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Thread: The Zone Wheel

  1. #1

    The Zone Wheel

    I cut out and put together the "Zone Wheel" from this site.

    As far as I know (I could be missing something really big here), I understand the Zone System and middle gray, etc.

    Now my question is this: How am I supposed to use this "Zone Wheel?"

  2. #2

    Join Date
    Nov 2003
    Posts
    1,219

    The Zone Wheel

    I believe it is supposed to be taped to the circular dial of a conventional exposure meter. You can set specific EV numbers as measured by the meter to desired Zones, and read from the dial where other EV values would be placed. There is a similar scale which can be taped to the cylindrical barrel of a Pentax or similar spotmeter.

    I use mine as follows. I pick out some significant shadow area and use my spotmeter to measure the exposure value there. I set this on Zone III (sometimes II) and then check to see where other values, such as the sky, a significant highlight, or a middle value lie in terms of Zones. I then decide what to do next, depending on the kind of film I'm using. Were I doing conventional darkroom work, if the range, as indicated by Zones was too wide, I would give additional exposure and less development (N- or N---, depending on the specifics). If the range was too narrow, I would perhaps expose slightly less and give additioanl development (N+ or N++). Exactly how much you change exposure or development would be based on testing you had done about how your particular film/developer combination works. In my case, I scan, so, I don't worry too much about the details. But if the exposure range is clearly way too large, I will develop less than normal.

    If you don't have a spotmeter, you can do the same, but you have to get close enough to different parts of the subject to read values from restricted parts of the scene. You can also use the Zone scale with a freestanding EV, f/stop/time, ISO scale.

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