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
__________________ If only we could pull out our brains and use only our eyes. P. Picasso
Do yourself a favor and get this, 'Finely Focused: Mechanics and Creativity in Large Format Photography': http://www.circleofthesunproductions...elyFocused.htm
Have you tested your true film speed and development time as David suggested? If you shoot one film it may be worth some cash to have The View Camera Store do the film speed test and development time for you. They send you film, 5 sheets I think, with a step wedge exposed under controlled conditions on it, you process each sheet for different times send it back to them and they put it on a densitometer, run a program and out pops your film speed and development time (N) and N-1, N-2, N+1 and N+2. But it costs about $50. http://www.viewcamerastore.com/produ...products_id=82
You don't need a kit. The Nine Negative Test will pinpoint your EI and development times so close you will wonder why you haven't done it before. It is all done visually and needs no densitometer readings. Additionally it pinpoints it for the paper on which you are printing.
Cost? 9 sheets of film and 2 sheets of your favorite enlarging paper.
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Shoot a neg 1/3 over and develop for double your normal time. This will tell you what you need to know in an instant. You are most likely right, and you are over rating your film speed.
If you get a neg that really pops the way you want from doing this, you might want to re-examine your baseline.
Check your safe light situation as well.
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You don't need a kit. The Nine Negative Test will pinpoint your EI and development times so close you will wonder why you haven't done it before. It is all done visually and needs no densitometer readings. Additionally it pinpoints it for the paper on which you are printing.
Cost? 9 sheets of film and 2 sheets of your favorite enlarging paper.
So, how do I go about doing this? I've been doing a 5 minute prewash in distilled water before I develop my FP4+ (rated at 80) in D76 1:1 in a JOBO 3010 on a Beseler base and my normal development time is only 5 1/2 minutes. The other night I developed some film but it was nearly 80 F not 70 F like it was when I did my development time test and my film was WAY overdeveloped. According to the temperature compensation chart I only needed 3 minutes and that is way to short to do with any consistency. I'm thinking about developing without the prewash so I can extend my normal development time. Sorry to hijack this thread.
Ansel hammered the Visualisation part of the ZS, and we want to skate right past it.
Often, we get the densitometry perfect, but aren't visualising properly.
Minor White pressed the need to learn to see (literally) what your film/paper combination would see.
It takes a LOT of effort to learn how to keep the Zone 8 in your head,
especially when Zone 8 with, for instance, TMY & Ilford WT in LPD is SO different from TMY/Ilford WT in Dektol, or 120.
We really DO have to learn to see what the values are, and it helps having a reference in our hand to SEE what Zone 8, or Zone 9 might be.
I still keep a pack of 'zone rulers' in my camera bag.
See "The Zone System Manual" by, Minor White, Richard Zakia, and Peter Lorenz for details how to make one.
Last edited by df cardwell; 07-08-2008 at 03:32 PM.
So, how do I go about doing this? I've been doing a 5 minute prewash in distilled water before I develop my FP4+ (rated at 80) in D76 1:1 in a JOBO 3010 on a Beseler base and my normal development time is only 5 1/2 minutes. The other night I developed some film but it was nearly 80 F not 70 F like it was when I did my development time test and my film was WAY overdeveloped. According to the temperature compensation chart I only needed 3 minutes and that is way to short to do with any consistency. I'm thinking about developing without the prewash so I can extend my normal development time. Sorry to hijack this thread.
Scott
If you want this info send me a pm.
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Circle of the Sun Productions (Bruce Barlow) also sells an inexpensive kit to help you do the Zone System tests.
juan
This is what I've done, and have had the most success with. Obviously not enough success, however.
My problem with any of these testing systems is that off-black and pure black look the same to me, and the same for off-white and pure white. I thought I had the system down until I developed a bunch of negs from a recent trip and contact printed them. The "bright white clouds" were not glowing, and the "shadow detail" was more than plain to see, probably more like zone 4. I looked at a sample zone chart in the above mentioned book again, and noticed that zone 8 actually *is* a little muddy, and zone 3 is a little on the light side. The sample picture has a "zone 9" pointer to an area, and there's detail there- like I imagined zone 8 to be. This is one of AA's own photos, used to illustrate zone placement.
I also noticed that the film edge beyond the image is visible on my contact sheets- not paper black, as it should be (hence my judgement problem of "almost black" vs "pure black" during my testing. I obviously underestimated my proper proof time a bit, but the problem is too dramatic in the blacks to be attributed only to that. If I were to do it again, I'd have to make my own pure white and pure black paper chips made of the paper I'm using. The white chip in Bruce's kit is writing paper, and the "off-white" side is definitely not the same tone as zone 8 in the sample picture I'm looking at in this book.
I have read many books, and tried a number of techniques. Bruce's is simple, and many people have told me how simple the testing process is. It seems absolutely kindergarten to me in theory. I'm not a stupid person, yet this testing elude me and make me feel like a complete idiot.
Anyway, the point is that when I look through various books of photos, I see detail in the areas darker and lighter than the shade chips in AA's own book for zones 3 and 8 respectively. As an exercise, I go through books "placing" areas of the photo on zones and comparing to a zone chart. Hence my question for this thread. It really has nothing to do with my own photos, other than how I'm not getting what I've expected. I just think my visualization of what zones 3 and 8 are, have been inaccurate. I'm maybe confusing "noticeable detail" (zones 2 and 9) with "useful, informative detail that you don't have to look really closely at to see" (zones 3 and 8).
Tim
__________________ If only we could pull out our brains and use only our eyes. P. Picasso
Has the Zone System been lying to me? 
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