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Survey on Zone System vs BTZS
I am just curious about who is using what. Don't worry, I am not constructing a Zone Wacko hit list. I am curious because it appears that more people on this forum use BTZS or at minimum they are the most vocal. I understand that there are levels of investment in these approaches, but give it your best shot.
Do you use the Zone System, Beyond the Zone System BTZS, no formal system, or something like the old YOB?
I use the Zone System at varying levels of complexity, right now pretty bare bones. It works for me and has for 30 years.
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Re: Survey on Zone System vs BTZS
Kirk,
I use the Zone System, similiar in method to what you do - very simple and straight forward.
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Re: Survey on Zone System vs BTZS
:) Hi Kirk,
You can actually use poll option to do your survey. I am using both.
So do four options ZS, BTZS, Both and Other - Specify in a thread.
My two cents.
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Re: Survey on Zone System vs BTZS
I have been using BTZS since 1995. And in the last 6 years without needing a palm pilot, just my field notes.
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Re: Survey on Zone System vs BTZS
Spot metering, no deeper knowledge of the Zone system or its derivatives. 15-20 years (I've lost the count) of work for stock agencies on two continents.
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Re: Survey on Zone System vs BTZS
I don't feel a need to control development on a sheet-by-sheet basis. I use a shaded reading with an incident meter set for a conservative EI to expose for the shadows and let the highlights fall where they may, then almost always just develop for a standard time determined for each film/developer combination. Once in a great while, if I've exposed several sheets under the same very extreme conditions I might push or pull a Jobo drumload by a modest amount to partially compensate.
FWIW, I've studied BTZS and have had the experience of working through its basic procedures during a visit with Phil Davis. I think BTZS is a superb system for learning practical sensitometry. I think it's better than the Zone System in that respect because it integrates all the pieces, including the understanding of film and paper characteristic curves and how they interact to produce the tonal scale, within a consistent framework. With that understanding, you can apply as much or as little of the procedural apparatus as you need to meet your objectives.
It's also clear that photographers who have figured out what characteristic curves are about and know how to interpret their ZS readings in light of that can use ZS very successfully.
As for Y.O.B., I've got Parry Yob's book on my shelf. I picked it up for a buck or so as a remainder maybe 20 years ago, worth it as a souvenir of the wacky early days of Petersen's Photographic magazine.
PS: In response to Ed's later post, I'm printing exclusively in traditional mode, on variable contrast silver paper.
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Re: Survey on Zone System vs BTZS
We need another bit of info: how are you printing? If you are scanning, then BTZS is not very well defined. I use a simplified zone system with incident metering, and scan my negatives.
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Re: Survey on Zone System vs BTZS
I have to admit that I've read Mr. Davis' book twice, and can't for the life of me figure out how it applies to photography... For all the folks who use BZTS, my experience clearly says more about me than about BZTS!
I use Picker's system, modified slightly: Place brightest thing on Zone VIII, make exposure, develop normally. Flip holder. Place same brightest thing on Zone VI 1/2, make exposure, develop N+1 1/2. Good choice of negatives, one with more contrast. Never fails unless I experiment and place 2nd neg on Zone VII to push the envelope. Only works sometimes. Proofs are gorgeous and negs print like butter. Even-numbered holders are always N, odd-numbered holders are always N+1 1/2. Almost impossible to confuse, and no notes required. More brain available for finding good pictures (and we established my amount of brain as "small" in the first paragraph...).
Close Enough for Photography, as we say in New England.
I've done the tests to establish proper ISO and proper development time for my developer and "house" paper, so all the pieces are trimmed up. It took one day's testing, and most of that time was spent aggressively waiting for negatives to dry. I have different development times for Azo, and follow a similar procedure for Azo 2 and Azo grade 3 with even and odd holders. Since all those are 5x7 and 8x10s for contact prints, there's no way I'll confuse development times with 4x5 negs that I'll enlarge.
I don't think I'd have the patience for the level of precision BZTS gives, nor have I found that such a level of precision is necessary. There are so many other places where error and imprecision can creep in, that it seems like those small discrepancies would run roughshod over the precision I'm trying to achieve through BZTS.
Now, will all of you please try to play nice?
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Re: Survey on Zone System vs BTZS
I use the zone system but I don't expose for low values, I expose for highs. I place my highest value that I want to have detail on Zone VIII and let the lows fall where they will. I believe Fred Picker called this Maximum Printable Density. The idea is, as I understand it, to get your values on the linear part of the curve. Since you can always burn or expand your low values down, but tryng to dodge a zone I up will just give ligher shades of gray with no detail. If I get in situations where I have 5 or fewer zones of light available I will place the high values on Zone 6.5 and develope them up to zone VIII. But to do this you really have to do developement/print tests so you don't over develope the high values out of existence.
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Re: Survey on Zone System vs BTZS
In the field, I use the BBZS (bare-bones Zone System), aka MCZS (minimum-complexity Zone System) (with a Sekonic L-508 or L-778), usually "placing" values for "normal" development, but making adjustments where really needed.
In the studio with electronic flash, I use incident readings, but double-check highlights with spot readings.
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Re: Survey on Zone System vs BTZS
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bruce Barlow
Now, will all of you please try to play nice?
... and miss all the entertainment? ;)
I started with the Zone System (Picker's book) in school and found it to be an easily understood and applied method, similar to replicating chiaroscuro in the drawing of form. I read Davis' book twenty years later and thought it was a bit over done since I subscribe to the k.i.s.s. philosophy.
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Re: Survey on Zone System vs BTZS
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bruce Barlow
. . . I use Picker's system, modified slightly: Place brightest thing on Zone VIII, make exposure, develop normally. Flip holder. Place same brightest thing on Zone VI 1/2, make exposure, develop N+1 1/2. Good choice of negatives, one with more contrast. Never fails unless I experiment and place 2nd neg on Zone VII to push the envelope. . .
Don't you ever want to do something other than make a "normal" negative? Don't you sometimes see a scene that you'd like to interpret as perhaps a high-key print in which the darkest important shadow is on Zone VI say? Or maybe create a dark, moody print in which the brightest highlight is on Zone IV or V say?
I'm sorry if that sounds argumentative, I don't mean it that way. I ask partly because I'm genuinely interested in how you deal with situations like that (assuming you do) with a system in which the brightest important highlight will always end up on Zone VIII and the darkest important shadow will always fall willy nilly wherever it happens to fall based on the brightness range of the scene. I also ask in order to make the point that I think we sometimes lose sight of the fact that Adams and Archer didn't create the zone system solely for the purpose of allowing us to make a "normal," easily printable negative every time. Part of the purpose of the zone system is to provide a method that can be used creatively, i.e. one with which we can make a print that interprets a scene the way we would like to see it as a print rather than exactly as it would look if we made a "normal" negative and print.
The zone system (and BTZS, at least as I think many people use it) allows that to be done relatively easily. I don't see how the system you describe does but I don't mean that argumentatively, I'm interested in your thoughts.
I also have to say that I'm surprised anyone who can work in half zones says he lacks the patience for BTZS. : - )
Sorry to go off on a tangent and away from Kirk's poll. I presently use BTZS for film testing (though I do very little of that any more) and otherwise use the traditional zone system. So I guess Kirk can put me in the "Zone System" column.
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Re: Survey on Zone System vs BTZS
Hello Kirk,
I guess your question is just for the predominantly B/W shooters. I shoot mostly transparency films, though on the rare occaissions I shoot B/W I tend to expose them in the same manner that I use for transparencies. So no zone system of any kind here. Oh, I did learn the Adams zone system in college, but have not used it much since then.
Ciao!
Gordon Moat
A G Studio
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Re: Survey on Zone System vs BTZS
Brian,
Thank you!
That is such an overlooked point in my opinion with regards to the Zone System. There seems to be an idea that it was developed to create a "perfect negative" that would "always" print well on a grade #2 paper, which is of course not true. I think it is sometimes forgotten that it is a very creative tool to allow a photographer to create any type of negative they want to allow them to realize an image based on their vision.
Thanks again.
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Re: Survey on Zone System vs BTZS
I'm strictly zone system - which doesn't restrict one who wants varying results. Normally you just expose for the shadows and develop for the highlights, as the rule says. But, if you want to place some particular object in a particular zone, you can do so and let the other objects fall in whatever zone they will. If the range of zones metered is too wide, you can negative develop; if it is too narrow, you can plus develop. The lower the zone, the less it moves with increased development; the higher the zone, the more it moves. Very simple. No need to complicate it unless you want to.
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Re: Survey on Zone System vs BTZS
I first read The Negative about 35-years ago (the small version) and first found a practical way to apply the ZS with Minor White's book about 30-years ago. Then I found Picker's system in the early 80s and stuck with that until recently. I hurt my back and couldn't carry my 8x10 for a few months. For a lighter kit, I pulled out an RB67 (yeah, that's a lightweight camera to me) and to further lighten things, I started carrying an old incident meter rather than a spot meter. I gave BTZS a try as I have sheet film holders that fit the RB67.
I've since returned to the 8x10 but I've kept the incident meter. Measuring the low light and the hight light seems to free my mind for making photos. Don't ask for a logical explanation - BTZS just seems to work better for me now.
Oh, and I'm printing the RB67 negatives on something else I thought I'd never use - Ilford MGIV.
juan
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Re: Survey on Zone System vs BTZS
For the most part... I use a spotmeter and The Zone System.
Primitively though! :)
Cheers
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Re: Survey on Zone System vs BTZS
Brian-
I don't find you argumentative at all with your questions. Here goes.
I want to get the most, best information on the negative, hence the high value is placed as high as I can put it. If I want a dark, moody print I'll shine more light through the negative when I print it. The advantage, in that case, is that I have spectacular shadow separation because everything is so high up the straight line. Print Zone V and IV shadows in a negative down to values II and III and they're lovely. Snow and ice? Reliably exposed to print as Zone VIII white with texture every time.
I haven't encountered a situation where I would want to deviate from what I do. I don't do backlight, and I don't do dingy rooms with a sun-splashed white church out the window that requires 342 zones to get it all with detail. Those just aren't pictures that move me to make them. So there's rarely more than seven zones in my life. Usually less. For fewer than seven or so: Do I want more zones? Or do I want to take it the way it wants to go and have a soft, delicate print (think of a birch tree on the shore of a foggy pond. No black there, and the fog has to glow without a trace of harshness). All that's more easily do-able in the darkroom, assuming that I have all the information on the negative. I WANT negs that are easy to print. Enlarging should not be a blood sport.
Placing a half zone?? It's a half stop. So after the Normal neg with the high value at Zone VIII, I close down a stop and a half and make the picture. It only fails if (when!) I'm sloppy. But when it's right, the choice of negs gets fun. Do I print the Normal neg thru a #2 filter? Or the N+1 1/2 neg with a #0.5 filter (the equivalent, supposedly, of grade 2)? The LPL with the VCCE head lets me dial it all in. And when I make 2 prints this way, they aren't the same. The contrast matches, but they're not the same. Counter-intuitive things happen, too. Snow and ice in bright sun? Often the N+1 1/2negative gives me more of what I want than the Normal one. I'm glad I have the choice.
It's all become so automatic over the past 20-some years that I can't imagine doing it any other way. My wife calls that "rigidity" and warns me against it in other aspects of life. She tells me it's a symptom of advancing age. But for exposure, it's simple, reliable, and repeatable every time. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
We're off Kirk's track. Did I answer your questions? Call it the Zone System or not, for me it's all about calibrating materials to get the best information on the negative. Once I have that, it's a lot easier to grind out a decent print.
Thanks for asking!
All best,
Bruce
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Re: Survey on Zone System vs BTZS
I use a method that's basically an "Inverse Picker" method. I first do the EI testing and figuring out my normal developement time (my N is about what most ZS practitioners would call N-1). Then for exposure, I place the shadows I want to carry texture on Zone III, and let the highlights fall where they may.
The rest of my process involves drum scanning and digital printing, which is why I don't care all that much how dense the highlights get, or don't get. As long as the negative contains the shadow detail, I can take care of the highlight detail.
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Re: Survey on Zone System vs BTZS
Like Gordon, I primarily shoot color transparency and negative, so I use a form of the metering/exposure half of the Zone System modified for color.
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Re: Survey on Zone System vs BTZS
So far a kind of varied bare bones Zone System seems to be a large majority, like 13 to 5 (counting the guy who used both on each side) and a couple of Zoneless People. However it seems many of the dedicated BTZS people have not participated, but neither have some of the ZS and Zoneless that I know partipate here too.
If this ratio holds true it will surprise me given how prolific the BTZS posters are here. I frankly expected the numbers to be reversed. I was beginning to think I was some kind of dinosaur using the ZS, but we probably all are to some extent anyway as LF users.
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Re: Survey on Zone System vs BTZS
My methods would most closely match Bruce Barlow's. I guess that is because we both consider Fred Picker as our main teacher. I use the "maximum printable density" for one negative, N-1 1/2 for a second negative for 4x5 (Tri-X HC-110 and enlarging paper) For 8x10 I use N for nearly every negative (TMax 400 in Pyrocat HD and AZO)
I have done both the Fred Picker Zone System testing and BTZS testing for TMax/AZO. I find them both very useful.
John
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Re: Survey on Zone System vs BTZS
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Re: Survey on Zone System vs BTZS
I kinda keep the Zone System in the back of my head while I spot meter. But I'm not real religious about the Zone System.
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Re: Survey on Zone System vs BTZS
All these systems are just different ways of thinking about the same things.
I think you should use the simplest, most transparent system you can get away with ... have as little as possible between you and what you're photographing.
For me it's a very paired down version of the zone system. On a day with consistent light, I often shoot first and meter afterwards, just to check myself. Once in a while the situation calls for N- development. Once in a blue moon for N+.
If I'm taking time thinking about any of this, then something's wrong. I can't even imagine what benefit I'd get from punching numbers into a palm pilot. I'm taking pictures, not targeting laser-guided bombs.
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Re: Survey on Zone System vs BTZS
I follow the "original" Picker method, as outlined in the 1974 book The Zone VI Workshop, but augment it with an InfraRed viewing device during film development - which allows you make a few changes when things don't go as planned. I'm sure Fred and Ansel wouldn't mind a bit.
For example, this image required an additional 35% time in the developer, under "semi-stand" conditions, to bring out the details in the fur of the dark-shaded dogs.
I just let the 4x5 TMY sheet film sit motionless in the bottom of the tray and develop, until the low values gained sufficient texture. Using Pyrocat HD, the high values stayed pretty much the same, due to lack of agitation and a sublime film/developer combination.
I can't really spell BTZS - never mind pronounce it - but I am eternally grateful to those who have used it to discover TMY + Pyrocat HD, and whatever else may "come down the pike", as Fred used to say.
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Re: Survey on Zone System vs BTZS
Put me down for BTZS, using a spot meter rather than incident. Wet darkroom, VC paper. Oh...and I'm a recent convert to Pyrocat HD semi-stand, TMX. This is as good as it gets.
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Re: Survey on Zone System vs BTZS
Just like Ulysses, I have bought several copies of Davis's book but never managed to read beyond the third or fourth page. Boring? Irrelevant? I don't know.
Hell, I managed to finish Proust who wrote about his pitiful insomnia and any number of hideously boring French theorists who wrote about nothing, so how come Davis and Joyce put me to sleep?
Well, no answers here.
I live a pretty stripped down Zone System life.
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Re: Survey on Zone System vs BTZS
I use a spot meter and a simplified zone system. I make sure the shadows don't go all blank on negitive materials and the high lights don't burn out on tranies. If it ain't on the film it ain't on the film.
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Re: Survey on Zone System vs BTZS
I measure the shadows. Unless the contrast is extreme, I develop for consistent local contrast printing on grade 2 graded paper - the gross contrast can be modified by burning and dodging when printing. Lost local contrast is just lost.
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Re: Survey on Zone System vs BTZS
Basically two readings with a spot. Shadows and highlights. Put shadows on zone 3 where I want detail, unless I want to do something different and blow out the shadows. Look at diff between shadow and high to 'get at' SBR and est. of development. Sometimes I take two incident readings as well, just to check and see if I am on track. I do DBI, so, I can do some adj. during development, if necessary. My negs are between grade 2 and 3 paper. Most of the time, its the image itself that goes into the garbage and its not the exposures fault.
I have another question though, what percentage of your negs are deemed, spot on? I mean it almost sounds like some of you are getting the perfect negative ALL the time?
I am probably not as 'scientific' as I need to be from the sounds of some of the posts.
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Re: Survey on Zone System vs BTZS
Scott, are you asking me? It is rare for me that a negative is not spot on, unless I am really brain dead and make some really dumb error like forgetting to set the ASA on the meter or something.
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Re: Survey on Zone System vs BTZS
Bruce Barlow said:
"Did I answer your questions"
Yes, thanks. We belong to different schools of thought. I try to get as much right as possible in the negative and not rely on darkroom technique to fix whatever problems might otherwise be created. Your idea seems to be that by making two negatives you'll get at least one that can be manipulated in the darkroom to make the photograph you want (e.g. taking a Zone VII/VIII negative and if you decide that the scene calls for a dark, moody print making a long exposure in the enlarger to bring it down to a III/IV print).
As long as your system works for you as it obviously does that's fine. I'm not a believer in the idea that there's only one right way to make an excellent print. And it could be argued that it all just comes down to where you want to expend your thought and effort, at the time the negative is made or at the time the print is made (though obviously my system doesn't always result in simply making straight prints, nor would I want it to). Thanks again.
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Re: Survey on Zone System vs BTZS
Quote:
Originally Posted by paulr
All these systems are just different ways of thinking about the same things.
I think you should use the simplest, most transparent system you can get away with ... have as little as possible between you and what you're photographing.
Exactly!
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Re: Survey on Zone System vs BTZS
I use the zone system. It works for me so see no reason to try anything else (at the moment). I'm currently re-learning how to previsualise scenes so that I get my zone placements right, after quite a while doing digital stuff. I'm getting there...albeit slowly.
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Re: Survey on Zone System vs BTZS
I use the zone system and found it very easy to master. After using it a couple of months I found I could determine the optimal exposure very quickly.
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Re: Survey on Zone System vs BTZS
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kirk Gittings
So far a kind of varied bare bones Zone System seems to be a large majority, like 13 to 5 (counting the guy who used both on each side) and a couple of Zoneless People. However it seems many of the dedicated BTZS people have not participated, but neither have some of the ZS and Zoneless that I know partipate here too.
If this ratio holds true it will surprise me given how prolific the BTZS posters are here. I frankly expected the numbers to be reversed. I was beginning to think I was some kind of dinosaur using the ZS, but we probably all are to some extent anyway as LF users.
Kirk,
I think your surevey misses the larger issues.
BTZS is not a system that stands apart from the Zone system. It is system based on sensitometry with many parts, most of which evolved from and still are closely related to what you appear to understand as Zone. All of my early work with sheet film was done with the Zone system, based on my reading and undestading of a 1974 copy of Fred Picker’s Zonv VI Workshop. After that I went on to the New Zone System Manual by White, Zakia and lorenz, which added a lot to what I learned from Picker. Hell, I even had one of those little VI viewing filters, which says something abot Picker’s ability to promote as well as my naivete at the time.
And the difference between BTZS and Zone is not in the method of metering because, as has been established many times, BTZS can be practiced with either Zone type metering with a spot meter or with incident type metering. And, as Helen Bach so appropriately brought to our attention, the SBR terminology of BTZS incident metering can also be used metering with a spot meter.
No, the basic difference between Zone, as you and many others practice it, and BTZS as Phil Davis teaches it and as many of us try to use it, is in the film and paper testing procedures, which are without question more efficient, more precise than traditional Zone type testing. There are three major reasons why this is so: 1) it uses the language of sensitometry, which is based on objective standards , 2) it is based on densitometry reading, which are more accurate and objective than eye-balling it, and 3) it provides a lot more data than can be obtained with traditional Zone testing.
Using BTZS testing is obviously not necessary to make great photographs. Photographers who grew up with Zone type testing and who use only one or two films are not going to benefit much, if at all, from learning how to test film with the BTZS method. However, young photographers just starting out who are interested in comparing the interaction of papers and developers in such areas as curve type, effective film speed, how to expose and develop for different N or SBR conditions, etc. would benefit greatly from learning BTZS testing.
After learning the method of testing you simply test the films you use, which takes about an evening, and carry on with life. In the field you can choose to meter with a spot meter or an incident meter. Either way, your film testing provides you EFS and development information for a wide range of conditions. And if you don't change films or developers you won't ever have to test again.
Just get over the erroneous misconception that the diffeernce beteween Zone and BTZS is about nothing more than a test for maximum black, or the use of a spot meter as opposed to incident meter in field work. It is not, and trying to put the focus of the discussion in that context is IMO a big disservice.
Sandy
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Re: Survey on Zone System vs BTZS
I shoot almost exclusively color. I think purely in f-stops, from range of film, highlights/shadows off neutral grey, to exposure compensation due to bellows factor. The "zones" are just a souce of confusion, like mixing imperial and metric system.
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Re: Survey on Zone System vs BTZS
Thanks, just trying to get a sense of 'spot on' or gettng a good neg. My question was an open one. I'd say most of the time I get it right (85-90% are very close, with the balance requiring a little darkroom work), unless I am trying a new film and developers. One of my issues on BTZS is film / paper availability....I.e. 7 x 17 sheet film avail. and AZO? (I am now looking for a replacement while awaiting the hopeful aging of Lodima). So, before I spring for the BTZS testing, I wanted to make sure I had 'some consistency' in film / paper combo?
I have used BTZS with diff. film TMAX 100 and diff. developer and diff. paper....I have used the paper based BTZS (not software) scale that works with both spot and incident. Since I haven't tested for the new film/paper combo's, I am using a 'simplified zone' system?
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Re: Survey on Zone System vs BTZS
Sandy,
Thanks for the comments. You are making this into a much bigger thing than I ever intended, but I understand your points.
As I stated, I was simply curious as to how people saw themselves as ZS users, BTZS or whatever, since it seemed to me that the overwhelming majority of contributers to these threads were proponents of BTZS. I have been amazed by the results for two reasons: that so many people see themselves as ZS users BUT ALSO that most of these people use such a pared down version of it that it might be all but unrecognizable to AA (this applies to me too).
That leads me to really only one firm conclusion,
That LF people like to identify themselves with the tradition of the ZS for obvious reasons but are really looking for a very basic and simple ("transparent" as Paulr said) method in practice.
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Re: Survey on Zone System vs BTZS
I put the darkest part of the picture on Zone IV with my Pentax Spot Meter, and then see where the brightest part falls. I develop accordingly, by inspection with any film except TMY. Call this what you will.
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Re: Survey on Zone System vs BTZS
I use the Zone System. I've seen the book for BTZS, but I've never bought it. I don't have the mental energy follow the whole thing. I meter for the extremes of the scene, low, middle and high values, assign zones to them, and make sure that the maximum info will make it onto the neg. I also will make notes to under or overdevelop depending on the lighting situation. I have a Pentax 1 deg spot meter that has been converted for Zone System.
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Re: Survey on Zone System vs BTZS
I use both. I have old ZS data I still use. When I started contact printing 8 x 10 and experimenting with numerous developers I found BTZS necessary. I also develop by inspection.
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Re: Survey on Zone System vs BTZS
What do you suppose Jacques Henri Lartigue used?
Ciao!
Gordon Moat
A G Studio
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Re: Survey on Zone System vs BTZS
I don't do black and white process regularly enough to do more than waste film on zone, although at least conceptually I'm familiar with it. What it did give me was good sense of film latitude and an appreciation of what to look for in front of the lens to match my film latitude to image to intent. That coupled with my spotmeter, I aim to place my exposure on the money for standard processing with my chemistry. I use zone concepts to shift the key values, but I don't play much with expansion or contraction. I'm sure that if I had more time and/or money to play with it I'd do more, but this methods gives a higher percentage of workable negatives that aren't trying to be salvaged.
Having recently discovered I can get superb scan results in BW from my scanner and good print result from the printer has created a whole new dynamic. That's almost scary...
I haven't read Davis' book. The info for incidence meters in particular sounds intriguing, as I have less confidence with the IM outdoors than my spot.
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Re: Survey on Zone System vs BTZS
I use the ZS as originally descrid by Adams and then siplified by Picker. I place the darkest area I care about in 3 and peg my exposure accordingly. I then see where the high values that I care about fall and adjust my exposure accordingly. After so many ears I rarely miss but that does not mean just a straight print. Burning is done on all negs, at least aroud the edges if not in other places. This does not negate the ZS at all. It is just another creative control in the printing process.
steve simmons
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Re: Survey on Zone System vs BTZS
I am a recently converted BTZS user. Out of simple curiosity I purchased Phil's BTZS book eight years ago and struggled with the concepts on the first pass. As a result it sat on the shelf until a little over a year ago. While I was out photographing with Sandy King, he graciously filled in some of the practical applications (as he articulated above) and the infamous "light" went on. I went back to the book with new insight and this allowed me to go back to basics and in about two weeks time I recalibrated my materials and have dramatically improved the quality of my negatives to the point that I am rediscovering LF photography. Reaching for the dodging and burning tools while printing are the exception rather than the rule (as was previously the case for at least me) and I feel far more productive within the whole process.
Having the Zone system principals to blend into the decision process is a great asset.
With my incident meter and BTZS along with the sensitometric information it has provided me with that I carry into the field I only look for the generic quality of the shadows in the scene to base the exposure on and as a result I feel that I am spending less time "metering". Everyone talks about how "quick" they can use their spot meter to get a low and high value. Well about half the time this was the case but the other half I was having a heck of a time with this iteration with certain lighting conditions. But maybe that was just me.
BTZS is a multi dimensional tool - not just another kind of meter to carry into the field.
Cheers!
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Re: Survey on Zone System vs BTZS
When I did my own darkroom work I followed the Fred Picker book more or less.
When I shoot color or lab-processed B&W I use a spot meter to set the highlights on the appropo Zone and let what happens happen. Or I add a fill card or lighting.
And nowadays I most often use the spot meter and Histrogram of my DSLR, plus my gut instincts. Which seem to work the best of all.
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Re: Survey on Zone System vs BTZS
Quote:
Originally Posted by steve simmons
I then see where the high values that I care about fall and adjust my exposure accordingly.
I think you'll find it easier to get beautiful prints if you adjust your development accordingly.
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Re: Survey on Zone System vs BTZS
I learned the zone system in the early 80's, and used it for two years during a time when I was very prolific in lf b/w photography. But I noticed that if I looked at the light and the subject, I could pretty much predict what the ZS would tell me. Really, it's just normal or plus or minus a little or a lot, on development and exposure.
As I often photograph around the house and yard, I can choose from many lenses in my cabinet, and that makes a big difference too. I'd never make the same guess for the Caltar II-N that I do for the uncoated Hugo Meyer Euryplan.
So today, it's pretty much instinct based on sometimes several spot meter readings to just a single average reading shot from the hip, and an educated, instinctive guess. I'm happy with my prints...