Exposure systems

[ROL]

"Are you talking to me? No matter... why so rude?" I'm not shaming (your rude words) anyone. See how that works? Me thinks thou dost protest too much. Cranky! (see first post). You make my point that nothing can be said about traditional process and techniques without righteous indignation from those who will not, cannot invest in those processes.

OK, you're now editing your posts but I'll leave mine as they are. This wasn't about you, but changing your words is shameful and cowardly. You've made it so.


ROL OUT!

[BrianShaw]

One of us must not be reading/writing the same English language. Sorry to have interacted with you or your post. Have a good day, Madam.

EDIT: Dude, yes I changed it to reduce the potential for confrontation. I realized that there is no need for such. I have nothing to hide, nor to be shameful about. We just happened to be typing at the same time. So I repeat my original question: "Are you talking to me? No matter, why so rude?" To that I also ask... and why are you so confrontational? If your comment wasn't directed at me that is fine. Just say so. No matter, I will gladly apologize for ruffling your feathers. There is no need for that on this forum.

[ROL]

One of us must not be reading/writing the same English language. Sorry to have interacted with you or your post. Have a good day, Madam.

Wow, that's pretty sweet, honey. Nice cover.

[BrianShaw]

sigh. I'm signing out for a while folks. Sorry for this unfortunate interruption of a perfectly legitimate thread.

[Kevin Crisp]

This isn't a bad resource for starters:

http://www.kodak.com/global/en/consu.../techInfo/af9/

For me, I had no trouble understanding Adams' explanation of the zone system in his The Negative. Then I did the film speed test and development time test and that was all I needed.

[Bill Burk]

It ain't a chinese menu. You can't pick one or another feature of the system and expect to get any particular results.

I agree there are dangers when you pick and choose. My feeling is that the traditional Zone System is a complete system with basic flaws which just happen to cancel each other out. If you want to use the Zone System, as it was taught, then you need to do it all - otherwise its flaws MIGHT NOT CANCEL OUT.

You might take two different systems that make different assumptions, and cause problems (Specific example: Place shadows on Zone IV as Bruce Barnbaum advises + Shoot at "Half Box Speed" because it is common practice. It may work fine, but you can see that you will get more exposure by combining two systems than if you listened to one expert).

But if you are careful, I think you can take a step back and look at different techniques that have been taught over the years, pick the parts that work for you, and devise a system of your own. (Doesn't EVERYBODY do this anyway?).

The fun part here is figuring out what the different systems glossed over or got wrong (like flare), how they worked anyway, and how your system won't have that problem.

[Leigh]

The admonition to shoot at "half box speed" derives directly from the fact that the vast majority of photographers can't identify an 18% reflectance in a real-world subject, WRT a spotmeter exposure reading.

- Leigh

[Mark Barendt]

Another lable that fits the zone system is "industrial process". I'm not using that as a perjoritive, it is good to know what you are going to end up with when you start.

The zone system (or any other system) is just a specialized way of working, designed to get a specific type of output. Each system (even say mine for my studio work) can be very good at its task.

It needs to be said though that these systems are subsets of the whole, one trick ponies; there are other ways to shoot and other styles that are just as valid.

For example pegging exposure to the shadow point is only important when those shadows are truly important to the photo in question. For landscapes, sure that's normally important, for portraits of people the exact placement of the shadow point is often, in fact I'd even suggest, normally irrelevant.

A second example is the exact placement of the shadow point on the film curve as specified by the system. Having that carry through is nice, it makes for less testing and guessing when printing, it is great for standardized work, but, most negative emulsions have a significant amount of latitude. Excellent, almost indistinguishable, prints can be made across a fairly wide range of camera exposure settings without any change in film development.

[Mark Barendt]

The admonition to shoot at "half box speed" derives directly from the fact that the vast majority of photographers can't identify an 18% reflectance in a real-world subject, WRT a spotmeter exposure reading.

- Leigh

Nor where its going to land on paper.

That is why I am such a big fan of incident metering.

[Bill Burk]

The admonition to shoot at "half box speed" derives directly from the fact that the vast majority of photographers can't identify an 18% reflectance in a real-world subject, WRT a spotmeter exposure reading.

- Leigh

And I thought it just got you better shadow detail.