I understand how to use the zone system for my b/w photography...but now i'm trying to figure out how to meter for color and apply the zone system there. How do i know what zone yellow is, or what shade green should be? I just feel kind of lost, so if anyone has some answers, please help! In case you need to know, i use a spot meter.
I would take meter readings of the darkestarea I cared about and the brightest area I cared abut. You need to know the spread between these two areas iin the scene. You have to wor with this sprad nd the color film youve chosen. Most color ransparency films will handle 3.5-4 stops of contrast. You can only adjust within this range.
I translate black and white densities into color saturation. But, again, you hav to work within the range ofthe color film. You can not manpulate it as you can black and white films.
steve simmons
view camera magazine
Here's a link to Charles Campbell's zone system for color:
http://www.charlescampbell.com/chromazone/index.html
I haven't used it, so I can't comment regarding its efficacy.
Spot meter without regard to the color of the subject. Proceed exactly as you would with b&w Zone System work.
The difference with color is that you can't adjust the contrast of the various film layers precisely together. The resulting color balance will always be distorted.
Therefore, you must instead adjust the Subject Brightness Range to fit the film, using relector fill cards, sun scrims, different times of day (sun position in the sky) and different weather conditions.
Advertising professionals working on location use this method all the time. Especially for black & white. They adjust the light rather than the film development.
If you figure out what lighting looks best for color, then adjust your b&w processing to that SBR, your lab work will be simplified. And your b&w will probably look better.
I tested using a Kodak grey scale, taped to a 18% grey card. Metered on the 18%, and exposed normal (zone 5), and down and up 3 and 6 stops. I do landscapes, so I had the scale/card in sunlight. Use the kind of light you most often use! Measured the scale and card with a densitimeter, and the resulting negatives. Then I plotted the film density vs. the exposure zone. So I know where the film toe is (on my meter, zone 1.5 with Portra 160VC, and the shoulder about zone 11 or 12. So I place the shadows at about zone 2 or 3, and see that the highs fall less than zone 12 (only once anywhere near that high). One could adjust the ASA to put the toe at zone 1 if desired, for me knowing where the toe is is easier to remember. Much the same as the procedure as in AA's "Polaroid Land Photography". My only bad exposures have been blunders such as forgetting filter factor, or pulling the dark slide with the lens still open for fucussing.
Hi Heather,
Since you have very little control over the development process with color film, the simplest way to meter for color film, using a spot meter, is to place an 18% grey card in the scene and meter off of the card. Or, you can merely locate a Zone V area in the scene and meter off of that area. It is also a good idea to measure the brightness range of the scene (the number of stops between the darkest and the lightest areas in the scene). Color transparency film can handle about four stops. Color negative film has slightly more latitude. However, neither has the range of B&W film.
Steve didn't mention it but he has an article in the November/December issue of View Camera which paertially illustrates what he and everyone else have been saying.
A few further comments on Charles Campbell's ChromaZone system that Mark mentioned. I own it, it came free with my Sekonic L-778 a few years ago. I have read through the book several times and all I can say is that 1) it makes my head hurt and 2) it has pretty cards.
Heather, what I did early in my LF photographic life was to go to a Home Depot-type of store and get about a hundred colored sample chips from the countertop department. They are free, about 2 inches square, in a huge range of colors including lots of greys. Then I taped them all to a huge board and took them outside and looked at each of them with my 1-degree spot meter in various lighting conditions, and took lots of notes (i.e., "grass green" meters the same as 18% grey; pine green is 1.5 stops darker, etc.). That taught me alot about the way colors meter. My experience is that there isn't always something perfectly grey in a scene to meter from; maybe you are in the forest and everything is green; in that kind of circunstamce it helps to know how colors behave to your meter.
~cj
www.chrisjordan.com
Years ago, my wife and I took a very beneficial color zone system class with Barbara Brundage in Monterey. The class was kind of a blend of Jim Galvin and Chris Jordan's suggestions. It is a technique akin to learning a language. Exposing the colors in various light was simply to acquire a vocabulary of color, and an understanding of how they behave to over and under exposure.
I spoke with Barbara last autumn and I don't believe she is offering the class any longer because the advent of digital cameras has diminished the need for it. This was an intense three-day class where students first calibrated their meters (spot and in-camera) with tests of their favorite film used to expose a McBeth color chart. Film was processed and evaluated on a calibrated light table to determine how best to rate the emulsion for accuracy and latitude.
Then the students spent two days photographing various colors in various lighting conditions, front lit, back lit, soft lit, bracketing in 1/3 stop increments. Film was developed and analyzed, again to see where "accurate" exposure was and to see how colors reacted to being over and underexposed, in essence finding wiggle room for the challenging light of the natural landscape, where not everything is evenly illuminated.
She provided a chart of her own results with notes of how to expose various subject matter, such as backlit dry grass, snow in the shade, blue sky opposite the sun, etc. and suggested each student take their own notes depending on what subject matter they focused on.
Armed with the knowledge of how to expose the film to get each color to look like it should, and an understanding of what happens if you slightly over or underexpose helps one make conscious decisions in the field.
First step to taking a picture is to meter the scene to determine the brightness range from last shadow with detail to brightest highlight with detail.
If it was six stops and you were using chrome film, something has to give. A filter to knock down the highlights or a flash to open up the shadows helps to narrow the exposure range. But, often this is not enough. Next thing is to identify what color(s) in the scene are most important and, calling upon your color vocabulary, predict how they will behave if over or under exposed.
The cliff notes version is that certain colors don't have much tolerance to improper exposure. Blue is the most flexible with the ability to look "right" from zone 4 to pure white. Greens usually run from 4 to 6 depending on how much yellow is in them. Red is zone 5 to 6, yellow doesn't like to be below zone 6 otherwise it goes muddy. Orange is 5-2/3.
These figures all a relative to how they are illuminated, mind you.
I've always had a hard time seeing zone 5 in the field, and do a much better job of seeing my "6" from which I can check the other exposure values to see how they will fall. My Sekonic L778 has a wonderful feature that lets me set visual markers to show the latitude of the film I am usingthat makes this process much easier.
I hope you can make sense of this.
I must admit that it doesn't make much sense, but it is enormously interesting.
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