Can Ansel Adams's zone system be applied to color photography

[dave_young1]

I am a novice photograper. Recently i read Ansel's adams guide to

photography and came to know about the Zone system for accurate

exposure in B&W photography. Being interested and amazed by the

gorgeous pictures he took using the zone system, i tried

the "concept" with my canon 300d. My model is as such: In an early

morning, my house was half lit and half in shade. I took a picutes of

my house. Before shooting, i took exposure readings with my in-camera

reflective meter: f16 and 1/125 shuttle speed for the lit side of my

house and; f16 and 1/30 for the shady side (i keep the sperture

constant). According to the ZOne system, landscape shadow under the

bright sky is noted as zone 4 out of 10. If i am right, the correct

exposure for my house shady side should be f16 and 1/60, one zone

increase to zone 5.

 

After all the calculations, i took a shot. The picture come out

right; what i see is what i get. I also tried increaing or decreasing

the exposure, the best one is always the one with zone calculation.

My question is have i done right? If not, how can we get accurate

exposure without the aid of spot or incident light meter? Can and how

our in-camera reflective meter be used for accurate exposure?

 

Any input would be appreciated. Thanks.

 

Dave

[maury_cohen]

Yes within different parameters:

The following guidelines are approximate, based on personal experience.

 

B&W Zone guidelines figure a 9-10 stop range.

Color neg. has about a 5 stop range (usable).

Color slide has about a 3 stop range (usable).

 

Within those parameters, basic Zone theory, expecially where exposure is concerned, can certainly be applied to any photographic medium.

Digital is a more "compressed" scale than film B&W, and of course "development" is not a digital option, though gamma adjustments are available.

[dave_young1]

What is one stop increase from exposure (f16 and 1/250)? f8 and 1/125 is the answer??

 

Thanks.

[erik_dahlbeck]

Maury: Where are you getting your numbers from? Normal slide film has a range och about +/- 2,5 stops which gives a total of about five stops. I'm unsure about colour negative but I'd say it definately ought to be at least seven stops though I've always thought colour neg and B&W neg are about the same...? I guess the films all differ in a varying degree...

 

The best favour one can do to oneself when talking about the "zone system" for other films than traditional B&W, is to skip the zone numbers and describe the "zones" as positive or negative deviations from neutral instead. The reason is that the number of middle zone shifts depending on the dynamic range of the film.

[robert_dee]

I wish I would of heard about the zone system when I first started messing around with cameras because I think I would of had a lot easier time of it. When you put the spot meter on a tone the meter will report what exposure is required to render that tone as medium grey or zone 5. I'm not very good at guessing what tone a certain shade of color is but I can calculate white, black, and medium grey fairly easily. White, for instance, will spot meter at zone 5 and *my camera* renders white as white at about zone 7.6 or 237, so I know I need to add about 2.5 stops to the spot meter reading to make white the way I like it. I have read that you can simply add 2 stops to the spot reading and get white, but I prefer zone 7.6 with my setup. I find I need to add a little to any reading for my camera and I guess that is just it's nature.

 

 

When spot metering a medium grey card I should be able to shoot what the meter reading shows because the subject is medium grey to start with and zone 5. If I calculate and adjust properly for a single tone then the rest of the tones will follow and I can get the proper exposure, at least it's supposed to anyway, if the lighting is within the latitude of my medium. Hope this helps. Good luck.

[maury_cohen]

To Erik,

AS a working pro with an understanding of the Zone system these are the basic guidelines I worked around.

Slide film in a normal sunny environment can only stand up to about a one stop variation from perfect exposure. Beyond that highlights or shadows begin to suffer greatly. Color negative is only a bit better in this regard, still short of the forgiveness of black and White.

 

Digital is unforgiving of bad exposure. There's no substitute for accurate exposure if you're after the best possible original to work with.

[link]

good question dave.

 

The answer is yes, but you'll make up your own zone system. Are you ready?

 

Here's what you do.

 

1. set your camera on a tripod and aim at an evenly lit white towel on the wall. Fill

the frame with the white towel.

 

2. Use an amount of light that will allow you to over expose by 5 stops and

underexpose by 5 stops or maybe 7 stops by changing the shutter speed and/or f-

stops.

 

3. set your camera's exposure by taking a reading of the towel (best in spot meter

mode) and write down the f-stop and shutter speed and ISO setting that you're using.

You'll need to repeat the whole test for each ISO setting that you would like to use.

 

4. Start the test by under exposing by 5 stops (from your reading in step 3) and shoot

frame after frame with each frame increasing the exposure by 1/2 stop until you get

to 5 stop over expsoure. Make sure you make notes of what expsoure goes with each

frame.

 

5. open up each frame in photoshop and cut and paste a small piece of each frame

into one long grey scale from 5 stops under to 5 stops over exposed. Type below

each frame -5, -4.5, -4,...0, +.5, +1...+4.5, +5 .

 

The "0" frame should be middle grey if your camera's expsoure meter is correct.

 

Carefully examine each patch to see the brightness and amount of detail (that's why I

use a towel). You can divide the patches into "zones" if you like or call them whatever

you want. From now on, use the spot meter function in the camera. Choose a piece of

the scene to meter. For example, meter someone's face and note the reading. If you

expose at the reading, that part of the face will expose as middle grey. You can refer

to your grey scale (print it out, if you can print accurately). You'll probably decide (if

it's a white person's face) that middle grey patch is too dark for a face. Look at your

grey scale and choose a patch that would be appropriate for the lightness of the face

and note the expsore that you typed below it. For my face, it would be the exposure

reading +1 stop. So open the lens 1 stop or double the time the shutter is open, from

the face reading and snap the photo.

 

You can use your spot meter to read any part of the scene to see how bright that part

will expose by referencing your grey scale that you printed out. With time you won't

need the grey scale to reference and you'll know exactly how much to expose for the

result you want.

 

Since I've taken the trouble to write all this, please tell me you'll give it a try!

[erik_dahlbeck]

But Maury, why are you talking about "variation from perfect exposure" and the zone system at the same time? The zone system is all about calculating that perfect exposure, not about how much you can miss it.

 

You seem to be confusing dynamic range with error margin. And yes, the tolerable error margin of slide film, if any, is closer to one (or one half) stop than the full range of 5 stops but neither you can say that the error margin of B&W is 10 stops because that's the film's full dynamic range. Don't compare apples to oranges.

 

Example: A 2,5 stop overexposure of anything on a slide film will give you just about all white and the same goes for a 4,5 to 5 stop overexposure of neg B&W.

 

However, when we're using the "zone system", we assume that anything we expose as +2,5 or +5 respectively, is supposed to be plain white. It's only after you've made your decision that a certain rock in the picture is to be -1 stop, the sky +1,5, that green grass +/-0 and that strongly sunlit snow +2,5 stops, that you need to start worrying about error margin. And still, "error margin" is a pretty bad term. It's not like you really have a margin, because you will lose detail in either shadows or highlights (unless using negative film in a low-contrast enviroment), but rather a certain non-disasterous span within which you will still have a middle tone subject appear as reasonably middle tone.

[lex_jenkins]

Strictly speaking, no. The Zone System is equal parts exposure and development. Color films don't respond to adjustments in development the same way b&w film does.

 

There's nothing wrong with taking tips from the Zone System for metering and exposure. In tricky lighting spotmetering can make the difference between great slides and mediocre ones. With more forgiving color negative film, it doesn't make as much difference.

 

But without N+/- development, it ain't really the Zone System.

[steve_hovland]

I don't think applying the Zone system is about tolerance for over-exposure or under-exposure. It's about placing the exposure.

 

For example, I would put white at about Zone 7. To arrive at this I would switch the camera to spot mode, read the white, and open 2 stops.

 

I might also read the darker areas and apply fill flash if there were large areas more than 2 stops under the exposure I had selected for the white. (This is for casual shooting.)

 

In a studio situation, I would want to use a spot meter and try to get everything important into the Zone 3 to Zone 7 range.

 

All of this assumes you know how to tweak your ISO settings to get the histogram bumping up against the right (but not blowing past it.)

[dave_young1]

Thanks all for your suggestions and inputs :) Sound like there is no universal standard for calculating and getting an accurate exposure. How about "chromazone exposure system" developed by Charles Campbell? He claimed his system would help photographers at any levels get the right exposure. Have you used this?

[gaius1]

Applying the zone system to colour photography is pretty much what Nikon Matrix Metering attempts to do.

[ken_hughes4]

the zone system is first and foremost about "pre-visualization".