From: geoff@pmafire.inel.gov (Geoff Allen)
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 93 23:18:51 GMT
Organization: Roller Coaster fanatic with no hope for a cure
Subject: Re: Zone System {Re: Ansel Adams,etc.}
Summary: The Zone System is not evil, nor does it hamper ``art''.  Really!
Followup-To: 
Organization: Roller Coaster fanatic with no hope for a cure
Keywords: 

I don't know if my doing this will benefit anyone, but....

kcarroll@koko.pathology.washington.edu (Kris Carroll) writes:
>In article <1993Jan26.023715.24683@organpipe.uug.arizona.edu>  
>corleyj@helium.gas.uug.arizona.edu (Jason D Corley ) writes:
>> What is the damned zone system?  Why is it damned?  Enlighten a poor,
>> culture-illiterate scientist...
>> ;-)
>
>Sigh, let's see how badly I can embarass the prof who taught this to me.
>Adams believed any silver image was created in the making of the negative.  

No.  He sought the goal of making the print that he envisioned (which he
called pre-visualization -- having the final photograph in mind when
making the exposure).  The print starts with the negative.  So, one
would like to make a negative which will provide the easiest time of
making the desired print.  Adams compared the negative to a musical
score and the print to the performance.  (He was planning to be a
classical pianist before photography diverted his course.)

>Therefore, some system of measuring (hence the need for a light meter,  
>hand held of course) of the tonal ranges from shadow to hightlight was  
>needed.

You speak rather condescendingly of the idea of measuring the light
values of the photographic subject.  Why?  The idea is to know what the
various intensities are so one will be able to determine (and control)
how they will be recorded in the final photograph.

>Conventional wisdom says expose the negative for the shadows,  
>develop it (convert the silver to the proper density) for the highlights.  

This is the standard one-sentence description of the procedure, but of
course, there is more to it.

>Keep in mind that the natural tonal range of say a landscape would be  
>longer (more tones) than the film could record. 

Actually, black and white film is quite capable of recording most
scenes, and may in some cases even require what is called ``expansion''
because the contrast range is too low for the intended result.  Color
negative film is also pretty good at recording things.  It's only color
transperancy film that has problems with ordinary scenes.

>So, with planning and a  
>system, the photographer controls what area of landscape fall into what  
>tonal range of the negative and shortens that range when deciding on  
>developer intensity and time. When the negative is printed dense black =  
>Zone 0, Zone 1 is black areas but with detail remaing, Zone 5 = mid grey,  
>Zone 8 is white that retains detail. The Zone steps black to white are  
>0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9. (In the world of printing and presses this scale is  
>reversed.) 

This is a pretty accurate description of the theory behind the Zone
System (though roman numerals are generally used to designate the zones,
for whatever reason).

>Ideally, there should be no area as black black, or white  
>white without any detail at all. 

Not necessarily.  If you want a print that only shows from Zones III
through VI, then so be it.  If you want a huge black area in the print,
go for it.  The Zone System is merely a tool to enable the photographer
to get the results that he/she wants.  No more, no less. 

>This perfect 4x5, 8x10, 11x14 negative  
>contact printed renders clear area black on paper, dense areas of silver  
>would print whitish. Still with me? I'm lost.

There's no law that says it has to be a 4x5, 8x10 or 11x14 or that it
has to be contact printed.  Most are enlarged (it's kind of tough to
carry around a 16x20 camera ;^) ).

>Also plan for a dust free, clean neg and print. 

Do you *like* white splotches on your photographs (black, if printing
from a transparency)?

>Somewhere in all of this technocrap, try to produce a  
>aestetically viable image. Many followers of the Zone Facists League  
>believe that this "pure" technique" is the only real photography. 

Well, perhaps some ``Zone Facists'' think this, but Adams merely used
the technique as a *means* to the end of producing the photographs that
he intended to produce.  What's the difference between a photographer
knowing about the materials and their properties and a painter knowing
about the various effects of using oil or watercolors, or a sculptor
knowing about various materials and various ways of working them?  The
goal is to produce what is in the artist's mind.  Photography may be a
more tehnical/scientific pursuit than painting, but I don't see why that
invalidates it.

>No color, 

Adams did color.  He didn't care for it as his primary medium, but he
did color, and said the Zone System was ``invaluable'' for color
photography.

Color materials aren't as pliable to manipulation as black and white
materials, which is why many don't like them.  And the full-fledged Zone
System (which includes manipulations in development) isn't as useful,
but the idea of mapping the subject to how it will be recorded on the
film is still quite useful.

>no fooling around in the darkroom, 

The Zone System still leaves lots of room for fooling around in the
darkroom.  One-third of Adams' ``Basic Photography Series'' is about
fooling around in the darkroom.  Again, the Zone System is just a means
of getting the negative that *you* want to fool around with, rather than
leaving it to chance or hit-and-miss trials (called ``bracketing''). 

>no Polaroid fun. 

Adams did Polaroid, quite a bit, actually.  He even did some SX-70!

Again, the idea would be: know the materials and their capabilities,
know what you want, know what material(s) to use, know how to use it to
get the result that you want.

>Straight prints  
>of related images makes a portfolio, career. 

Adams often maintained that none of his prints were ``straight'' or
``literal''.  He used whatever manipulations and techniques were needed
to get the result he wanted.

>(You can change subjects  
>every now and then. Move from Yosemite to Big Sur for instance.)  Yawn.

It sounds like your beef is with landscape photography, rather than with
Ansel Adams.  So be it.

>Students with vision avoid Zone courses at all costs. 

Why?

>It is sufficient to  
>read a book containing the word Zone (available from Light Impressions,  
>Rochester, NY) so you "get it, then forget it."  

I'm not sure you ``got it.''  The Zone System is a technique for getting
the results that the photographer wants to get.  No more, no less.  It's
merely an attempt at a practical explanation of the physics and chemistry
of photography.

So do ``students with vision'' just fire off exposures, hoping that one
will be something worthwhile?  (I'm not knocking experimentation, but I
don't think it should necessarily be standard practice, either.)

Well, I hope someone finds these comments enlightening, and at least
somewhat a coherent defense of the Zone System.

Geoff ``I shoot color, so what do I know?'' Allen

p.s. I was tempted to cross-post this to rec.photo, but figured I'd be
     nice and spare rec.arts.fine from an entire thread of this.  If you
     want to know more, go there, or to Adams' books. 

-- 
Geoff Allen          \ The main difference between me and the student
uunet!pmafire!geoff   \  is that I have simply made more mistakes.
geoff@pauling.inel.gov \    --George Drennan on teaching photo workshops.