Multi-spot metering in b&w landscape

[renes]

Waht about scene reading with spot lightmeter when using filters for b&w?
Is it a best way to put the filter in front of lens to read desired scene?

[Gem Singer]

Hold the filter in front of the spotmeter.

Take the reading through the filter.

Place the filter on the lens.

Make the exposure.

I repeat, "it isn't rocket science".

[ki6mf]

I do what Gem Singer stated above. Sometimes I will meter a shadow that is near me as opposed to what is framed in the camera. This is used when the shadows are across a large open area. Also I do sometimes place shadows in zone 4 as opposed to Zone 3. I only do this when I decide that a dominate shadow needs to be lighter. I usually only pay attention to Zone 3 Textured shadows and Zone 7 textured highlights and dont go checking zone readings for the mid tones.

[percepts]

Waht about scene reading with spot lightmeter when using filters for b&w?
Is it a best way to put the filter in front of lens to read desired scene?

metering through filter will work OK some times and not other times. Depends on particular filter. Deep red filters are not good for metering through, especially those with sharp wavelength cut off.
Use filter factor as starting point for exposure adjustment.

[Mike1234]

Man, I'm hearing (reading) some really good common sense tactics here. Geez... where have I heard this before? "Expose for the shadows and develop for the highlights" and "meter throught the filter". What could be easier? Forget all the complex formulations and other crap. Just follow those simple tactics and WHEN you begin to notice any little imperfections then tweak exposure/development/metering/filtering to suit. For instance... development time/temp/dilution/agitation affects shadows too... just not nearly as much as highlights. All films are affected by filters in different ways. Meters read colors differently. Other little variations abound... blah, blah, blah. So if the "perfection bug" ever bites you in the arse then read up on that aspect and do your real-world testing with the ONE or TWO films and ONE or TWO developers you've settled on using the VERY FEW filters you use. But until that arse-biting perfection bug strikes just follow those two rules... "expose for the shadows and develop for the highlights", and "meter through the filter".

Ahhh... doesn't that feel better??

[Lenny Eiger]

Aim the one degree spot at the darkest area in the scene where you still want to see some detail. Close down two stops.

You have just placed the shadow area in Zone III.

That's the Zone System in a nut shell.

I'll add my 2 cents.... I agree wholeheartedly. I used to teach my college course by asking who would like to learn the Zone System in ten minutes.... The students loved it. I used to give them a card with 4 steps - read zone 3, read zone 7, calc the dev (+ or - to 4) and close down two from zone 3 reading to expose.

It was almost exactly what you wrote except I used 4 for the number of stops from 3 to 7 vs 5. It's totally arbitrary, of course, and doesn't really matter. I used 4 when I wanted to match to a silver paper, when I moved to platinum and ultimately inkjet, I used a much longer tonal scale (more development). I didn't change the system, just the development times...

I don't bother with filters... just don't find them necessary.... I can adjust all of that in the scanner or in Photoshop... or development...

Lenny

[Gem Singer]

Lenny,

Zone III
ZoneIV
Zone V
Zone VI
ZoneVII

Count them. That's five zones (stops)

[pocketfulladoubles]

This is a great thread for beginners. Thanks for all the input. Continuing on Gem's very clear response, I think it should be stated that different films will have different curves. You have to know your film and how it will respond down in the Zone 2 and 3 areas for shadows, and for Zones 7+ for highlights, and that simply takes experinece and/or testing. Once you have a good handle on how your film (and developing it) responds, you can use these exposure regions of the film's curve to adjust how you want to separate shadows and highlights. You can also manipulate this with pre-exposing the film and I'm sure other more advanced methods.

I'm a newbie myself, so I won't pretend to really know, but I'm hoping someone can elabortate on more than just 'shadows and highlights', etc. Isn't there a whole art to balancing the midtones (Zones 4 to 6) as well?

Also, I find using a #29 for viewing helps find the bright and dark spots in a scene. I think Adams used a #90, no?

[Lenny Eiger]

Lenny,

Zone III
ZoneIV
Zone V
Zone VI
ZoneVII

Count them. That's five zones (stops)

Five zones if you think of them as objects. However, mathematically,

7-3 = 4

When you meter I believe it follows math more than the other. If not, I'd be metering up until 8. It's a conceptual thing, tho', the number is meaningless. It's not an exact representation of much at all... A 4 or 5 stop range does not match to what the printing solution can do. There are compression options after the fact as well. In my new Zone System iPhone app, released very soon, I will offer a preference to set it to whatever span the user sees the number as...

Zone 3 to Zone 5 is important from an exposure point of view, but the range is only there to match to a development time.

I thought your summary was excellent, BTW, and I think you helped a number of people on this forum finally get it. It's too bad a one page book wouldn't sell very well (or for very much) or you'd really have something.

Just for fun, I will add one caveat. It's important not to get too anal about things. There are times when the zone system does not work as planned. There are many times when a student will want to test it to the max and try and bring down the light from a window blasting in to an otherwise flat scene. They may get the window in, but the scene will still be flat. That's an extreme example, but it also works outside, where one needs to look carefully at the light as well as the light meter...

And of course... it's easy enough to bracket the development as well as the exposure, or instead of it... something I would suggest for folks new to this...

Lenny

[Mike1234]

I agree with Lenny and some others here. Just get started with the simplest methodology. Only start tweaking when you know enough to know "sumthin' ain't right". As you correct those "ain't right" things then you can tweak more of them as they become obvious to you. Just fix the biggest "ain't right" stuff first and march forward.