# Let's discuss your method of applying the Zone System



## 480sparky (Feb 18, 2015)

I noticed there's very little on the forum here about the Zone System.  I suspect it's because either everyone has it figured out, or very few understand it.  So let's assume the latter and rectify the situation.

I'm gonna toss out a candidate scene.  It's SOOC, and no editing has been done save for converting it to JPEG and resized for posting:







EXIF:

Exposure time: 3.000 s
Aperture: f/20.0
ISO equiv.: 100
A VND was used at about 6 stops for this image

So, how would _you_ approach this scene with your method/interpretation of the Zone System?  What steps do you take?  What gear would you use?  What media would you use, film or digital? What would your post steps be (developing & printing if film, actions and such if digital)?


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## Ysarex (Feb 18, 2015)

If digital then The Zone System doesn't apply.
If color positive film then The Zone System doesn't apply.
If color negative film then serious complications with color accuracy arise when trying to vary film processing times and use of The Zone System is questionable.

With B&W film I'd use a spot meter to determine the scene contrast range. I'd meter critical shadow detail on the rocks under the trees right side and then meter the diffuse highlights in the waterfall. I'd set an exposure that would record some detail in those shadows  (Zone II/III) and then develop the film to retain detail/tone in the diffuse highlights (Zone VIII/IX) for a print on grade 2 Portriga Rapid -- ah for the good old days!

Joe


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## bribrius (Feb 18, 2015)

out of my control. where it falls, is where it falls. i could b.s. you and tell you i follow the zone systems but realistically i tossed it out years ago the first time i heard about it as b.s.  Either you will lose your water speed, your shadow, your highlight, or your aperature.  Despite the balancing act i have yet to find a much for situations in which you can have it all. Snap and walk away.


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## limr (Feb 18, 2015)

I've never really understood the Zone system. I always thought it was just a way of gauging exposure, but reading Joe's answer puts another little piece of the puzzle into place.

So, the "zones" are various parts of the image that are lighter/darker - yup, got that. I was already accustomed to Sunny 16 techniques for exposing so I felt it was fussy to learn yet another way of referring to shadows or highlights just for exposing.

What I'm understanding now is that the whole process, from shutter to print, is involved. So referring to "zones" not only helps with exposure, but it helps to know how much you'd want to push or pull the development, and what you'd need to do when printing that image to retain the details wanted in both shadow and detail.

Do I have this right? More or less? I know it's probably more complicated that that, but I just need to write out the basics of the system to figure out if I at least have the foundation of it sorted out.

So how would I approach a picture like that?
Gear: Whatever I had with me that day. Knowing I might be shooting a waterfall, I'd probably bring an MF camera with me. Yes, we all know I'd be shooting film  Which film? Again, if I knew I was going to go for some shots like this, I'd probably load some Pan F ISO 50 or Portra 160, depending if I felt like color or B&W. OR, I'd grab the pinhole.

Set-up: Since I rarely shlep a tripod with me, I'd see if I could brace it on a rock. Small aperture, long exposure if I was going for the smooooooooth water (I think smooth water is pretty, but I also think it's way overdone, so it's not a given that I'd want to smooth out the water.) I'd probably meter the water and any other shadows I might want detail in, and work from there.

Post: The most I really do is adjust levels, so if I needed to, I might do a bit of fade correction (for color) and adjust the highlight/midtone/shadow levels.

Here's one I took with the Lubitel using the above method (there was very little post - perhaps a tiny bump in contrast. Portra 400):



rs Mini Waterfall by limrodrigues, on Flickr

Here's one I took with the K1000 and had no rock to brace the camera on, so I made myself into a tripod: (this one needed a bit more contrast boost, iirc. Gold 200)



Smooth water by limrodrigues, on Flickr


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## runnah (Feb 18, 2015)

I'll shoot either a stop high or lower than metered depending on what areas I want/can pull out in post.

So most times if I am shooting a scene with a diffused gray sky with little cloud detail I will shoot a stop darker to maintain details in the sky and use post to pull out the detail in the non-sky parts.


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## weepete (Feb 18, 2015)

I'd spot meter (with the cameras in built meter) the highlights in the middle of the waterfall and place them at +2 EV, then check the shadows under the tree were no more than -2 1/3 EV (if they were it would be mutiple exposure time) and then check some of the tan and brown colours on the trunks are falling around 0 EV (+ or - 2/3 EV or so).

So in my head the light meter is kinda split where the zones are different EVs


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## KenC (Feb 18, 2015)

Even with film the full-fledged zone system approach with altered ISO/development really only made sense with view cameras where you could develop each negative separately.  This is what Adams and others who championed the system were doing.  Yes, if you shot an entire roll in which every frame had pretty much the same tonal values you could alter ISO/development for that roll, but I rarely found myself in that situation.  Mostly I just used it to get either the shadows or highlights exposed correctly in a particular frame.


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## photoguy99 (Feb 18, 2015)

You can totally Zone System digital. The happy thing is that if you get the "development" wrong, then you get to do it again.

Meter the highlights and shadows, shoot for an exposure that will balance them around the middle per your taste (ETTR? Just half/half? ETTL? Whatever you like. But remember that you have something like 12 stops +/- to play with). You can probably just wing this step, to be honest, but if you enjoy

"Shadews at 20 candles peh meteh squahed, place shadews on zewn wun. Highlights at 5000 candles peh meteh squahed place highlights on zewn 0. normahl minus tew developmint indicated."

and then write all that down, by all means. It's definitely fun nerdy stuff.

Then do a RAW conversion with a suitable development curve to bring the shadows and highlights wherever you visualized them. You could probably do some presets in whatever your preferred RAW converter to do normal/+/- development.

(As for how I shoot, well, I wing it, and chimp a lot, and then fuss around in converters and editors until it looks right. Which is not the Zone System. At All.)


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## bribrius (Feb 18, 2015)

vnd would make me ponder....Not much experience with them...


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## 480sparky (Feb 18, 2015)

bribrius said:


> vnd would make me ponder....Not much experience with them...



It merely shifts the overall EVs in the scene.


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## Dave442 (Feb 18, 2015)

When I shot B&W I did not know the Zone System, but I would have taken a meter reading from a dark area and compared to the reading for the overall scene and might have added a bit of exposure.  Now with digital and having heard some about the Zone System I would still just use my matrix metering. If the water was not actually white then figure the camera is going to overexpose a dark scene a bit and leave it at that, if the water was white then I might have taken a reading from the area without the water and then added 2/3 stop. May check the image in the camera to see if I'm OK with the highlights, but more often will just bracket and then decide in post what I like. I will usually do the initial exposure using a mid f stop and then go to the corresponding f-stop and shutter speed based on the desired result, and in this case adding the extra exposure time based on the selected ND filter.


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## Ysarex (Feb 18, 2015)

limr said:


> I've never really understood the Zone system. I always thought it was just a way of gauging exposure, but reading Joe's answer puts another little piece of the puzzle into place.
> 
> So, the "zones" are various parts of the image that are lighter/darker - yup, got that. I was already accustomed to Sunny 16 techniques for exposing so I felt it was fussy to learn yet another way of referring to shadows or highlights just for exposing.
> 
> ...



The foundation of The Zone System is the fact that film density response to development is disproportionate. Codified it is a method to accommodate variations in scene contrast by taking advantage of the above phenomena. So often misunderstood is the fact that any given film will always have an ideal response to an ideal scene contrast and ideal development time such that Zone System adjustments although necessary when scene contrast can't be adjusted, always represent a 2nd best solution. In other words The Zone System is great when you can't fix the light, otherwise fix the light.

Increased film development causes density in areas where the film was exposed more to become disproportionately more dense than areas that were exposed less and vice versa. Pragmatically that means that exposure set's shadow detail -- more or less development has little effect on shadow detail. Development sets diffuse highlight detail -- more or less development has a much bigger effect on highlight detail. This is control access. The Zone System mantra was always "expose for the shadows and develop for the highlights." (Dissasterous approach if applied to digital).

The problem of Zone System application to color film is that you really can't go extending and especially not contracting development times. Color film dye layers form correctly with correct processing and so trying to use Zone System development variations is going to introduce color abnormalities. As such The Zone System was always a B&W film/printing process.

Joe


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## Ysarex (Feb 18, 2015)

KenC said:


> Even with film the full-fledged zone system approach with altered ISO/development really only made sense with view cameras where you could develop each negative separately.  This is what Adams and others who championed the system were doing.  Yes, if you shot an entire roll in which every frame had pretty much the same tonal values you could alter ISO/development for that roll, but I rarely found myself in that situation.  Mostly I just used it to get either the shadows or highlights exposed correctly in a particular frame.



That's why Hasselblads had removable backs. You just loaded up five backs with Tri-X and then marked them N--, N-, N, N+, N++ and you were good to go -- ah the good old days!

Joe


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## bribrius (Feb 18, 2015)

480sparky said:


> bribrius said:
> 
> 
> > vnd would make me ponder....Not much experience with them...
> ...


i have two or three kicking around here somewhere. Never use them. Don't know. I seem pretty good at winging it but anything new to the equation i have to stop and think. Film is different too, i cant just toss it on auto iso and look at the histogram and see where i am at. so if i start at f16 400 400 and have to account for six stops not really sure how i would deal with that to slow down the water and maintain exposure. six stops is a lot dropping the shutter and crossing ones fingers... six puts me at a 1/4 (not a option so basically 1 or bulb). Too draw out to 3 seconds not even sure how i would get there i am already at f/16 (highest film lens i have it f/22 i think) and running 400 i still dont think i have enough stops to get to a 3 second exposure for this type of photo. Again, where i get lost on vnd.


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## bribrius (Feb 18, 2015)

limr said:


> I've never really understood the Zone system. I always thought it was just a way of gauging exposure, but reading Joe's answer puts another little piece of the puzzle into place.
> 
> So, the "zones" are various parts of the image that are lighter/darker - yup, got that. I was already accustomed to Sunny 16 techniques for exposing so I felt it was fussy to learn yet another way of referring to shadows or highlights just for exposing.
> 
> ...


i think i would start with, i shoot slow water shots in the evening....


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## Ysarex (Feb 19, 2015)

photoguy99 said:


> You can totally Zone System digital. The happy thing is that if you get the "development" wrong, then you get to do it again.
> 
> Meter the highlights and shadows, shoot for an exposure that will balance them around the middle per your taste (ETTR? Just half/half? ETTL? Whatever you like. But remember that you have something like 12 stops +/- to play with). You can probably just wing this step, to be honest, but if you enjoy
> 
> ...



The relationship between film exposure, film development and film tone response does not exist when you expose a digital sensor. Extending the time your sensor sits in a tank of HC-110 won't have any effect on the data it records.

You can simulate all kinds of things digitally. You can simulate film grain in a digital image. You won't have film grain when you're done but you can have a simulation. There's got to be a reason for the simulation e.g. you like the look of film grain. You can simulate Zone System exposure and processing digitally as suggested, but for what reason. In this case you're conducting a simulation that produces an inferior result with no benefit. Zone System photographers use the technique to get the best possible result given less than ideal circumstances. Those same people using a digital camera still want the best possible result and so they change their technique to match the tool.

"Expose for the shadows and process for the highlights" is the wrong way to treat a digital sensor. With a digital sensor you expose for the highlights and process for the highlights, midtones and shadows to get the best result.

Joe


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## photoguy99 (Feb 19, 2015)

If you're a purist about what Zone System means, sure.

If you think that what it means is a set of ideas and methods which can and should be adapted to the materials at hand to manage the final result in a predictable way then you're me, or you just agree with me.

Adams was on my side, by the way.


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## Dave442 (Feb 19, 2015)

For me part of the process that is the same between film and digital is trying to determine the best exposure for a particular scene. I agree that in general I do not want to expose for the shadows in digital, otherwise I will have unrecoverable highlights (of course sometimes I go with that).  
Using the Matrix metering I find that I can usually add 1/3 to 2/3 of a stop to the exposure and then in post I drop highlights and raise shadows, but I don't have to raise the exposure. A bit of contrast and usually adjust the white point and generally more black. This would be what I would have done with the sample image given as I usually start there for a landscape in LightRoom. 
The Zone System sounds good as a guide for what one can capture with the available tools in order to make the final image. But how to learn to apply it quickly in the field.


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## Vtec44 (Feb 19, 2015)

Pick an object/subject in the scene, identify which Zone it's in, meter for that zone, take pictures, world peace is achieved.


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## pgriz (Feb 19, 2015)

With all due respect to Joe, I think the "Zone System" as practiced by club photographers, is a technique used to gain pecking order rank depending on how convincingly the claimant can refute the naysayers.  Claiming either Adams or Acher as ancestors or family add additional bonus points until disproved.  Allows the "wet print" guys to hold their noses higher than the inkjet print aficionados.


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## Ysarex (Feb 19, 2015)

pgriz said:


> With all due respect to Joe, I think the "Zone System" as practiced by club photographers, is a technique used to gain pecking order rank depending on how convincingly the claimant can refute the naysayers.  Claiming either Adams or Acher as ancestors or family add additional bonus points until disproved.  Allows the "wet print" guys to hold their noses higher than the inkjet print aficionados.



No argument from me there. A career in academia taught me the same lesson.

Joe


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## pgriz (Feb 19, 2015)

However, Sparky deserves a real answer.  In my case, I know (from testing) what the dynamic range is of my camera.  So I would spot-meter the scene and determine what is the dynamic range of the stuff that needs to have detail (both at the highlight and shadow ends).  If if fits within the dynamic range of my camera, then I would adjust my exposure so that the stuff that would normally go into Zone VII would be exposed at 3 stops over the meter reading.  I've got Magic Lantern firmware loaded on my camera, and it has a feature where you can get the value (0-255) of a particular point.  So using this tool, I'd put the Zone VII stuff at 245.  This usually gives me enough latitude to be able to get detail in the zone.

If the overall scene exceeds the dynamic range of my camera, then it will depend on by how much.  I usually squeeze another stop out of the image (at either end) when working with RAW.  If it's several stops, then some form of HDR becomes necessary.


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## Forkie (Feb 19, 2015)

I've never even heard of the "Zone System"...


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## photoguy99 (Feb 19, 2015)

Why do you need the value out of Magic Lantern, pgriz?

Can't you just spot meter the highlight, and then "overexpose" from that EV by three stops? Which you are evidently doing, so, I don't understand what the ML step is.


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## pgriz (Feb 19, 2015)

Forkie said:


> I've never even heard of the "Zone System"...



And probably not too many in the UK do either.  Here's your chance at notoriety! Forkie's Zone System as adapted to the UK weather conditions.  Following the BCU methods, you could then set up a whole organization to preach photographic salvation to the uncultured heathens (ie those outside the UK).


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## pgriz (Feb 19, 2015)

photoguy99 said:


> Why do you need the value out of Magic Lantern, pgriz?
> 
> Can't you just spot meter the highlight, and then "overexpose" from that EV by three stops? Which you are evidently doing, so, I don't understand what the ML step is.



In the end, it's the same thing.  However, what it does is take the reading off the JPG image displayed on the live-view monitor, and allows me to put the "sensor" anywhere on the displayed image.  I already know (from other testing) that if the brightness value of that point is at 245, I can see enough detail in it on my computer monitor.  And since I always shoot both RAW + JPG, I know I have some reserve available to me (from the RAW) at the high and low ends.


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## photoguy99 (Feb 19, 2015)

Oh, I see. Thanks!


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## Torus34 (Feb 24, 2015)

The lighting suggests we're dealing with overcast.  That compresses the brightness range.  I'd not bother with the zone system for this scene but rather take an overall meter reading and bracket.  I work in B&W film, btw.


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