clearing winter storm in Yosemite.

<p>

On the other hand, it is probably more common to overexpose a

negative to get good detail in the low values and then contract

development to prevent blocking of the highlights [Z8, Z9, and Z10].

This is the old saying "expose for the shadows and develop for the

highlights". The zone system just allows you to consistently predict

the response of your system to various combinations of exposure and

development. I have found that I very rarely give normal exposure

with normal development to a negative.

<p>

You should shoot at least two plates of each scene if you can.

Generally, if you are going to bracket, you only need to go in one

direction. A one-stop difference is usually enough for me. If the

first negative is wanting in some regard, this indicates the correct

development for the second plate.

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Remember that intuition and experience play a big part in this. Ed

Weston rarely used a light meter and when he did he usually doubled

the suggestion of the meter. He then worked miracles in the

darkroom. Likewise, Adams did his share of burning and dodging as

well.

<p>

Regards.

The reason to use the zone system is to produce an ideal negative;

not acceptable negative, but one that mets your previsualisation of

how of how the scene should be; to extend (compact) the contrast

range beyond what would normally be possible. By using the zone

system you are accepting that you might have to use different

development procedures for each scene shot. Now after going through

all of this trouble you are going to leave it to chance that you

didn't get results you were expecting?!!#$@%!!

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The number of variables increase (not decrease) with the zone system,

and if I were you I wouldn't fret about throwing a few more sheets on

the barbi. Other wise you are likely to get discouraged before you

even get started. It takes a while to develop a system that works

using the zone system. The expansion and compaction development

formulas are just a starting point. Some of them are going to work,

and some aren't. After all the goal to met your previsualisation, and

only you can know what you want and how to get there. Black and white

sheet film unlike color is relatively cheap, and since you're

processing your own film, you development costs are minimal, so

experiment.

Expose for the shadows and develope for the highlights. Pretty simple.

Anything else you throw into it makes it more difficult than it needs

to be. If you don't calibrate your system then bracketing isn't going

to save you. Calibrate your system, then all you need, outside the

dust and scratches, is two sheets. That's what the zone system is all

about. You will never get a perfect negative. You can get close but

you'll never get a perfect neg. Why? Because as you print the neg, you

reinterpret it. Weston didn't use a light meter at first because there

weren't any. But he trained his eye to see the contrast range of the

subject. And he threw away a lot of negs. So did Ansel Adams. A.A.

visualized "Clearing Winter Storm" and developed the neg to print it

just the way he visualized it. The reason he used any printing

controls (dodging and burning) on it was because he visualized the

scene differently than it was when he exposed the film. It was about

as flat lit a scene as you can get but he wanted more from it. He gave

it, I believe, an N+2 development and then dodged and burned selected

areas to create that which wasn't really there. If you calibrate your

exposure, developement, printing and toning system then there isn't

any guessing involved. But if you are lazy then bracketing isn't going

to save your ass either. What does bracketing accomplish other than

to give you the same "contrast range" on a denser negative? A denser

neg and that's all. Manipulating the "contrast range" is what the

zone system is all about. No more and no less. You still won't know

what the development time should be to increase or decrease the

density range unless you calibrated your development scheme to

increase or decrease the density range. Where do I want the highlight

densities? So get off your butt(s) and calibrate your system and get

close to what you want everytime and have a backup neg for the

unforseen problems like dust and scratches. Calibrating your system is

much easier than most people make it. James

James,

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I disagree with your statements about _Clearing Winter Storm_. This

image is not like _Frozen Lake_ [taken on the Sierra Club outing] in

that _Frozen Lake_ was re-interpreted many times over many years

whereas _Clearing Winter Storm_ was not. Ansel knew what he saw,

exposed the film for expansion, and printed to meet his original

visualization. He did not make other interpretations once he got the

now famous printing solution.

<p>

I mean lets face it, no one is ever going to get the 'exact' negative

they want even is they know at the time of exposure exactly what they

want in the print. So the photographer exposes and develops the

negative as best as he can and burns/dodges/masks/tones/... to get

what he visualized at exposure. Or, as you have correctly stated,

the photographer can employ these techniques to re-interpret the

visualization post development. However, this is not what happened

with _Clearing Winter Storm_. Ansel manipulated the printing to get

what he saw at the time of exposure.

<p>

Jason

Jason, just a point of clarification. James wrote>>A.A.

visualized "Clearing Winter Storm" and developed the neg to print it

just the way he visualized it.<< Meaning just what you said, that

Ansel like his original visualization and stuck with it. That print

is heavily manipulated. As Ansel said "dodging and burning are steps

to take care of mistakes God made in establishing tonal

relationships!" I believe the point that James is trying to make is

that knowledge of your system is better than not having this

knowledge. People always like to point to Weston and say that he

didn't use the zone system, realize that we rarely ever see anything

that he produced in his first 30 years of photography. So yes time

will solve all problems or you can take more direct steps today and

calibrate your system.

Thankyou Jeff. You are right Jason in that he did visualize the scene

a certain way and stuck to it. The scene had no more than a two stop

range so he gave it the exposure necessary for the shadows he wanted

and the development for the highlights he didn't see in the scene but

knew they could be put there. He saw what he wanted and did what was

necessary to bring that about. My intent was to get other people to

understand that bracketing isn't the answer to good negs. Calibration

is the only answer. Too many people start in 35 mm and learn the

aweful habit of bracketing because film is cheap and never calibrate

their system. People also think that calibrating their system is

difficult. It is very easy to do if you know what you are looking for

in the first place. It takes at the most 10 sheets of film, but they

get Davis' book or some other photographic tome and get lost without

ever using their noggin. They never ask what they are doing. Expose

for the shadows and develope for the highlights. That's all. They

blindly settle for empty shadows or worse, full heavy shadow densities

and flat prints. No one should ever have a reason for bracketing

unless they are trying to get a certain instant of light or they are

shooting bigfoot from 10 meters and want all the insurance they can

get. As far as metering goes, I watched in amazement as Ray McSaveney

shot flowers with no metering at all. Of course when I thought about

it, he instictively knew what the lighting ratios were from years of

practice. James

James,

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My bad. Reading too late at night. That is exactly what you were

saying about _Clearing Winter Storm_.

<p>

The comments that threw me in your first post were:

<p>

"You will never get a perfect negative. You can get close but

you'll never get a perfect neg. Why? Because as you print the neg,

you

reinterpret it."

<p>

Anyway, it is true, calibration is the most important key to

consistently appealing tonal ranges in a photographer's prints.

<p>

Ditto on Phil Davis' Book. I have degrees in Physics and Mechanical

Engineering from Penn State [not meaning I'm any kind of mental

giant] and still I get bogged down in the math and charts. A.A.'s

testing methods are the best I've found so far.

<p>

Jason

I like AA's one liner with respect to this situation. "I'd rather

have two sheets of film exposed correctly, versus two sheets of

film exposed incorrectly!" (e.g. over and under exposed in

bracketing. And, I'm paraphrasing.)

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In this way, the second exposure can be used to optimize the

photograph at development, depending upon whether one wants to

slightly expand or contract the development.

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I know I've had situations where I didn't take that second exposure,

and my highlights just weren't there. This is not an exposure

problem, it's a development problem.

<p>

So, the moral to this story is to take six shots of each photo: two

at the estimated exposure, two that are under-exposued, and two that

are over-exposed. This should cover all bases. (Just kidding.)

This is my first time here on the Q&A forum, and lucky me that I can

find such an interesting argument along. I should hang around more

to learn.

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I have been spending recent couple of months on B&W developing and

maybe I can share my experience (though might not be truth).

<p>

By varying the exposure, it can surely deliver different contrast in

theory. But whether it can delivers your required contrast, density,

tonal change, graininess, film base clarity etc. at the same time, or

with each element under your expected range of control? It is highly

questionable (esp. in B&W development when your method is highly

unstable).

<p>

Personally, I think the key idea of AA's zone system is to collect

the necessary details that you want to the film where you can

transform such infomation to an effect you want on the photo. In

other term, it highly relates to contrast control. In order to vary

the contrast of B&W, people have created a number of methods. Some

use filters, some use chemicals, some use different darkroom

equipment, some adjust time / temperature / dilution / agitation /

exposure.....some do it in a more "clever" way by scanning the film

and adjust contrast on screen, or buy a different film for different

occasions. As long as the method fits into your requirement, I think

its fine.

<p>

And if you are trying to use the darkroom developing techniques to

resolve the problem, my experience is that you really have to spend

some time on practising. The key matter is consistency. You have to

adopt a strict procedure to control your development, including

liquid temperature, dev. time, agitation styles, dev. timing etc..

Say for an example, you can start with Kodak's film datasheet and use

their development datas as a start (say like T-Max 100 roll film,

tank development, 21 degree). Then take a number of pictures with

consistent exposure (I prefer to use grey card, grey scale and with

consistent branketing) and see the result (density, contrasy,

graininess, tonal change etc). Say like if you found the best film

which works along with your requirement (eg. fits to your enlarging

equipment), and under this development method it can render details

within range of over-3, under-3 range of exposure with acceptable

graininess. Then ongoing you know what you can capture on the film

when you press the shutter, and also understand on which side you

should lean on (over/under) that deliver what you want. This method

basically derives from zone system, and it really takes time to

practise, and my advise is to make it simple first and try for at

most two / three development combinations (usually Kodak will offer

you the dilution / temperature combinations) for each film.

Personally, I have tried 1:1, 3:1, pure liquid at the moment with D-

76 and T-Max 100, with a number of development time / agitation

method / temperature combinations. If you can deliver stable result

on your devp skill, and each time you can adjust a single element of

developing and see the result (ie. Kodak suggests we use developing

time to control contrast, does it really works, or by what magnitude

it works, or even by what time the contrast / development time

relation comes to inverse?). It is fun, but it is also pain over the

neck. Nevertheless, it renders you with the information required to

handle different lighting situations, even the extreme ones, and get

the required details you like into your film.

<p>

I have seen a couple interesting articles of AA on the story befind

his photos, and I think he has taken a lot of pain and puzzle in

order to derive the zone system which we still use today. I think it

worths to pay some time in the darkroom in order to understand his

wisdoms (and also discover the things untold by AA).

<p>

Brian Kong