I don't know of anyone who agrees with placing anything on Zone VII!
unless it will be a very high key image! scary
I don't know of anyone who agrees with placing anything on Zone VII!
unless it will be a very high key image! scary
Well, I feel moved to comment. For the past five years I have been pursuing the technique of putting the highlights (eg clouds in full sun) on zone VIII and letting the shadows fall where they will. In that instance, one avoids blocked up highlights. Clearly if one is shooting in bright sunlight, dark objects in shadows will not show sufficient detail. I beleive this is unavoidable with just about any form of compensating development if you have 16 plus zones in one picture and simply represents the boundary of the medium. In lower contrast scenes, I place the highlight on zone VIII and print it down to the zone I want (I think one of the previous posts was based on the misaprehension that placing the highlight on zone VIII means that you have to print it as zone VIII - in fact Picker's technique is based on the fact that that is exactly what you dont have to do).
For the past four years I have been using chromogenic film (first XP2 and now TCN400). Pursuing this technique with this film gives IMHO superior reproduction in contrasty situations to modified development with silver film: the highlights dont block up but can in fact be printed through with enalrging time, not information loss, being the only constraint; the highlight areas thus overexposed are grain free; shadows retain contrast. Works for me.
Pat, from your response it appears that I may have stepped on your toes, for which I apologize. Like the rest of us, you are a contributing member of this group and want to share your knowledge and experience with others without being told you are wrong. My statement can certainly be interpreted as saying that using Fred Picker's method of exposing for the highlights is wrong, which is not what I intended to do.
I'm glad Pat responded, because it made me think harder about what I wanted to say. I completely agree that in photography there are many different techniques that give the same final result. Where I respectfully disagree with Pat is that Picker's exposure method is an alternative technique to the same end result. Picker's method is actually a simplified version of the Zone System that doesn't always give the same results as the Adam's version. As a physics professor, please indulge me with an analogy from physics. In order to describe to introductory students the properties and behaviors of atoms, we introduce the Bohr model of the atom in which the electrons orbit the nucleus at set distances. While this model is useful and gives some correct answers for atom behavior, it is not the correct model and is therefore limited in scope. To accurately describe an atom, you need to use quantum mechanics, which is mathematically too complex for an introductory course.
While the differences between Picker's simplified zone system and Adam's zone system are not as great as the physics example, Picker's method is still limited in scope. So I will state instead that I advise using Picker's exposure method with extreme caution and knowledge of the limitations. There are times when using Tri-X sheet film (which has a very pronounced shoulder) where the highlights are very important and the EV range is not too large that I will place the highlights on zone VII or VIII so as not to block them up. But if I'm using T-Max 100 (which has a very long straight line with no real discernable shoulder), I don't have to worry about the highlights blocking up, so I place my important shadows on zone III or IV and develop for the proper negative density range.
Sorry for the long response. I hope this all makes sense.
Chris Cline
Salt Lake City, UT
http://www.wcslc.edu/pers_pages/c-cline/cline.html
You can easily pull 15 stops into a controllable range with highly diluted dev. and long dev. times, I have a shot of a priest in front of his church, he has a bright white satin robe on in full sunlight, and yet the interior of the church has full detail. This surely isnt accomplished by reading the highlights and letting the shadows fall where they may!
Why do people voluntarily restrict their options?
Interesting comments. To take the physics analogy a little bit further: all Newtonian mechanics is wrong; Einstein proved that. Still if you build a bridge using Newtonian mechanics, you are unlikely to go to far wrong. My point is that no one is saying the model is the same, we are just arguing how "good" it is for every day use. Pointing out the difference, therefore, doesnt take the argument any further: we are just left with one correspondent saying it is good enough and another saying it isnt. Tough to resolve without going into the field together and doing some controlled tests.
From the philosophical point of view - "why do some peoply volountarily restrict their options". That is an excellent question. I do so because I find it increases my freedom. Just as working with one lens can liberate your vision, so knowing exactly how the zones are going to fall using Picker's technique can focus what pictures you take and what you dont. For me it works 90 per cent. of the time. The 10 per cent. where it wont is compensated for by the quickness and simplicity of the technique.
Having said that I would quite like to have taken that priest shot...
You make the mistake of thinking that the zone system in its entirety is too complicated and slow, the opposite is true, it becomes very intuitive and swift with practice. I can guarantee that anyone who is practiced at the zone system as Adams teaches can determine exposure just as fast, even faster, than those who use a "simpler" method as Pickers.
restricting your technique or equipment does not "free" your vision in any way, any more than a painter who says,"I will only use one kind of brush", this sort of nonsense is a plague that is common amoungst photographers and it is rubbish.
How can my vision be freed if the image in my head cannot be matched with a lens, how can my vision be freed if my technique does not measure up to what I see in my minds eye?
Many claim that my point of view shows an obsession with equipment or technique over vision, I find that the opposite is true. I use the equipment and tech. necessary to bring my vision to fruition and then I go on. I find the opposite view to be more about an obssesion with equipment/technique.
Look, this really does not yield to "right" and "wrong". First, the point about one lens (which is really a tangent) goes like this: you can walk around, look at the world and come up with the mental vision of what you would like to see and fit the lens to take it. If you can do this all the time, you are a very lucky man. It happens sometimes to me but like any other mental attitude it sometimes doesnt. With one lens you have to look for what might make a good picture: in some sense this constraint causes an extra effort which means one may see pictures one might not otherwise have seen - in arty shorthand this is considered as liberating. I actually do usually use a variety of lenses but sometimes I just like walking around with a Rollei 2.8F and looking for pictures. I am sure that I have taken pictures I would not otherwise have seen even if I had an equivalent focal length lens in the bag just because of the difference in mental attitude. Game theory shows that you can increase the probability of positive outcomes by restricting choice and if you dont believe in the difference in mental attitude that comes from restricting options think about Alexander burning his boats. Still try it for a day and if it doesnt work for you, forget about it.
As far as the Picker vs full Zone method goes, you are right (although I meant making notes, seperate devlopment etc rather than metering in the field) but I find chromogenic film goes a long way in achieving the same effects (albeit with more darkroom effort) and given I use a lot of roll film, that is a good compromise for me.
Chris, thanks for the consideration, I appreciate it. You lost me in the physics example though. I do have a question for you or anyone who cares to answer. I understand that there are 15 EV's out there, my question is how do you go about placing 15 stops on a material that is only capable of 7 stops? I talked with a Kodak rep today and he told me that all b/w films had a latitude of 7 stops and that included T-max. Now I do understand the idea of compression in computer files, but I also know that print paper is only capable of 9 stops, at least accordding to Ansel, zone 1 being black, zone 9 being paper base white, where are you going to place zones 10-11-12-13-14-15 and have them show as distinct seperate zones? I would like to know where Mark found this situation that showed 15 stops, no offense Mark but my meter has 20 EV values which have to be placed somewhere in the 8 zones on my meter, 9 if you count the 0, to my eye there is no difference between 0 or 1 or 2, I can see the difference between 2 & 3, so how do you get 15 stops, maybe its just semantics, but I am willing to be instructed. The other thing the Kodak rep pointed out to me was that none of their photographic materials were based on any Zone system, that all the Zone systems were setup by individuals who wanted to get a better negative than the one obtained by following Kodaks suggestions. Pat
This is an interesting discussion. I have used both approaches, having read the negative several times before reading Fred Pickers Zone VI Workshop, The Zone VI Workshop is a very easy way to understand the basic concepts of the Zone System.
I got in trouble a few years ago on a forum by repeating what a workshop instructor had said in that the Zone VI Compensating Developing Timer would not work down to 55 degrees as Picker claimed. Several people gave me the Picker advice of "TRY IT". I placed my developer tray in the refrigerator aand brought the developer temperature below 50 degrees and much to my amazement the print made at a normal temperature was very close to the print made at 48 degrees.
Fred also makes the claim that most all "normal" scenes will fall in an eight stop range. Well, I have "TRIED IT" and it is very easy to prove this wrong. Use his example of placing something something dark in the shade and a bright sunlit highlight, it almost always read more than 8 stops for me using several meters including the Zone VI meter.
Kodak has really come around in trying to give good information to photographers using black & white materials. Their approach is more along the lines of that from Beyond the Zone System by Phil Davis than that outlined by Ansel in The Negative. The idea is still the same, YOU must find out what your materials will do for YOU. Have Fun.
Jeff White
http:www.jeffsphotos.comindex1.htm
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks