BTZS vs Zone? Incident v

[Kirk Gittings]

Well you're either tired or have given up on reason altogether.

Are those mutually exclusive? The zealots have beat me down.

[Jorge Gasteazoro]

Jorge Its not that complicated, you test your shutters and have them adjusted, you calibrate your meter etc. and every time you do a proper contact sheet you can see if everything is working properly. IT WORKS. It has always worked. It will continue working. It may not be as accurate as BTZS but it is accurate enough. GET IT?



Better for what? When I make a Z III placement it is because I want Z III shadow detail. Better for what?

Ah, test your shutters, calibrate your meter.....that sure sound a lot easier. I do get it Kirk, it seems us "zealots" are saying that the BTZS wont make you a better photographer, it will only make your crappy negatives easier to print, and you the "enlightened" one tell us we should use a crappy, mediocre method.

Since you are in each and every one of these discussions I think you should re think your definition of "zealot." Like I said, I have used your method, I know it's glaring faults, you know nothing about mine.

It is a shame that you in a teaching position and Simmons as an editor think this way........

[Eric Biggerstaff]

Jorge,

With all due respect, you should leave Simmons out of this one as he has no skin in this game.

[Kirk Gittings]

So let me get this straight. You do not test your shutters and calibtrate your meters?

And............I don't profess that my way is the only or necessarily even the best. All I have been doing is defending the fact that it works against those who completely negate any option but BTZS.

[Kirk Gittings]

So you get accurate results without testing your shutters or calibrating your meter. Really?

[Jorge Gasteazoro]

So you get accurate results without testing your shutters or calibrating your meter. Really?

Yep, there is a built in error factor in the BTZS that allows for variances in shutters. Of course if a shutter placed at 1 sec speed is working at 2 sec then the negative will not be as good, but since I have all the information in that awful and inconvenient palm pilot I can diagnose the problem right away. This is what I call an appropiate testing method, with your Picker test you have no idea what happened unless you have a shutter tester.... I guess you must be continually testing your shutters, otherwise how do you know they are firing at the right speed all the time? Or that from one shot to the next nothing changed with your shutters, I guess you like living with uncertainties like this....I dont know, to each his own.

[Kirk Gittings]

Yep, there is a built in error factor in the BTZS that allows for variances in shutters.

I am genuinely curious. You have mention this error factor before in a different thread from a galaxy long long ago. I don't understand this. Is it fundamentally any different than assuming some truely calcuable latitude?

Shutters. As a matter of fact I have not had to test my shutters in about three years, because everything is bang on. I had one of my meters calibrated two years ago when I had it Zone VI modified. This winter I will send both meters to Ritter to see if he can get them to agree. they are 1/3 of a stop off from one another which more than any thing else just bugs me. But I am fortunate in this regard as these are the same lenses and meters that we shoot commercial work with every day. Every day they get the Polaroid test.

[Michael Kadillak]

I am genuinely curious. You have mention this error factor before in a different thread from a galaxy long long ago. I don't understand this. Is it fundamentally any different than assuming some truely calcuable latitude?

Shutters. As a matter of fact I have not had to test my shutters in about three years, because everything is bang on. I had one of my meters calibrated two years ago when I had it Zone VI modified. This winter I will send both meters to Ritter to see if he can get them to agree. they are 1/3 of a stop off from one another which more than any thing else just bugs me. But I am fortunate in this regard as these are the same lenses and meters that we shoot commercial work with every day. Every day they get the Polaroid test.

Another thing to consider is the inducement of flare in your spot meter readings. Unless you consistently have an area to meter in your shadows that is at least three times (and preferably more) the area of your center circle in your spot meter, you are susceptible to induced meter flare that will adversely affect your exposure. When you are standing a distance from a photograph it is amazing at how often this condition is present in the field. While I may reach for a longer focal length lens to make a photograph, my spot meter has no effective magnification and suffers when metering in this regard. The incident meter "normalizes" these conditions and the wide degree of varied diverse and dispersed light that we want to make photographs of in the real world.

Folks are not trying to climb on your Kirk for the fun of it. We all greatly respect you and your work and the fact that you are a true professional in the business. However, the intelligence and knowledge of the contributing participants speak in concert that no matter our degree of experience we can all share and learn.

I contact print on fixed grade Azo and my objective is to do so with minimal dodging and burning and can tell you from direct "positive" experience that the BTZS in concert with the Zone system greatly enhances my time in the field. Finally I am able to control my exposures to consistently produce wonderful negatives. For someone that has a day job and photographs as often as possible (or when I can fit it in), this is a huge milestone for me particularly with the cost of ULF sheet film.

At the very least read the section in the Phil Davis book on exposure and let us know what you think.

Cheers!

[scott_6029]

Michael, great point on inducement of flare in spot metering. I have made this mistake. I will often get right up to the subject, if possible, to minimize this effect. But, when shooting large landscapes from a distance, this can be a real issue. So, sometimes I will take an incident shading the meter from the sun, or spot meter something close up that appears similar in shade/tone and shade it to see what readings I get.

[Kirk Gittings]

Michael,

I agree completely about flare and the falacy of the 1 degree spot. With experience one learns how to "interpolate" the reading of very small areas. This is not news to me. But it is not unlike some problems with using incident meter, like shading the meter from light bouncing off the ground when you are doing a shadow reading. How is that any different? Each has its quirks.

Michael look, as I have said consistently, I have no doubt that BTZS works very well, absolutely no doubt. Show me any place I have said anything like that. What I find hard to comprehend is the continued insistence by some people here that BTZS is so vastly superior as to render the ZS ridiculously complex or absurdly inferior technically despite all the decades of success people have had with the ZS and the overwhelming popularity of the ZS amongst participants in this forum (about 3 ZS users in some form to 1 by my rough calculations). It is this mischaracterization of the ZS that I feel compeled to counteract. If someone starts a thread on BTZS here I don't jump in and start going off about how superior the ZS is (though Steve does do this sometimes), but start a thread on the ZS and stand back-just watch what happens. It is not unlike the Pyro Wars, which I simply cannot fathom and usually involves much of the same cast of characters. I have seen great work done with all of the Pyro formulas (except Pyrocat, I haven't seen anything bad, I just haven't knowingly seen anything). It is clear to me that there are some advantages to Pyro, which at some point I would like to explore. I have sitting on my darkroom shelf a very expensive box of chemicals from Bostick and Sullivan containing Wimberly's, Hutching's, Sandy's and Rollo Pyro to test. I haven't had the time.

I have also bought the BTZS kit a couple of times and never got around to doing anything with it, because I am so damn busy (I work 60-80 hours a week) and what I do now works. I currently have one of their kits I bought last year. maybe I will have time this winter. I can't promise anything.