Zone system with digital B&W photography and printing

I'm interested to hear the experiences of people who've used the

Zone System with the new digital DSLR's and Photoshop in the fine-

printing of B&W prints.

There aint a lot you can do with it in digital. You just dont have the freedom to map tonal

ranges into a sensor's (film's) density range. Probably about the best you could do is use it

to determine how many different exposures you need to take and later blend in order to

cover the lattitude in the scene.

 

Even in printing digitally its not going to make a lot of sense (assuming a calibrated

system) as you can achieve pretty much exactly what you want on the monitor before

clicking the button.

 

Basically, its a system for mapping tonal ranges onto film or paper and digital, like slide

and C-41 films, doesnt have the ability to re-map tonality as you choose.

"You just dont have the freedom to map tonal ranges into a sensor's (film's) density range."

 

Craig, I'm just starting out in digital photography. I had assumed that the ability to load custom curves into some DSLR's, like Nikon's D100 and D70, might enable one to manipulate the tonal range of the "digital negative".

Curves are applied after the image is taken, and won't help you as you suggest. Otherwise, you can use part of the zone system by checking the tonal range of the subject with a spot meter. Digital behaves like reversal film with regards to highlights. Place any bright objects in which you want detail into zone VII. The dynamic range of digital is so wide (particularly if you use 12-bit capture) that you can recover the shadows in post-processing (but you can't recover blown highlights).

Thanks for the comments.

 

I've read that, with Nikons, the curves can be applied before the photo is taken.

Well, not really before taking the picture, but before downloading it from your camera. From my understanding, the camera uses that curve when generating the JPEG you will later download. The same result could be achieved by shooting RAW and batch processing all your files with the same curve.</p>

I'm guessing here but the curve is probably applied before data is reduced to 8 bits when shooting JPEG. That might make a difference if you are able to define the appropriate curves.</p>

-jl-

If you use a raw workflow, you can -- and often do -- apply some form of a curve during conversion. The converter itself may apply it for you, but nonetheless it is applied based on parameters you choose.

 

You still need to capture the image properly, yet with digital, we mostly want to avoid blowing the highlights. However one accomplishes this task -- via internal meter or histogram review -- we are essentially selecting an exposure that maps our zone 9 tones into zone 8 on the sensor.

 

 

Furthermore there are tools in digital imaging programs that perform the same tasks as one achieved by uinder-exposure and over-development, or vice-versa. We then use the image processing program (PS) to correctly position the other zones in our image using this array of tools.

BTW, there is a very good digital B&W forum here: http://www.outbackphoto.com/tforum/

Craig Cooper wrote: "There aint a lot you can do with it in digital. You just dont have the freedom to map tonal ranges into a sensor's (film's) density range."

 

I don't understand this. A scene in nature has a specific dynamic range that may or may not "fit" onto a capturing medium, be it slide film, negative film, or a digital sensor. The Zone System photographer

decides how best to map the scene's dynamic range into the medium's capability. No difference between film & digital at time of exposure.

 

During developing of traditional film, any errors in exposure could be compensated for by increasing/decreasing contrast or change development time. When shooting RAW, you also have the ability to make those adjustments.

 

 

"Even in printing digitally [the Zone system is] not going to make a lot of sense (assuming a calibrated system) as you can achieve pretty much exactly what you want on the monitor before clicking the button."

 

That's exactly why the Zone System makes sense for digital B&W work.

 

When printing in a traditional darkroom, a photographer can dodge & burn certain areas of the print to adjust regions up or down to a new Zone. The same technique can be done with more precision in Photoshop, although preferably by brushing a 50%-grey overlay rather than using the poorly-named dodge & burn tools PS supplies.

 

 

"Basically, [the Zone System is] a system for mapping tonal ranges onto film or paper and digital, like slide and C-41 films, doesnt have the ability to re-map tonality as you choose."

 

Nonsense. Digital provides complete control over re-mapping tonality as you choose.

 

 

Understand that I'm not arguing that current D-SLR sensors have better dynamic range than film or slides, just that the techniques recommended in the Zone System all have digital equivalents.

Mr Zapped, Have you actually used the zone system to shoot and develop B&W film? If so, how do you push or pull development of the digital image in a way that places the exposure on the high or low end of the *curve*?

 

I agree, that it's easy to mimic the effect and end results while processing raw images, but I don't see how this is the same as shooting and developing B&W with the zone system. This is probably a moot point anyway, as there are several ways of shooting and processing digital that duplicates the effects available with the zone system

Hi Jim. You wrote - "Mr Zapped, Have you actually used the zone system to shoot and develop B&W film?"

 

Nope. I haven't been in the darkroom for at least 15 yrs and never did anything outside standard development & straightforward printing.

 

"If so, how do you push or pull development of the digital image in a way that places the exposure on the high or low end of the *curve*?"

 

Whether shooting RAW or jpg's, doesn't adjusting the midpoint in Levels do exactly that, "place the exposure on the high or low end of the curve"?

 

You said that processing RAW images "mimic the effect and end results" yet you "don't see how this is the same as shooting and developing B&W with the zone system". It seems to me that manipulating the exposure, levels, and curves of a RAW image is *exactly* the digital equivalent of varying B&W film development in the darkroom. If you could clarify exactly how you think it's not equivalent, maybe I'd understand the point your trying to make.

Okay, I've never used the zone system either, except to use some of the initial concepts to figure out a good exposure for color film. Actually, I was hoping you had an idea that I hadn't thought of.

 

But to me the difference is, with the zone system, you have to plan this all out ahead of time. You decide to underexpose or overexpose by a stop or two and then compensating in development. You would do this to make the print more contasty in a flat lighted scene or less contrasty in a high contrast scene.

 

With digital, you usually want to make sure you don't blow out the highlights and let the shadows fall where they may. Knowing that with RAW you have a wee bit of headroom and quite a bit of shadow reserve. But with digital, all this is done after the fact, with very little concern for what went on when you took the picture. Maybe others do this with more forethought than I do though.

 

The effect seems that it can be very much the same, and is certainly easier than the zone system, but the thinking process seems to be so much different.

I am not a "Zonie" but...from what I understand from my ZS class, there is no "underexposure" or "overexposure" after you've figured out the actual EI of your film. You always expose it properly. "Properly" is defined as achieving an appropriate amount of shadow detail based on how you previsualized the scene. Underexposure and overexposure is simply wrong exposure.

 

You then use development to control the contrast of your scene. Again, this is done to produce a negative that prints in accordance with your previsualization.

 

I am attempting to use the ZS with scanned film. Instead of the photographic paper being my target medium, the electronic file is for my method. I am determining EI using a densitometer. That seems to produce accurate (and definitely adequate) shadow detail for me. I am not using N+ development at all - I can boost contrast via PS. But I am using N- development to keep contrast down, and my N time is based on a flatter negative that is to be scanned, rather than printed.

 

allan

digital color converted to bw is no match for using film/scanner, I have never seen anything to suggest otherwise. with film you start out with the advantages of bw film, with digital you start out with the disadvantages of color, it just doesn't work. tweak it all you like but it will never look as good.

 

fyi- I have been working in photoshop for over 10 years (can't rememeber which I started with-- ver 1 or 2), and print digitally.

<P>"A change of materials often does require adaptation in the way we apply the Zone System, but in no way eliminates its principles or usefulness in creative visualization." -Ansel Adams, The Negative

 

<P>I wrote an article on the <a href="http://www.erickahler.com/articles/zonesystem.html">Digital Zone System</a> which you might find useful. In it, I try to make direct correlations between the concepts set forth by Adams and the common tools available in the digital darkroom. It includes an exercise or two which can lead one to a deeper understanding of exactly how the Zone System applies to their own digital equipment.

 

<P>Enjoy.

The biggest difference comes when you consider dynamic range expansion. Using film, you would do this for example if your scene had a brightness range of 5 zones, and you wanted to map it onto a range of 7 zones on the negative. To achieve this result, you would develop the film at n+2 to expand the range.

 

You simply cannot do this with digital. The nearest equivalent is to increase the slope of the curve with a curves tool. But when you do this, the signal has already been converted to digital. Expanding the contrast like this will always cause you to lose tones (this shows up as gaps in the histogram) because there is no new data to fill in the in between values.

 

When you increase development time on your negative film, you do not lose tones. You can see that this is true by scanning low and high contrast negatives with a film scanner. No gaps in the resulting histogram.

 

How much this matters depends on the specifics of the scene you are trying to capture, and the sensor/camera you are using. With a good camera, and a small amount of expansion, you may not notice the difference.

 

But the key is, that with film, you apply the expansion before the image is digitized, whereas with didital capture, you apply the expansion after. If your digital capture didn't provide enough tones, there's no way you can recover them.

This has been a really enjoyable thread for me, a hobbyist

photographer. Rather than dissolving into a war between film

traditionalists and digital revisionists, the debate has been carried

out with intelligence and courtesy. Kudos to all who've participated.<br>

<br>

Continuing on, in the spirit of constructive discourse...<br>

<br>

Neal Baylis wrote: <i>The

biggest difference comes when you consider dynamic range expansion.

Using film, you would do this for example if your scene had a

brightness range of 5 zones, and you wanted to map it onto a range of 7

zones on the negative. To achieve this result, you would develop the

film at n+2 to expand the range.

</i>

<p><i>You simply cannot do this with digital. The nearest equivalent is

to increase the slope of the curve with a curves tool. But when you do

this, the signal has already been converted to digital. Expanding the

contrast like this will always cause you to lose tones (this shows up

as gaps in the histogram) because there is no new data to fill in the

in between values.<br>

</i></p>

<p>I agree that the application of an excessive contrast adjustment ot

8-bit data (e.g., a steep Curve applied to a JPG to emulate n+2

expansion) will result in an unacceptable image, showing banding or

posterization in the over-processed image, and of course also

characterized by the telltale gaps in the histogram. However, we know

that in everyday edits a gentler S-Curve can create a more contrasty

image without undesireable artifacts, so the curve itself is not

necessarily a bad thing, it's a question of degree.<br>

</p>

<p>However, if we have the RAW sensor data - 12b per color rather than

8b - we have latitude for a steeper adjustment. To me, there's a very

nice analogy here between film and a digital sensor. We accept the n+2

expansion in film development because we know that the film has the

latent ability to tolerate that contrast shift without ruining the

developed negative. Likewise the RAW sensor data can, theoretically,

tolerate a steeper S-Curve to emulate an n+2 expansion without ruining

the 8b JPG or Tif output, specifically without creating

banding/posterization/histogram-gaps in the output image. That S-Curve

can be applied before the Bayer de-mosaic algorithm on the native 12b

data, or afterwards if we work in the 16b domain (where the additional

4 bits are just a fiction added to fit current file format definitions).<br>

</p>

<p>I'm not arguing that the latest D-SLR sensors have <i>as much</i>

latitude as film (slide maybe, negatives no), only that 1) we're almost

at the point in technology where n+2 contrast expansion is a reasonable

operation to perform on RAW data, and 2) such expansion is not the

exclusive domain of traditional film.

another problem you run into is the use of filters, not only do you have a certain range of tones but you also may want to rearrange the ones you have, such as altering leaves on a tree with a green or yellow filter. as far as the contrast range goes we have not really discussed the outer limits of bw film possibilities. An example, with zone system techniques you easily get an 11 stop range of tonalities from black to white for normal development. By altering your dev. you could pull in as much as 15 stops of information.

 

I think however that it would be possible for a digital camera to be made that can be as flexible as film, but I think that it would have to be dedicated only to that and have to be much more advanced than anything we have today. I don't think the demand is there for that to ever happen.

Ken Hughes wrote: ".

ken hughes , oct 27, 2004; 01:15 a.m.

another problem you run into is the use of filters, not only do you have a certain range of tones but you also may want to rearrange the ones you have, such as altering leaves on a tree with a green or yellow filter."

 

The language isn't very precise here, but I'll venture a guess that Ken is saying that B&W film is superior because you can alter B&W tones by applying color filters at the time of exposure. This seems to be exactly what I do in the digital realm when I use the Channel Mixer to convert my color sensor data to B&W. Except with digital I can also apply layer masks to the channel mixer and control precisely where in the image I want to apply the effect. With B&W film, if I don't nail it at the time of exposure based on experience, there's no going back.

 

 

Ken also wrote: "with zone system techniques you easily get an 11 stop range of tonalities from black to white for normal development."

 

That's the widest latitude I've heard claimed for film with normal development. I'm no expert, though, so I'd like to know more about this.

 

Ken added: "By altering your dev. you could pull in as much as 15 stops of information."

 

Whoa, now I'm really perplexed. N+2 expansion or N-2 compression in development I sort of understand, but I was under the impression that altering development only stretches existing information, it doesn't add extra stops. I'd also like to know more about this.

 

If I can get 15 stops onto B&W film, I'm off to ebay to buy myself a 4x5 Tachihara. And I'm not kidding.

Yeah, I'm a bit mystified by the 11 and 15 stop comments. I guess a lot depends on the medium (for instance, photography paper generally is said to allow 6-7 stops of tonal range, plus the paper white and paper black, which only gives us a maximum of 8-9 stops).

 

The weird comment is about getting that many stops just from development. I honestly can't figure out how I'd do that.

 

What does Zone 11, or 15, for that matter, look like, anyway? Super-super-super white?

 

allan

There seems to be a lot of confusion here, and I'm not sure how best to sort it out.

 

The entire focus of the zone system as originated by Adams was to allow the photog to make very consistent negatives. It was much less concerned with anything that happened after the negative was produced (i.e. printing). This was because once you gain control of the negative, the rest of the process becomes much simpler.

 

Gaining control of the negative means that, in the ideal case, all negatives would have the same density range, and would print with the same exposure on the same grade of paper - usually recommended to be grade 2 or 3. The need to print some negatives on grade 0 or 5 is simply an indication that the negatives are out of control.

 

Since the range of possible subjects is very wide, much manipulation needs to be done in production of the negative in order to make the negs all the same density range. Scenes that have a very narrow range of brightness need to be exposed and processed in a manner that expands the tonal range. Scenes that have a wide range of brightness need to be exposed and processed in a manner that contracts the tonal range.

 

A scene that requires neither contraction nor expansion is said to be 'normal', and thus gets the 'normal' exposure and development. This is known as 'n' for short. Adams arbitrarily decided that this would map a 10 stop brightness range in the scene onto the appropriate density range in the negative. He chose 10, but it could just as easily have been some other number. Folks working with color transparency film generally use about 5 stops instead of 10. But given 10 stops as 'normal', then a scene with 9 stops brightness range needs to be expanded, and one with 11 stops needs to be contracted.. n+1, or n-1 respectively. A scene with 15 stops of brightness would need to be contracted by 5 stops, or n-5. This would be achieved by increasing exposure, and reducing development. n-5 is extreme, but not out of the realm of possibility as far as I know, although it might be necessary to use very low contrast film to achieve this effect.

 

But if you point your digital camera at this 15 stop brightness range, there's virtually nothing you can do. Your best hope would be to take two exposures, and then combine them in post processing, one for the highlight end, and one for the shadow end. Similarly, if you point your film camera loaded with color transparency film at this scene, there's nothing you can do other than make separate exposures for the different parts of the brightness range, and combine them later. A very difficult proposition, generally.

 

Another technique that can be applied in a conventional darkroom but cannot be done with a digital camera, is to simply capture a wide brightness range on a single negative, and then produce a satisfactory print by use of selective printing (dodging and burning). This works, because the extra information you need is actually present in the negative, whereas it cannot be captured in a single exposure with the digital camera.

"exactly what I do in the digital realm when I use the Channel Mixer to convert my color sensor data to B&W"

 

I would disagree that you get the same effect, my thinking is that with film you are applying a filter to bw film itself, whereas with digital you are applying it to a COLOR image or a color image already converted to bw. To me having a color original means that you already have lost some of the information that would be picked up on bw film in the first place. In other words, you are, from the very start dealing with the disadvantages of color. I think you get something similar, but still not as effective.

 

 

 

"With B&W film, if I don't nail it at the time of exposure based on experience, there's no going back"

 

Exactly my point, but turn it around and apply it to digital. If you are not getting all the info that a bw neg would get because it is color, you compromise the image from the beginning. I think digital is very strong after the fact (I do all my printing with digital), but when it comes to capturing all the info at the time of exposure I think it falls short (for bw anyway).

 

 

"That's the widest latitude I've heard claimed for film"

 

I'm sorry, I was up too late writing this. The 11 stops are for the full range, meaning from pure black to pure white (I accidentally claimed the entire range to contained tonality. Obviously pure white and pure black would have no tonality. In the Zone system each stop is defined as a "zone", so when I say a range from zone 0 to zone 10 it is the equivalent of 11 stops. FYI, the range from zone 1 to zone 9 is the "dynamic" range which holds tonality but no real texture, about as dark (or light) as you can get without going full black or full white. zone 2 through zone 8 are the ranges of full texture and tonality. So again, the full scale is from zone 0 to zone 10, or 11 stops. You try to compress or expand the illuminance of a scene to fit this range, or not, so that you can get all the info you need when printing. This doesn't happen if you are going to have a lab process for you, they can get close if they follow instructions, but personally I would never let someone else develop my bw film.

 

 

 

 

"I'd also like to know more about this"

 

with bw film you expose for the shadows and develop for the highlights, why? because during development the shadows come up first followed by the highlights, so after a certain amount of time the shadows are essentially done developing so the density of the highlights can be controlled with the remainder of that time. hence normal plus or normal minus development.

 

With extreme cases you need a dilute developer, so dilute sometimes, it?s almost water! at the time of exposure you must give about a stop more exposure to bump up the shadows however. Developing time is much longer and agitation is very much so reduced, at times the film simply sits motionless in the dev., the highlights quickly exhaust the dev. when it has no agitation, but the shadows continue to develop, exhausting the developer at a much slower rate.

 

When I was enrolled in school in California I went to an old Spanish style church to photograph the priest standing by the front door. It was a bright full sun kind of day and the priest had on a white silk robe,(he had just performed a wedding). Behind him were the open doors of the church that opened into a small unlit foyer. The difference between the highlight of his silk robe and the shadows in the foyer was 15 stops--yikes--

 

I wanted detail in the foyer, going black would be very distracting, and I certainly wanted the nice silky highlight to show through, I certainly didn't want him to glow!

 

This called for dilute dev.. I exposed for the shadows in the foyer, (plus one extra stop), and then developed accordingly. I now have an image with full shadow detail without a glowing priest.

 

you just cannot do that with digital.

you could do two exposures and blend the two, but how do you get the priest and his robes to sit perfectly still?

 

Ken,

 

Wow. What developer, dilution, agitation, and time did you use?

 

allan

That was a great reply, Ken. Thanks very much for clarifying the points you were making & increasing my understanding of film processing. Enjoyed (& was edified by) the anecdote about the highlit priest and shadowed foyer.

 

Thanks also to Neil for his concise summary of AA's Zone System and making the point that it's mostly concerned with making consistent negatives, less with the printing process.

"What developer, dilution, agitation, and time did you use"

 

Allan,

 

4x5 plus x film, hc-110 dev., probably around 1:30 dil from stock, somewhere between 15 and 20 minutes dev. time, agitation is for 15 secs every 3 to 4 minutes--its been a while since I did that one so the details aren't as fresh as they used to be.