Recap of the zone

[rothelle]

It's been a very long time but I would like a recap on When placing

my zone III subject, do I keep my iso at 400 or do I rate it @ 250

and then place my zone III placement. I have always been using ISO

250 with Microdol-X before the new Tri-X. I plan on sticking with

Tri-X but using Xtol 1:1, I process my film in Sidekick machine.

Thanks.

[thomas_sullivan]

you should go back and read the book.....you determine your true ISO rating of any and all film/developer combinations long before you are even concerned with zone placement of the subjects.

[john_finch]

Your personal ISO rating for a film is completely seperate from your placing of Zone 3. You must first work out your personal ISO and your personal development time. When you have found these you are then in a position to place Zone 3 accurately for that film, developer combination.

 

After finding your personal ISO you would set that on the camera/exposure meter at all times for that film. Then placing any zone can be done by metering the particular area of the photo that you want in a particular zone and setting the shutter speed/aperture combination to attain that particular zone for that meter reading.EG. Meter the shadows you want full detail in and close down 2 stops (meters zone 5 and you are closing down to zone 3)

 

John Pictorialplanet.com

[rothelle]

Thank you all for your comments. I have found some of my old notes and will start back testing and playing back in my darkroom very soon.

[jtk]

What's your current favorite Zone System book/site? Know one that focuses on scanning, especially scanning of roll film/35 ?

 

Djon

[Aoresteen]

The term is 'personal EI' as ISO is a standard that implies certian procedures were follwed. EI means simply Exposure Index. Personal EI means the Exposure Index that you use to expose a given film.

 

The easiest book to read and understand is ZONE VI Workshop by Fred Picker.

[jtk]

I'm entirely concerned with how Zone System relates to scanning and inkjet printing.

 

Thanks. I appreciate that my terminology was wrong.

 

Zone System's easy as pie, though it can draw certain mindsets deeper into complexity than into images.

 

I first explored it around 1969 a'la Minor White with an 8X10 Agfa Ansco. Reading his students posts, Picker made a project out of it, like it was tricky...but I'll take your advice and review.

 

There seem to be some special negative/scanning strategies ... maybe somebody's pursued technique "like" Zone System, but new and very different, from that angle.

 

For example, subtle Photoshop masking, in combination with certain generic types of negatives (eg very flat) may be more productive of Ansel Adams style tone control, using a scanner, than is placing zones in negative exposure and processing. It's been that way with color for a decades (masking dye transfer, Ciba etc), might be true now for B&W.

[kaiyen]

John,

 

I haven't been able to find a good ZS-esque book on scanning of conventional B&W film. There are several general rules of thumb - go for less contrasty negatives, for instance. But the idea of doing densitometry with a scanner is difficult (hard to get any kind of absolute curve, just relative ones). Plus, something like Vuescan offers several film/dev curves that can impact whether you are getting enough shadow detail or not.

 

I aim for negatives with sufficient shadow detail based on one of the middle film/dev profiles in Vuescan. I then develop to keep the highlights in check. I generally find that the midtones come out needing a bit of work if I use a particular profile vs. another, so I do try to develop to get the histogram spread out as much as possible. In the past, in comparison, I just aimed for low contrast, regardless of whether it gave me a nice, full histogram.

 

If you find a nice, comprehensive book, let me know. most of the stuff is more about scanning technique.

 

allan

[jtk]

Alan, I'm sure you're right about playing with Vuescan. Negative scanning is obviously more product/gizmo-centric than is/was traditional Zone System...we didn't have to talk about "x" brand chem or enlarger, for example...we may now be reduced to talking entirely about Vuescan and Silverfast curves etc (or maybe scanner-OEM applications). Not as easily understood theoretically as White/Adams/Picker.

[kaiyen]

John,

 

It really isn't nearly as intuitive. Very frustrating.

 

For instance, I tried to do some film speed tests. I exposed Delta 100, TXT, and FP4 at multiple EIs, then developed in ID-11 straight, 1+1, Perceptol straight, etc etc. I was trying to figure out my EI for these films. However, by changing the Vuescan profile, I was able to get more or less (and always adequate) shadow detail. And since I didnt' overdevelop, my highlights were always fine.

 

What mattered, therefore, was whether I was happy with my midtones. And I did discover that I preferred a particular profile in terms of the midtones, and that I had to pick a rough EI to use that profile correctly.

 

allan

[jtk]

Allan, I'm not familiar with your chems and film. Are you saying you held plenty of both highlight detail and shadow detail with a wide range of exposures, but that the midtones varied?

 

What exposures/ratings did you test?

 

Does it follow that within a reasonable range, one might simply select the EI one wants, process reasonably "normally" (not pushed much), tweaking Vuescan to *place* caucasian skintone or 18% grey vs the highlights and shadows? Thats SORT OF like Zone System..what am I missing?

[conrad_hoffman]

For EI, forget the scanner for a moment and just look at the neg. If the shadow areas have detail, but aren't too dense, EI is fine. The highlight density should probably be on the low side, to avoid excess noise in the scanning process. Other than that, if the scene fits between the toe and shoulder, you're good to go. Fiddling with curves should give you any rendition you want. IMO, where the Zone System comes into play is just keeping the scene within those boundries. You should have more freedom than if you were doing traditional wet printing, since you can control not only the contrast, but the shape of the transfer curve. BTW, the Minor White Zone System book (the small yellow one) is, IMO, about the worst possible choice for learning the Zone System. It's overly complex and confusing unless you already know the material.

[kaiyen]

<p>First of all, I agree for the most part with Conrad. My first step before I attempted to do ZS-style testing and evaluation of exposure/development with a scanner was by just looking at the negatives. That got me into the right ballpark.

 

<p>Also, please note that this is my method, done empirically. I have this constant fear that I'm making some wrong assumptions. But the bottom line for me was to make some decisions that pinned certain variables down and gave me targets. I could then tweak other things to get there.

 

<p><i>Allan, I'm not familiar with your chems and film. Are you saying you held plenty of both highlight detail and shadow detail with a wide range of exposures, but that the midtones varied?</i>]

 

<p>Kinda, yeah. For instance, using a densitometer in my Zone System class, I discovered that I needed an EI of 64 with FP4+ in Rodinal 1+50. However, I found that I could get by with 80 with my scanner (I had bracketed while shooting). Doing more tests revealed that I could go to 100 and still be fine.

 

<p>I "held" highlight detail simply because I erred on the side of underdevelopment. In some cases, I held them back too much - I discovered that, while the general recommendation is to go for decreased contrast, pulling dev time by too much results in some other issues, esp. in the midtones. I had original figured that all I would need would be N, N-1 and N-2 times. While I can fix them with curves afterwards, it's better to just get it right(er) while developing and reduce my time at the computer.

 

<p>So the midtones varied for two reasons. First, because I underdeveloped some of them too much. I was forced to use a particular film/dev/contrast profile in Vuescan to stretch the historgram out, but that messed with my midtones, and I had to make decisions about how I wanted to handle that. Second, I could also choose different profiles that gave me different histograms, yielding different midtones. I could even purposely block up my highlights or shadows if I wanted to. Again, I can correct these afterwards, but that's more work.

 

<p>I now aim for exposure and development that gives me a nice, full histogram using the Tmax 100/Tmax CI .55 profile in Vuescan. I like the results I get with that.

 

<p><i>What exposures/ratings did you test?</I>

 

<p>I think I overexposed by up to 2 stops, and underexposed up to 1 stop. So Delta 100 from EI 25 to EI 200. Maybe it was 250. Something like that. None of the developers is known for increasing film speed, and only ID-11 is considered a speed-maintaining developer.

 

<p>At some point, I mean to try using diluted developer and reduced agitation to see if I can get even more shadow detail out. That's another variable that can complicate things, obviously. I don't want to get sucked into the whirlpool of endless testing.

 

<p><i>Does it follow that within a reasonable range, one might simply select the EI one wants, process reasonably "normally" (not pushed much), tweaking Vuescan to *place* caucasian skintone or 18% grey vs the highlights and shadows? Thats SORT OF like Zone System..what am I missing?</I>

 

<p>That would kind of work, yes. The qualifications would be that you must sufficiently underdevelop to be able to use as many of the profiles as possible; if you overdevelop, then you won't be able to retain highlight detail using some of the curves. Reduced development, however, also has its own impacts on midtones. So now you're kind of double-shifting midtones. But, you could certainly set up some kind of system that allowed you to target acceptable results within these parameters, at least for most situations.

 

<p>Finally, don't forget that the goal for me is to use as much of film's capabilities as possible yet reduce my time doing post-processing. But I am not seeking to get straight-out-of-the-scanner results that go directly to the web or print via my inkjet.

 

<p>This has gotten kind of long - I'll gladly take this conversation offline if anyone would prefer, or if my methods strike anyone as hogwash :-)

 

<p>allan