Smalesy
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Registered: 04-2007
Location: Harrogate
Posts: 74
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Have I grasped the zone system.....
Or am I just getting more confused??
Can someone who understands the zone system read this and then tell me if I've got the general gist.
The idea is that if I'm photographing a backlit wall with a bright sky above (half sky, half wall) and I want to show the brickwork I'd do the following.
I would put my camera on spot metering and point it at the wall and then note what the camera suggested as apperture/shutter speed.
I would then ask myself where in the series of zones do I want the wall to be. If it was dry sandstone, I night say it wanted it to be zone 6 (one zone lighter than middle zone) in the final image.
I would then recompose the shot and then set the exposure compensation to +1EV and take the shot.
This will lift out the detail of the wall in the final image.
Have I got it or not? I've really struggled to get my head around this.
Thanks
Steve
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Nikon D200, D70s, F100.
10-20f4,18-70f3.6,24-60f2.8, 70-200f2.8 VR and a Rubbish Plastic Tripod!
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8/Aug/07, 9:19 pm
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martinimages
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Registered: 01-2006
Location: West Yorkshire
Posts: 4137
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Re: Have I grasped the zone system.....
Yes you are on the right track, but remember this first, to use the zone system correctly you must first calibrate your camera, and developing process, the reason being that your camera could be underexposing or overexposing, most cameras do this and its something we get used to and compensate in general picture taking, my new 1dmk3 i have found tends to underexpose by 1/3rd of a stop, so i now keep the exp comp +1/3 to compensate.
Visualization of mid grey is important, from that mid grey point in a scene gives the photographer a reference point of where to move the tones by exposure up or down, we can make a sky appear dark and foreboding or light and delicate simply by - + exposure, in your example above you are moving the scale down for the bricks by overexposing , the bricks then become mid tone and the sky goes to the lighter end of the greysacle scale
Here's a brief explanation how the system works, [whole books are written about it]
System calibration, establishing correct exposure and development
To calibrate you must take a series of pictures of an 18% grey card starting from minus 3 stops all the way up to plus 3 stops.
Then develop your film in say ilford 1d11, at exactly the right temp 20c, exactly the right time, when the neg is dry you do a print out from the exposure your camera gave as correct, then compare that with the grey card you photographed, if its the same tonal density then your camera exposure is right, if not you need to find the correct exposure on the negative strip, that way it will tell you if your camera is + or minus or correctly exposing, you see, if calibration is not correct then you might want to place the mid tones in a picture if the camera is out by 1/2 stop then the placement of the tone will also be out, also remember that changing film changes the way the zone system works, calibration needs to be done for each type of film used from slow to fast iso.
Martin
Last edited by martinimages, 8/Aug/07, 10:41 pm
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8/Aug/07, 10:39 pm
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