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Thread: Picker on exposure

  1. #11
    Resident Heretic Bruce Watson's Avatar
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    Re: Picker on exposure

    Quote Originally Posted by Randy View Post
    ...#51, June 1987, he described what made very good sense - reflected reading of the brightest part of the scene and placing it on zone VIII - that's it.

    I have recently acquired an old Zone VI modified Pentax Spot meter and was going to give this method a try. I was wondering if any here use it, have used it, can think of any faults in this method.
    I have all the old Zone VI newsletters too. My reading of them is that Mr. Picker was enamoured with highlights. He thought that the highlights were what made a print "sing". I'm not sure I'd want to argue with him about that; he certainly made some beautiful photographs. So his philosophy of "expose for the highlights and let the shadows fall where they may" worked well for him.

    As someone who's more interested in the shadows that Mr. Picker was, this would bother me. In fact, when I moved to scanning my film, I created the opposite approach for my work. I "expose for the shadows and let the highlights fall where they may" instead. But in my case I'm not sacrificing the highlights -- they record just fine on the film and my drum scanner reads them easily.

    And that's my point here -- it all depends on what you value, and how you work. You have to find a workflow that does what you want. There is no magic bullet. Not mine, and not Mr. Picker's.

    Bruce Watson

  2. #12
    Randy's Avatar
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    Re: Picker on exposure

    Quote Originally Posted by Bruce Watson View Post
    There is no magic bullet. Not mine, and not Mr. Picker's.
    I guess you're right Bruce. I tried Pickers approach for a while, without a 1 degree spot, when I could get close enough to meter the highlight I wanted to retain detail in. I would place them at zone VIII and was satisfied with the results, but I eventually reverted back to incident readings. I will play with it now that I have a 1 degree spot.

  3. #13
    Peter De Smidt's Avatar
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    Re: Picker on exposure

    Fred was advising to give more exposure than follows from standard zone system practice, as with his suggestion the lowest detailed shadow values would often fall above Zone III.

    For example, let's suppose the scene has 4 stops of detail. Traditional practice says to meter the shadows and place them on Zone III. The detailed highlights would then fall on Zone VII, and the traditionalist would give N+1 development.

    Fred's suggestion is to place the detailed highlights on Zone VIII and give normal development, which means the detailed shadows would fall on Zone IV.

    Thus, I doubt he'd agree that he valued shadow separation less than regular Zone System practitioners.
    “You often feel tired, not because you've done too much, but because you've done too little of what sparks a light in you.”
    ― Alexander Den Heijer, Nothing You Don't Already Know

  4. #14
    Roger Cole's Avatar
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    Re: Picker on exposure

    Quote Originally Posted by Peter J. De Smidt View Post
    Fred's point, I believe, was that most scenes contain 5 stops of areas in which we want detail, and often there is less of a range. Moreover this was for roll film, where there were frames taken of scenes of differing contrast on one roll. If you place the brightest area in scene that you want to retain detail on Zone VIII, then the shadows will fall on Zone III or higher. If you place the important shadows one Zone III, on the other hand, then on the lower than normal contrast frames, the brightest element where you want detail would fall lower than Zone VIII, and Fred felt that the first option lead to better tonality, since if the shadows fall higher than Zone III, they'll have more tonal separation than if they fall on III.

    So basically Fred thought that giving the most exposure without risking blowing the highlights was the way to maximize image quality on rolls of film with frames of varying contrast.

    Notice that he said to place the brightest part where we want detail on Zone VIII, and not that we should place the brightest areas of the scene on Zone VIII. Light sources and specular highlights would fall higher than Zone VIII.

    I used this system for years with roll film, and it worked well.
    This would make more sense with traditional style films that have a very definite S curve response. Modern T-grain films and even the "semi-modern" evolved older films like FP4+ and (from what I've seen though not systematically tested) modern Tri-X will record a lot higher than VIII without blowing out highlights. The detail will be there at higher exposures, if you can print it.

    If this was written in 87, I wonder what he might have thought using modern TMY or TMX?

  5. #15
    8x10, 5x7, 4x5, et al Leigh's Avatar
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    Re: Picker on exposure

    If it ain't on the negative, you can't print it.

    This argues for exposing based on shadow detail. The minimum usable density above base+fog is ensured by this method.

    Highlights can be corrected after exposure in various ways, including compensating developers, development time adjustment, and use of graded papers.

    But if the shadow detail ain't there, it ain't there, period.

    I always spot-meter on a detailed shadow and close down two stops. Quick, easy, and nary a problem.

    As an example... I recently did a series on a mansion in Baltimore, in bright mid-day sun.
    Metered the porch, which was fully in shadow yet certainly had ample detail, and closed down two. Came out fine.

    - Leigh

  6. #16

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    Re: Picker on exposure

    Well, Fred Picker believed in Kodak Tri-X Pan. He had little good to say about the new TMax 400 (like many of us then). He also didn't shoot long-scale subjects, and often advocated underexposing a duplicate sheet and developing it to 'plus 1-1/2', in order to have two negatives of differing contrast for more choices in printing. Idiosyncratic...
    But I tried the 'Zone VIII' method and it works fine for scenes of 'normal' brightness range. Turns out that in my work there are a lot of those.... Since I don't believe in any single 'method', with a long-scale scene, I'll see where the shadows fall and make sure not to underexpose.

  7. #17
    Roger Cole's Avatar
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    Re: Picker on exposure

    Quote Originally Posted by Mark Sampson View Post
    Well, Fred Picker believed in Kodak Tri-X Pan. He had little good to say about the new TMax 400 (like many of us then). He also didn't shoot long-scale subjects, and often advocated underexposing a duplicate sheet and developing it to 'plus 1-1/2', in order to have two negatives of differing contrast for more choices in printing. Idiosyncratic...
    But I tried the 'Zone VIII' method and it works fine for scenes of 'normal' brightness range. Turns out that in my work there are a lot of those.... Since I don't believe in any single 'method', with a long-scale scene, I'll see where the shadows fall and make sure not to underexpose.
    Well yeah, and that would be TXP (320) Tri-X at that, no? It's a film I admit I have never shot in my life, since I started out in 4x5 in the T-grain days (though I did use APX 100 - wonderful film.) I believe TXP has more shoulder than even TXT, doesn't it?

    It really sounds like a method invented by someone who, as you said, didn't shoot long range subjects AND was probably working with a film with a pronounced shoulder. For that combination it makes perfect sense and I imagine would work very well.

  8. #18

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    Re: Picker on exposure

    Quote Originally Posted by Peter J. De Smidt View Post
    ...Fred's suggestion is to place the detailed highlights on Zone VIII and give normal development, which means the detailed shadows would fall on Zone IV...
    My bargain collection goes from 50 to 52, so I can't say for sure.

    I think that may be where he was going with it. I certainly don't think he intended to plunge important shadows into darkness. I think in one of his newsletters he said he hardly ever did N-1 development anymore. So maybe he was finding his scenes in the normal range.

    He had a few hare-brained ideas like punching noisy kids on airplanes, but that makes his newsletters as fun to read as these forums. [Does anyone understand his "Key Stop" concept?]

  9. #19
    8x10, 5x7, 4x5, et al Leigh's Avatar
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    Re: Picker on exposure

    I think the "key stop" thing was based on the idea that there's one optimum aperture for any given lens, so you set that and adjust the shutter speed.

    I generally do this, with most lenses at f/16 or f/22 when other considerations permit.

    - Leigh

  10. #20

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    Re: Picker on exposure

    Quote Originally Posted by Peter J. De Smidt View Post
    Fred's point, I believe, was that most scenes contain 5 stops of areas in which we want detail, and often there is less of a range. Moreover this was for roll film, where there were frames taken of scenes of differing contrast on one roll. If you place the brightest area in scene that you want to retain detail on Zone VIII, then the shadows will fall on Zone III or higher. If you place the important shadows one Zone III, on the other hand, then on the lower than normal contrast frames, the brightest element where you want detail would fall lower than Zone VIII, and Fred felt that the first option lead to better tonality, since if the shadows fall higher than Zone III, they'll have more tonal separation than if they fall on III.

    So basically Fred thought that giving the most exposure without risking blowing the highlights was the way to maximize image quality on rolls of film with frames of varying contrast.

    Notice that he said to place the brightest part where we want detail on Zone VIII, and not that we should place the brightest areas of the scene on Zone VIII. Light sources and specular highlights would fall higher than Zone VIII.

    I used this system for years with roll film, and it worked well.
    Peter is exactly correct regarding Picker's advice. I've done it that way and it works for most daylight scenes once the proper normal development time is determined. Add filter factor and expose. Negatives are usually very easy to print.

    Picker noted that a Zone VIII placement is all that was needed and the shadows and midtones fell into place. It sounds simple but it works very well.

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