# Zone system



## Actor (Aug 5, 2009)

One of the criticisms you hear about the zone system is that you really cannot use it with 35mm and 120 film because some shots need to be pushed or pulled, and you have to either push or pull the entire roll.  As I understand it this is to control contrast on the negative.  But do you really have to do that?  I mean, variable contrast papers are sort of standard in the darkroom, are they not?  So why not just process the whole roll normally and fix the contrast in the darkroom?


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## CSR Studio (Aug 5, 2009)

That is the way it should be done in my opinion. Pushing and pulling should only be done in the direst of circumstances or when you are experimenting. I use the zone system all the time. 

FYI, you can clip the film and push or pull however many frames you want and not necessarily the whole roll.


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## ann (Aug 5, 2009)

I have been using the system sense 1979 and have rarely ever found the need to use anything but normal development, with the rarely being making negatives for alternative process and those where 4x5 negatives.

on the other hand , understanding the concept and how to view what is in front of the camera is very productive


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## Actor (Aug 5, 2009)

CSR Studio said:


> FYI, you can clip the film and push or pull however many frames you want and not necessarily the whole roll.


In theory, yes.  But if you want to pull frame 3, push frame 7 and develop the rest normally, isn't it kind of hard to find frames  3 and 7 in the dark on unprocessed film?


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## Dwig (Aug 5, 2009)

1. In order to fully implement the Zone System, you must be able to do plus and minus developement. With roll film (e.g 120, 35mm, ...) you must have multiple bodies or film backs to do this.

2. Using different contrast papers when printing will not accomplish the same result as plus or minus developement. It does approximate the effect, but is not a match.

3. Using a limited version of the Zone System where plus and minus developement are not available is still a very reasonable method to use in order to get near optimal results. It is the only thing you can do with color film or digital and in "ancient time" all you could do with instant films, like Polaroid Land materials. Even Ansel Adams dealt with this limitation when shooting the Polaroid P/N materials (e.g. Type 55, 665, ...) where there were only two processing choices, normal and normal plus selenium toning. The latter almost approached a plus one developement.

In my old film days, I lived by the zen of the Zone System. I first learned the simplified version built in to the calculator dial on Weston light meters (I used the Master V primarily) and later the full Zone System as Adams specified. In practice, I only very rarely relied on plus or minus developement. I had my "normal" development and used that for almost everything. My normal with Type 665 P/N was to selenium tone. I treated the ability to not tone as my "minus 1" processing, but rarely used it.


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## Torus34 (Aug 5, 2009)

1. You can get a simple description of 'Zone System Lite' at: http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/articles-interest/147250-b-w-film-photography-part-vi.html

2. If you must get yourself into a mess where you have to push or pull development, you've just given yourself the very best reason in the world for popping for a bulk loader and some reuseable film cassettes.  Go ahead and load them with short runs of, say, 6 exposures.  Shoot and process as required.

Piece of cake.

[Nb: If you have any questions with regard to the linked article, please feel free to PM me.  I have some small acquaintance with the author.]


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## CSR Studio (Aug 5, 2009)

Actor said:


> CSR Studio said:
> 
> 
> > FYI, you can clip the film and push or pull however many frames you want and not necessarily the whole roll.
> ...


 
Actually it isn't, especially if you load your film the same way every time. You measure.


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## christopher walrath (Aug 5, 2009)

I do not use the ENTIRE zone system as I primarily shoot 35mm.  However, I use all portions that I possibly can with every shot, every roll and every print.  I use it to determine the best exposure I can make given the light available, whether natural or otherwise.  I may make only a few photographs per roll if I decide I wish to augment processing.  And of course, the printing is the best of all.  I generally go through about ten to twelve test prints going through a gambit of dodging and burning areas to get close to where I wish to be.


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## dxqcanada (Aug 5, 2009)

You really cannot use the Zone System completely with roll film ... unless you use the entire roll for the same scene. 
Another way is to use half a roll ... then cut it in half for processing.

As some have mentioned, you can use parts of it.

When shooting the image you know how much zone shift is needed by varying the exposure. You expose scene based on what zones you want everything to fall into. The frame would be marked with the appropriate zone shift amount. Then during processing you would push/pull the development to shift the zones again. Then you do it again during printing.

You cannot get the tonal range just by manipulating the print ... if the negative does not have the range, you are just compensating during printing.


FYI: when fully using the Zone System with sheet film ... the results can be amazing if executed properly.


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## Actor (Aug 8, 2009)

dxqcanada said:


> You cannot get the tonal range just by manipulating the print ... if the negative does not have the range, you are just compensating during printing.


But surely the range of the negative is a function of the latitude of the film.  From Zone 0 to Zone X is ten stops, a range of 1,000 : 1 if measured in candles / square meter.  I don't think you have to   far to find a film that can handle that.  Try Ilford XP-2.

The mantra is "expose for the shadows, develop for the highlights."  Textbooks say to choose some shadow important to your composition and expose for that, then choose some equally important highlight and meter it.  If the difference between the two is not what normal development is going to give you, then make a note to push or pull the film.

But if both the shadow and the highlight fall within the latitude of your film surely there's no need alter processing.  You've collected all the raw data you need on your negative and manipulation of it can await the darkroom or the computer.

Now I would bet that most scenes cover a range of luminance greater than 1000 : 1, which forces the photographer to choose what he wants.  If he wants shadow detail then he has to give up details in the highlights.  If he wants details in the highlights he must surrender shadow detail.  What I can't see is how pushing or pulling the film (the negative) in any way adds more information to the process.

Please understand that the above arguments are not those of an expert but of a student trying to learn.


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## Dwig (Aug 8, 2009)

Actor said:


> ...But surely the range of the negative is a function of the latitude of the film.



It think you are using the term "latitude" incorrect. Either that or you really don't understand the Zone System. In the zen of the Zone System there is no such thing as latitude, that is "extra range to allow for error" or "tolerance of error".


> ...But if both the shadow and the highlight fall within the latitude of your film surely there's no need alter processing....



Again, you use "latitude" incorrectly, presumably you mean "tonal range". If the existing highlight and shadow do fall within the tonal range of the film you may still need to alter processing. If the subject has a 7 stop range and your film with normal processing delivers, say, 9 stops then simply centering the subject's brightnesses within the film's range will work, but it won't deliver the best tonality the film can deliver. Altering the developement to fit the subject's brightnesses across the full range of the film's possible densities will yield smoother tonality.


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## Actor (Aug 8, 2009)

Dwig said:


> presumably you mean "tonal range".


Let's do a thought experiment.  Let's take a gray card outside on a "sunny 16" kind of day and take a reading of the card.  Next let's take 15 shots of the card and label them -7 through +7.  Frame -7 is to be underexposed by 7 stops, -6 by 6 stops and so on, with frame 0 correctly exposed and frame +7 overexposed by 7 stops.  Now lets make 15 8x10 prints (the size of our gray card), likewise labeled prints -7 through +7.  Since this is a thought experiment let's grant ourselves the luxury of assuming that our print paper has infinite tonal range and any limitations come from our film.  Let's also assume that our lab does not make any mistakes in temperature, timing, etc.  They're perfect.

Theory tells us that print 0 should match the gray card.  Print -7 should be black with absolutely no texture.  Likewise print +7 should be white with no texture.  Furthermore prints -7, -6 and -5 should all be black and indistinguishable from each other whether by visual inspection or by densitometer measurement.  Likewise prints +5, +6 and +7 should be white and indistinguishable.  If this is the case then print -5 is Zone 0 (maximum black) and print +5 is Zone X (maximum white).  Prints -6 and -7 are blacker than black and print +6 and +7 are whiter than white.

If all the above is true then I would suggest that the "tonal range" of our film is 11, i.e., it displays 11 distinguishable tones, one stop apart, between and including maximum black and maximum white.  Anything darker or brighter cannot be distinguished from Zone 0 or Zone X respectively.

However, suppose that we cannot distinguish print -5 from print -4, and that we also cannot distinguish print +4 from print +5.  That would mean that -4 is maximum black, +4 is maximum white and our tonal range is 9.  How can this be?  Many explanations come to mind: 1)The zone system is totally invalid. 2)This is crappy film; don't buy it again. 3)The film speed _on the box_ is not the speed of the film _in the box_; 4)The camera or the meter or both are off and the actual spacing of the zones is not one stop; etc, etc.

At this point my train of thought has reached the switch yard and doesn't know where to go next.


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## Torus34 (Aug 8, 2009)

Your answer is to be found in the gamma, which is a combined product of film, exposure and development.


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## Actor (Aug 8, 2009)

Torus34 said:


> Your answer is to be found in the gamma, which is a combined product of film, exposure and development.


But gamma is simply the slope of the D/log(E) curve.  What's that got to do with ...

Ah!  The light dawns!

At this point I'm going to have to give the whole thing a lot of thought.


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## Torus34 (Aug 8, 2009)

Yup!

Took me a while to get my mind around the Zone System, but once you 'get' it, it's really not all that confusing.

[Hint: when in doubt, bracket!]

With best wishes,

Jim


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## Actor (Aug 11, 2009)

Torus34 said:


> you've just given yourself the very best reason in the world for popping for a bulk loader and some reuseable film cassettes.  Go ahead and load them with short runs of, say, 6 exposures.  Shoot and process as required.
> 
> Piece of cake.


You could load them for single exposures.  That would take about one foot (30 cm) per frame.  It may seem like a waste of film but, if my math is correct, you'd still be shooting less film per frame than with 4 x 5 sheets.  With 120 film you could probably cut your own paper backing and stick one 6 x 6 to it.


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## davidkachel (Aug 24, 2009)

For 120 film, expose a whole roll to anything at all, then develop it.

For 6x7, the distance from either end of the roll to the middle of the second frame is the same as the distance from the middle of the second frame to the middle of the third frame.
So just get some pieces of mid-weight cardboard (that is, not easily bent by accident) and measure out pieces that are one exposure long (from the end of the roll to the middle of the second frame), two exposures long (from the end of the roll to the middle of the third frame), etc. REMEMBER, that when you unroll the film, you are at the END of the roll. Reverse it before you start measuring to cut for development of real exposures.

Then if you shoot three frames for N+1 and need to change to N-2, skip frame 4 and start shooting at N-2. Take notes of what you did for how many frames, and use the appropriate template and a pair of scissors in the darkroom to cut through the middle of the skipped frames and develop the segments separately. You have to miss by greater than 50% to ruin a negative. It never happened to me.

If you shoot 6x6 or 645 you may need two sets of templates, one for cutting from the end of a roll and another for cutting from a previously cut segment. I never used those formats so have never thought about it before now.

Cut notches into the sides of all templates on both ends to indicate how many frames each template represents so you can easily pick them out in the dark. Two notches = two frames. Cut a notch into each end if the template is for cutting from the end of a roll for which you need two sets of templates (6x6 or 645).

This is much harder to explain than to do. Once you start measuring pieces of cardboard, you'll see it right away. It is as simple as loading film onto reels. One set of templates will last you as long as it takes cardboard to disintegrate with time.

You can do the same thing with 35mm but it is more tedious because of the smaller size and the fact you can't depend on the leader length being exact so you may run into problems but the most number of frames you can damage with each cut is one.

I did not use this method with 35mm, mostly because I didn't shoot 35mm, but when I did I would keep notes on what kind of images I had on the roll and pick a development time that on average gave me the best results for most of the negatives on that roll.

And for whoever said, 'you can just change paper contrast' or something along those lines... no; if that were the case and if contrast were the only thing at stake, the Zone System would have been largely unnecessary. Go to my web site: David Kachel Photographer, click on the history button and read the article titled "The Primacy of Local Contrast". There are others there you should read also, but that one is a good start.

The short version is that film and paper change contrast in different ways for different uses. Graded papers existed long before the Zone System so the argument that graded papers replace the Zone System is unsupportable.


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## Dwig (Aug 25, 2009)

Actor said:


> One of the criticisms you hear about the zone system is that you really cannot use it with 35mm and 120 film ...



Additionally, you seem to misunderstand the criticism and hence word your statement backwards. The criticism is not against the Zone System, its against roll film. You statement should be worded:

"One of the criticisms you hear about 35mm and 120 film is that it is difficult to use the Zone System when shooting these formats"

The workaround is to use multiple film backs (120) or multiple bodies (35mm), one for normal processing and one each for +1 and -1.


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