Problems in "Zone System" land
A photographer can learn how things work by trial and error - shooting lots of pictures and trying to figure out what happened after-the-fact, or the photographer can perform a test. You design a test based on what you want to get out of it. I want to come home with a printable negative, one that gives me lots of opportunity to make a fine print. To that end, I 1) make a simple print on my favorite print paper so I can see how my print will look and 2) do a film test so I can know how much exposure and development to give the negative to get the look I want.
Zone system users will recognize my testing method but I correlate the information for picture taking use in a unique way. The end result is that, with the VIDEC system, after doing the tests, anyone can take photos and have a very high degree of assurance of coming back with a printable negative. The testing is a means to this end: getting good photos with the least pain. VIDEC and the Zone System share the same goal. I think I have the better mouse trap.
I plan a series of posts to reveal the problems I've found with the Fred Archer/Ansel Adams Zone System. They are manifold. It is not my purpose to bash the giants of photography but to explain my frustrations with all the prior exposure systems and show how I came to devise the VIDEC system.
Let's start with definitions. First and foremost is what a zone is. Among the authors I've read including Adams, Zakia, White, Davis, Barnbaum, Rockwell, et al list several, often conflicting, definitions. Further there are several different kinds of zones. For example there is the print zone, the exposure zone, the density zone, just to name a few. The conventional wisdom is that each zone in any of these incarnations is different from the next by half or double, that is, one stop. By actual measurement, only the exposure zone can make that claim. The others cannot be unless the transfer curve was a perfectly straight 45 degree line. No film or paper I know behaves that way.
It is ironic that, as digital photography has come to dominate, we still need to dispell so many misconceptions in traditional film-based photography. But dispell them we will. I invite your comments.
Copyright 2006 Andrew C. Eads
Zone system users will recognize my testing method but I correlate the information for picture taking use in a unique way. The end result is that, with the VIDEC system, after doing the tests, anyone can take photos and have a very high degree of assurance of coming back with a printable negative. The testing is a means to this end: getting good photos with the least pain. VIDEC and the Zone System share the same goal. I think I have the better mouse trap.
I plan a series of posts to reveal the problems I've found with the Fred Archer/Ansel Adams Zone System. They are manifold. It is not my purpose to bash the giants of photography but to explain my frustrations with all the prior exposure systems and show how I came to devise the VIDEC system.
Let's start with definitions. First and foremost is what a zone is. Among the authors I've read including Adams, Zakia, White, Davis, Barnbaum, Rockwell, et al list several, often conflicting, definitions. Further there are several different kinds of zones. For example there is the print zone, the exposure zone, the density zone, just to name a few. The conventional wisdom is that each zone in any of these incarnations is different from the next by half or double, that is, one stop. By actual measurement, only the exposure zone can make that claim. The others cannot be unless the transfer curve was a perfectly straight 45 degree line. No film or paper I know behaves that way.
It is ironic that, as digital photography has come to dominate, we still need to dispell so many misconceptions in traditional film-based photography. But dispell them we will. I invite your comments.
Copyright 2006 Andrew C. Eads
posted by Andy Eads | 9:33 PM
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