[timbo10ca]

Hi all:

I have been slowly trying to teach myself Black and White photography and the use of a view camera for the past 2 years. I have been working with the Zone System, and trying to nail down my exposure and development system. Up until now, I think I've been hung up on the "shadows on 3 and highlights on 8", because my negatives always seem to be flat and lifeless, with no true black or bright paper white. Zone 3 seems to be too light and zone 8 too dark. I am thinking I am overexposing and underdeveloping. Or my perception of what the zones actually are is off and I am placing on zone 3 thinking it will be darker than it actually is, and vice versa for zone 8. When I look at a sample photo illustrating zone placement in John Schafer's Ansel Adams Guide book 1, there seems to be detail in zones 2 and 9, where I imagined zones 3 and 8 should lie. So my questions to you:

Are many people Selenium toning your negatives to achieve this detail beyond the "usable zones" (while placing on zone 3 and developing for zone 8 first)? Or is there actually some slight detail in zones 2 and 9, and I've had it all wrong?

Lastly, I am wondering how people get such a large tonal range in flat/low contrast scenes, and in scenes where the areas of bright highlight and dark shadow are too small to take a meter reading from. Do you place a grey card in the scene, select you exposure based on that, or a stop or 2 below (to compensate for increased exposure time), then really increase development? Or do you photograph it flat then use a high paper grade? I don't see how a high paper grade would work, because so much detail is lost in the shadows and highlights when that is done, and the photos I've seen have lost no detail at all.

Thanks,
Tim