First LF Outing

[Carterofmars]

Well, I'm on my blackberry and posting after my first location shoot in the Warren county NY, home of Lake George. I shot the lake from 2000 feet using a Super Speed Graphic, and if two of the twenty images made come out decent, I'll be happy. I was using a 1 degree spot meter and was atempting to use the zone system. The sun wasn't too bright so the EV values were never more than 5 stops apart. Or so I hope. I metered what I thoufht was the darkest areas and then put that area in zone 4. The only worry - had was that - was double checking my settings using my Nikon DSLR and the meter reading seem to be different than my spot meter... For instance if the spot meter said F22 at 30th. The nikons meter said F22 at like 200! I tended to go with the spot meter. I hope all goes well. I hope to get one more day of LF in. Any suggestions?

[Scott Walker]

The Zone system is a bit tricky at first and it is easy to get values into the wrong zone, which of course will give you less than optimum results. If your spot metering is way off of what your DSLR has decided upon, chances are you have metered the scene incorrectly or you need + or - developing. Make lots of notes on how you metered and maybe do an exposure at what your DSLR thinks it should be, and be sure to spot meter the different areas to see where they will fall in the Zone system. With good notes and a little work the Zone system is an excellent tool. Personally I would tend to put the darkest area into Zone 3 not 4, (sometimes even Zone 2 or 1) especially since 5 stops would have your sky in Zone 9 and any small highlites that you may not have picked up with the spot meter may be in Zone 10

[Carterofmars]

Hi- I made an error when I indicated zone 4. I should have said zone 3 because I was decreasing the EV 2 stops. But, I think I may have done so with not with the absolute darkest areas, but the darkest areas I wanted detail,so I think my calculations were correct. Put the darkest area you need detail in at zone 3 and be sure your lightest areas are no more than 5 EV's away. I preety sure they weren't more than 5 but I'll see when the neg come back from the lab. This was my first field outing with the 4x5. I learned two leasons right off the bat: don't go with a couple of inpatient relatives and secondly, don't forget your note pad. I had to scribble notes on a napkin. Thanks fot the pointers. I will try to get one more session in if the wife, kids, and othe assorted realitives let me.

I think I need to find a LF photo club in NY to do outings with.

[cdholden]

There is a group in the NY area. They have outings every so often and post on this forum.
Keep an eye out for it.

[Brian Ellis]

A couple minor points. First, when using the zone system you don't generally meter the darkest area in the scene to establish your exposure, you normally meter the darkest area in which you want some texture or detail. The two may be the same but often they aren't. Second, unless your Nikon includes a spot meter mode and you were using it there's no reason to expect the Nikon reading to agree with your spot meter. The Nikon is presumably metering the entire scene, you're metering a small spot, and it's also presumably using some form of center weighted or evaluative metering which your spot meter isn't. So it's no surprise that you got different readings with the two systems.

I usually placed the darkest important shadow area on Zone IV as you did rather than on Zone III. I found that when I placed it on Zone III the negative tended to be underexposed. But you'll find out which works best for you fairly quickly. And of course you don't necessarily to it the same way every time. Sometimes you might want to place it on Zone V, for example if you want to make a high key photograph.

Most of the time you only need to make two readings, one for the darkest important shadow area to establish exposure and one of the brightest important highlight area to establish your development time. There's usually no reason to meter anything else because everything in between those two areas just goes along for the ride based on the exposure you've established by metering the darkest important shadow area. The only time I made more than two meter readings was when there was something in between that was very important to the photograph and I wanted to see on what zone it would fall given an exposure determined on the basis of the darkest important shadow area.

[eddie]

Yeah. Check the groups and meetings section. There are a bunch of us that go out most every week. I am about 2 hours south of you in Kingston. Come on down!

[eddie]

sign up here:

http://alec.com/mailman/listinfo/northeastlf_alec.com

[Carterofmars]

Thanks for all replies. Actually, I live in NYC and I'm taking a vacation up here by the lake, but thnaks for the invite. If your two hours down state from here, then your approx two hours from the city. So maybe I'll take you up on that. I can prob learn stuff in 15 min with a couple of veterans that would take me hours to learn otherwise.

Brian- I had the nikon set to spot meter and the camera on manual and A Priority also. There was a 2 or three value difference it seems. The only explaination is that the light intensity was changing so rapidly, but I don't think it was. I was meterting just the darkest area I was interested in having detail in and the sky. That darkest area was actually quite well lit so a question I have is if it is a well lit area is zone III still advised?

Another question I have is I can control the exposure for shadow, but I'm having the neg developed at a lab in NYC. How can I control the development times of the light areas?

Scott-Eddie thanks for your input as well. Very imformative.

[Carterofmars]

Any other advise is welcome. I'm going to try to get a few shots in by the Sagamore tomorrow morning sometime... I hope to at least. Even of I can't I think I'll take a look at the meeting section.

[Brian Ellis]

Thanks for all replies. Actually, I live in NYC and I'm taking a vacation up here by the lake, but thnaks for the invite. If your two hours down state from here, then your approx two hours from the city. So maybe I'll take you up on that. I can prob learn stuff in 15 min with a couple of veterans that would take me hours to learn otherwise.

Brian- I had the nikon set to spot meter and the camera on manual and A Priority also. There was a 2 or three value difference it seems. The only explaination is that the light intensity was changing so rapidly, but I don't think it was. I was meterting just the darkest area I was interested in having detail in and the sky. That darkest area was actually quite well lit so a question I have is if it is a well lit area is zone III still advised?

Another question I have is I can control the exposure for shadow, but I'm having the neg developed at a lab in NYC. How can I control the development times of the light areas?

Scott-Eddie thanks for your input as well. Very imformative.

With respect to your first question - no, you don't automatically place the darkest important shadow area on Zone III (or IV, or any other zone). You decide what you want the darkest important area to look like in the print and base your exposure on that. As I said in my previous message, if you were planning a high key print you might place the darkest important shadow area on Zone V, possibly even higher. The zone system isn't designed to simply give you a printable negative, it's designed to give you creative control, i.e. to obtain a negative that will allow you to make the print you want to make as easily as possible. The print you want to make may not always be a traditional "good print."

As to the second question, the zone system is best used when you're doing your own processing. I've never used a lab so I don't know what you'd do. Maybe you could find a lab that will personalize development times for you. If you can't do your own testing then as a rule of thumb N - 1 development time is 20% less than normal, N + 1 is 15% longer than normal. You could try giving the lab instructions like that, with N being whatever time they normally use. But someone who uses a lab and the zone system would be in a better position than I'm in to give you advice.

[Louie Powell]

To add to Brian's wise counsel -

The Zone system is a system of exposure and development that is integrated through testing. In most instances, Zone system development times are shorter than those recommended by film and developer manufacturers.

Most commercial labs follow manufacturer's recommendations pretty exactly. As a result, they tend to overdevelop negatives, and that leads to excessive contrast. This is not necessarily bad - for most people, having a 'snappy' print is fine. There are a few custom labs that will work with you to use your preferred development time. However, the key point in the previous paragraph is that you must do the tests to find your personal development time. That's an iterative process, and is why most Zone system photographers do their own processing.

[Carterofmars]

To add to Brian's wise counsel -

The Zone system is a system of exposure and development that is integrated through testing. In most instances, Zone system development times are shorter than those recommended by film and developer manufacturers.

Most commercial labs follow manufacturer's recommendations pretty exactly. As a result, they tend to overdevelop negatives, and that leads to excessive contrast. This is not necessarily bad - for most people, having a 'snappy' print is fine. There are a few custom labs that will work with you to use your preferred development time. However, the key point in the previous paragraph is that you must do the tests to find your personal development time. That's an iterative process, and is why most Zone system photographers do their own processing.

If my development should require N-2 then I should prob ask my lab if they can develop as per my instructions.

Thanks for the recommendation.

[Carterofmars]

I posted the pics from this outing in this same forum topic.