Need something that's about 50% of Beyond the Zone System

[sanking]

Some times, especially when on trips of several weeks or more where equipment and materials have to be packed carefully, I use a simple method where I just take an incident meter in the shadow areas where I expect to see texture and detail and follow that up with two-bath development.

With this method you just forgot about all the mumbo-jumbo about how to determine film speed and rate the film at 1/2 the speed recommended by the film maker. The most important issue in determining film speed, as Ken Lee mentioned, is not the way you develop it, but how you use your meter. If you take an incident metering in the shadows, and your meter is calibrated. you will always have sufficient shadow detail. And two-bath development will always limit contrast in the highlights so for scanning this method is pretty much fool proof .

On the other hand, I learned both ZS and BTZS and I still use in many cases the full precision of BTZS in film testing, exposure and SBR determination in the field, and development. I don't however, use any kind of PDA or computer in the field as I find this distracting and the calculations for exposure and SBR are relatively easys to make.

It is obviously not necessary to understand and use ZS or BTZS, or any system for that matter, to make good photographs. But understanding theses systems will enhance your knowledge of the creative controls possible with photographic materials. And once learned, even if you don't use ZS or BTZS in practical work the knowledge will still be in your head and it may be useful in the future.I found this always to be true of the use of LF cameras. The care in composition required by the use of these cameras has come in very handy in my composing skills with MF equipment.

IS BTZS difficult to learn? No, really not at all. The book may be difficult to wade through on your own but anyone with a good understanding of the system could teach you practical BTZS in an afternoon.

Sandy

[Frank Petronio]

Fred Picker's old book on the Zone System was simple and straight-forward. Once you determine your film speed for your standard development, then it is simply a matter of using your spot meter to put whatever is the most important aspect of the picture onto the Zone you desire. From there you can plus or minus the development so that you get more of the tones within the capability of the film -- or simply let the other tones fall where they may, even plug up or burn out as the case may be.

For example, used correctly you can set a backlit Euro face to Zone VI and let the background burnout, or perhaps set it to Zone V and pull the development to hold the background tones. That's the creative part.

Even with careful control, I don't think anyone is tighter than half-a-stop in real life, unless they photograph the same things in the same light time after time... I have to laugh at some people carrying measurements out several decimal places more than necessary. That is a big problem with practical math and engineering education right there - it is almost a personality trait.

Actually you can tell if you're roughly in the ballpark by watching the edges of your film. See a good negative and bunch of bad ones and you can tell most of the time just by sight.

All said, you can usually be a bit underexposed compared to a good darkroom negative if you're scanning, usually the highlight information is in the film and scannable - whilst many darkroom workers trash it and favor shadow detail. That's just style and peer pressure from all the overly-dramatic Ansel Adams influence.

And finally, while you want to apply Zone System principals to color, few color film photographers give a hoot about the Zone System and they don't seem to be suffering too poorly for it, they just rate their film a little lower than box speed. I never knew of any mainstream commercial photographers who used it, and I know of one well-respected professor at one of the largest MFA programs, the guy has taught at all the big workshops and dozens of college courses... and he just wings it in real life.

There are only so many possible exposures in normal everyday scenery - 1/125 @ f/8 plus or minus five stops - that after awhile you just know pretty darn close what you should shoot it at.

[Kirk Gittings]

Ditto Frank.

Fred Picker's old book on the Zone System was simple and straight-forward. Once you determine your film speed for your standard development, then it is simply a matter of using your spot meter to put whatever is the most important aspect of the picture onto the Zone you desire. From there you can plus or minus the development so that you get more of the tones within the capability of the film -- or simply let the other tones fall where they may, even plug up or burn out as the case may be.

And as Sandy and Ken point out there are many ways to adequately or precisely to skin this cat these days. The days of the "party line" approach to the ZS are more diverse.

[Bill Burk]

I crave more treatises that emphasize visualization, any recommendations?

I like the way Minor White stresses using Zone System depart from normal. His pamphlet is full of tagline-quality blurbs like:

"If the Normal Print is always thought of as a point of departure ... technique always remains at the service of purpose and interpretation..."

[frednewman]

Hi Scully75

You don't have to understand the BTZS book 4th edition to do BTZS. If you want a good introduction the BTZS Video (about 2 hours) is a good introduction and I always recommend watching the video before reading the book - it familiarizes you with all the technical terms.

Another way to approach BTZS is to do a film test with us. Our film testing service make film testing simple. I expose 5 sheets/rolls to a 21 step tablet with a calibrated light source. Send you the film - you process the film for 5 different times - 4, 5.5, 8, 11 and 16 minutes. You send me the processed film to be read on the densitometer and the densities readings entered into the plotter program. The plotter program does all the work. I can email you a PDF of the film test results. It's the fasted way to calibrate your film and developer combination.

If you want to use the results of the film test with the Expo/Dev program we can even program your palm pilot for you with your film test results.

You can do it as one photographer said to me - just give me the numbers. He never read the BTZS book - jsut did the film test.

What I really like about the BTZS is that I can get a beginner to get really good negatives right in the beginning.

I have a few videos on youtube.com on testing and using the Expo/Dev software. To find the videos you just do a search with the word "viewcamerastore".

You can also email or call me with questions.
fred@viewcamerastore.com
480-767-7105

Fred Newman

[D. Bryant]

Even with careful control, I don't think anyone is tighter than half-a-stop in real life,

Exactly what Phil Davis used to write on internet forums.

Don Bryant

[mikew]

Lots of great advice on here but I wanted to offer a few thoughts...

Using the Zone System and BTZS isn't about making "better" negatives, it's about the way you approach the medium - philosophically. But I'd argue that to eclectically pick certain aspects of either system, you have to understand its fundamentals first. There's no getting around that.

Personally, I've never found the BTZS appealing after learning the Zone System. I find much of the BTZS's directive unnecessary, though I can understand the effort to keep classical photography current. Unfortunately, however, you're not going to find an easy way no matter what anyone tells you on here.

What it boils down to is the type of photographer you want to be. I think of it this way: if you want to be a boxer, you can't learn to throw different combinations until you learn the mechanics of a punch; because if you try to step into the ring without the basics you're gunna get knocked out. So, in my mind, if you're not willing to spend the time to learn and work through such a system as a part of your process, what's the point? I'm just sayin...

Best of luck...

Mikew

[mdm]

The zone system is conceptually unsound. When you use +/- development to alter contrast, your effective film speed changes. Use the zone system by all means, but with the benefits of BTZS testing. The BTZS book is not prescriptive about how you meter. Mostly it presents a sound scientific approach to exposure, by spot or incident metering, and film testing. It is a squillion times easier than the Minor White, Zakia book.

[AF-ULF]

The zone system is conceptually unsound. When you use +/- development to alter contrast, your effective film speed changes.

It sounds to me like you are saying the zone system does not consider the affect of changes in development on film speed.

“In practice it will be found that while development modification has its primary effect in the high values, it does also cause some slight density change in the shadow areas. With contraction, the decreased development time causes a slight loss of density (and contrast) in the low values, and a small additional exposure should be given to compensate. For most films and developers, a 1/3 to ½ stop increase should be sufficient, unless testing indicates otherwise. Similarly, with expanded development, it is possible to reduce the exposure slightly since the low densities are somewhat strengthened by the increase developing time.”

Ansel Adams, The Negative, p.78-9. See also note on page 79 and page 93 for more discussion of this issue by Adams.

[mdm]

And what tools does the zone system give you to nail this down precisely? Pick your nose Mr Adams.