So this here’s a little technical post, but I feel like writing a technical post…even so you might just find it interesting. Ansel Adam’s Zone System is not as complicated as it’s made out to be. It’s about pre-visualization of a scene and the ability to get that visualized image to a final print, with no guess work. By splitting a scene up into ten zones, I-X (roman numerals for aesthetic purposes) one can then start to see the color world in black and white tones. Zone I being pure black with no hint of detail and Zone X being pure white, paper white, with no detail. Any given scene will have a range of zones, some spanning the entire ten range, while others may be severely flat covering barely 3 zones. How’s that possible? Well it’s all about light. A very ‘soft’ scene will typically be overcast cloud cover, no direct sun or shadow areas, mid-tone subject matter (think green grass which happens to fall at Zone V). I say soft to denote low contrast. For you digital heads out there the histogram can be interpreted exactly the same way. The more information on the histogram left(shadow) to the right(highlight) the more contrasty the scene is. Back to black and white. To read a scenes zonal range I use a 1 degree spot meter that I can look through like a gun scope and target very small areas of a scene. The meter reads these as exposure combinations. For example I read a granite boulder in the foreground, on the shadow side and it gives me an exposure of 1/30 @ F/8. What is that telling me? It’s telling me that if I then expose this piece of film at that exposure that shadow area will be Zone V, or middle gray and not the shadow as it looks in the scene. The meter is telling me each place I use it what the exposure is to give me middle gray, that’s all any meter does, even the quite advanced Canon 5D Mark III, it’s meter just reads middle gray. Back to our scene. So, knowing that the exposure given will yield a middle gray value for a subject I want to yield a darker, shadow value what do I do? I simply decrease the exposure. If 1/30 @ F/8 yields middle gray for that area in the scene, then 1/125 @ F/8 will yield a Zone III, or black with substantial detail. Two stops darker. Because Zones represent tonality, but they also represent stops. Zone I to Zone II is one full stop. 1/30 to 1/60 is one full stop. There’s a simple moniker that BW guys have been using for a long time; shoot for your shadows and develop for your highlights. After deciding we want that shadow on Zone III, we continue to meter the scene to find out what the highlights are doing, in this case they’re falling on Zone VI, or one stop brighter than middle gray, a little too muddy for my taste. While photographing you expose your shadows where you want them. That will automatically put your highlight areas on a certain Zone as well (In this case Zone VI). But here’s where the real fun happens. When that piece of film is developed, while it’s sitting there soaking in the developing tank, the developer acts on the shadow areas of the negative first, developing those fully within a minute, give or take. The highlights on the other hand take much longer, and the weaker your developing solution is, the longer they take to develop. So, by testing your film and developer (I won’t go into that here, but will be glad to offer advice and help to anyone who wants to test BW film) you can get specific times listed that will tell you when to stop developing to arrest the development of any highlight area. I know where I want that particular highlight to fall because remember, when we metered the scene initially we placed the shadow side of the granite boulder on Zone III, and we read that the highlight fell on Zone VI. But we want the highlight to fall on Zone VII, or a white with substantial detail. Based on our testing of this particular film/developer combo I give the film an additional minute of development to bump up that highlight Zone to VII. Because the shadows are already done developing within the first minute they’re left alone.
That’s it, that’s the Zone system in a nut shell. There’s a lot more intricacy to it, but the basics are; pre-visualization and control of all materials. In landscape photography there’s enough inconsistency in the scene that can’t be controlled; light, weather, clouds, etc. so there’s no excuse for not having full control of what you can, your camera, film and print. If those are not left to chance your ability to get good imagery increases tenfold. Chance favoring the prepared mind (I didn’t come up with that one, Adams did), but I use it as one of my photographic creeds.
I love this stuff, and if anyone wants to test BW film, or learn more about the zone system please contact me, I’d love to lend a helping hand.
Cheers All!
