Do you always underexpose with the MM?

[Jeff S]

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Ansel heard, and foresaw, much of the debate about the Zone System, including its potential application (or variant) in the world of 'electronic' photography.

 

In the intro to The Negative (1981), he wrote….

 

"It has been said at various times that the advent of certain materials obviates the need for such a vehicle of thought and control as the Zone System. Such a statement reflects the misconception that the Zone System is useful only for relating subject luminance with print values as they occur with a specific set of materials. If the materials change, we do not discard the Zone System any more than we discard densitometry (or our exposure meters, for that matter). A change of materials often does require adaptation in the way we apply the Zone System, but in no way eliminates its principles or usefulness in creative visualization. As long as we must be able to work from a range of subject luminances that are to be represented

as we want them to be

by a range of gray values (or color values) in a print, the Zone System seems certain to provide an extremely useful framework….

 

(snipped)...I eagerly await new concepts and processes. I believe that the electronic image will be the next major advance. Such systems will have their own inherent and inescapable structural characteristics, and the artist and functional practitioner will again strive to comprehend and control them."

Jeff

[david strachan]

Good to see a general understanding of the “Zone System” as developed by Adams, White and others.Some noobs have no idea.

The “Zone System” will always be based on one-stop increments, its original in-camera concept.But expanding or reducing the number of zones, has always been part of the process too, particularly when developing or printing.

 

Cheers Dave S

[dant]

OP, I try to. But as a street photog it is hard to do underexpose sometimes. The MM sensor could be better with less highlight losses.

 

Film would give lean blacks with little detail if it was a true black. With digital it tries to see something in the blacks and they sometime come out muddled. I wish digital had better blacks that need to be black and not noisy blacks.

[dj_61]

Again, I suggest a look at my results when zone testing my MM. Unless one changes the EV compensation, already Zone VIII is pure white, and Zone VII is dangerously close (would have reduced or clipped details).

 

 

 

It is quite possible that it´s just my particular copy that´s a bit off (very common in the days of mechanical cameras and meters), and in the film days, one would simply set the meter to another ISO number and work as usual. With a digital, one would have to use the EV compensation, or just think different when shooting. That´s what I do, and I have no problems in using my MM (at least not this kind of problems...). I´d humbly suggest, however, that anybody who does have problems make a similar test series and get to know his/her particular camera.

 

 

I am very sorry but by definition zone vii cannot be pure white. Zone x is pure white. Properly exposing any pictures requires knowledge that can be acquired from Ansels books. Read them and learn about zone placement using a light meter and you will not have a problem with your monochrom. Just make sure that the highlights in which you want detail are placed in zone viii. Think of it as using slide film. It is not that hard.

[MarkP]

So when you expose for your correct exposure you may be losing a bit of information that would be found with ETTR. Looking at your examples none show overexposure and the wonderful quality of MM is the ability to work with the file.

 

I would tend to expose as the meter seems to have done in the first picture unless large areas would be overexposed. Your options for post process are greater with the somewhat relatively larger amount of data.

 

 

 

Bob

 

Again this is the key point, that the raw Monochrom file should contain as much information as possible (rather than cramming it to the left however well information can be recovered from the shadows).

[jaapv]

OP, I try to. But as a street photog it is hard to do underexpose sometimes. The MM sensor could be better with less highlight losses.

 

Film would give lean blacks with little detail if it was a true black. With digital it tries to see something in the blacks and they sometime come out muddled. I wish digital had better blacks that need to be black and not noisy blacks.

Ummm.. The sensor is not at fault. The point is that if you overexpose a highlight on an RGB sensor you will often be lucky enough to blow out only one or two colour channels. The raw conversion software will reconstruct some detail from the remaining channel(s).

On a monochrome sensor you cannot have remaining data in other colour channels, as they do not exist, so a blown highlight is irrecoverably blown. Any B&W sensor will react that way.. Always.

[elgenper]

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I am very sorry but by definition zone vii cannot be pure white. Zone x is pure white. Properly exposing any pictures requires knowledge that can be acquired from Ansels books. Read them and learn about zone placement using a light meter and you will not have a problem with your monochrom. Just make sure that the highlights in which you want detail are placed in zone viii. Think of it as using slide film. It is not that hard.

 

Now, this starts to become ridiculous. I run, and publish, a test series with one-stop increments, exactly the same as one does when starting to get to grips with a new film/developer combo using the Zone System (forgive me for even using these Sacred Words...). For simplicity when describing my results, I use zone numbers to refer to the different shots in the series, just like the zone scale on some exposure meters (mine was a Pentax spot) had one stop increments. The post processing and printing has nothing to do with this first step; it´s only a way of drawing the Hurter-Driffield curve that tells us the density as a function of the exposure.

 

Nothing more than that in it. It gives the basic info to start with when actually using the complete ZS for interpretative purposes, standing in front of a subject, and I´m hard put to imagine anyone using the ZS without this densitometric base to start from.

 

Suddenly, a few people start gabbing about the True Meaning of the zones in an image, as tones in the intended print (which the Holy St Ansel used as helpful examples in his table, nothing more. As definitions of densitometric entities, they are downright fuzzy). I decide to stay silent at ringside and just have some fun....

 

But this one... dj, I started learning, and using the full Zone System in the early 1970es, using Ansel´s books (1st ed, later replaced by the 2nd ed), Minor White, Fred Picker & c. I´ve sold them by now, but the absorbed familiarity with the ZS concepts is still valuable with digital. I can only hope that you eventually come to a similar understanding of what you´ve read in the Scriptures.

 

Finally, I have no problems in using my Monochrom the way it is (other than my all-too-frequent stupid mistakes... But I made stupid mistakes when using the ZS too).

[jaapv]

If a test shot that was intended to lie in zone VII comes out white, the exposure of the test series is wrong.

You may name that particular shot Zone VII, but it obviously is not.

 

Maybe it would be less confusing if you called it “number VII”

[elgenper]

If a test shot that was intended to lie in zone VII comes out white, the exposure of the test series is wrong.

You may name that particular shot Zone VII, but it obviously is not.

 

Maybe it would be less confusing if you called it “number VII”

 

Good idea; I´ll be sure to avoid using the Sacred terminology for simple descriptive purposes. There is a guy named Phil Davis, who wrote a book called Beyond the Zone System,where he points out several inconsistencies in the classical ZS concepts; good reading, even if it´s a bit of overkill for resolving the problems.

 

Btw, Jaap, you surprise me... The exposure of the test was judged by the Z I (sorry, number I) density. If number VII is off, it was the development that is to blame.

 

But seriously, the practical solution for the MM is indeed to keep exposure low. It´s just like slide film...

[jaapv]

You sinned... You should expose by Zone V. Saint Ansel wrote it so...

[250swb]

Now, this starts to become ridiculous. I run, and publish, a test series with one-stop increments, exactly the same as one does when starting to get to grips with a new film/developer combo using the Zone System (forgive me for even using these Sacred Words...).

 

But what if the MM doesn't respond in convenient one stop increments? And film doesn't respond in convenient one stop increments either, you have reciprocity at both ends of the exposure range. And there is no equivalent development and printing stage of testing after exposure to confine the results within a reproducible scale. You are using a hammer to knock in a screw. The Sacred Words as you describe them and the 'gabbers' may offer a pointer when suggesting testing is done to discover things, not to make things conform to pre-conceived ideas.

 

Steve

[otto.f]

Here's an example of a deliberate exposure for texture in the highlights, which might be called underexposure.

 

#1 is as exposed, #2 is a HighKey result of PP, #3 is a sort of normal result of PP (if you want it brighter, no problem)

 

I see no muddy shadows. I see no loss of information, not in the shadows and not in the highlights (which was the intention in the first place). Just a quick PP of 5 minutes for the three.

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[jaapv]

But what if the MM doesn't respond in convenient one stop increments? And film doesn't respond in convenient one stop increments either, you have reciprocity at both ends of the exposure range. And there is no equivalent development and printing stage of testing after exposure to confine the results within a reproducible scale. You are using a hammer to knock in a screw. The Sacred Words as you describe them and the 'gabbers' may offer a pointer when suggesting testing is done to discover things, not to make things conform to pre-conceived ideas.

 

Steve

That is what the curves tool is for...

[250swb]

That is what the curves tool is for...

 

Well yes, I don't see your point though?

 

The Zone System is about a continuous workflow that gives you set key tones when it has been worked through. Making an exposure then adjusting the tonal range to suit your interpretation of the scene by adjusting a tone curve in Photoshop is something else, it is a matter of opinion after the fact. The tonal range of the MM is divorced from the exposure range compared with film, one stop increase/decrease in exposure is indeed one stop increase or decrease, but it does not equate to the same one stop increase/decrease in tonal range of the film based Zone System. This is why people bang on about the MM having plentiful detail in the shadows but you need to be careful of the highlights. The Zone System on the other hand is a one stop increase/decrease in exposure that equates to a one zone difference in tone.

 

 

Steve

[jaapv]

That is quite true, but the Zone System is not solely an exposure measuring system, it is a complete workflow from negative to print that enables exact and reproducible grey tones. The same goes for a correct monochrome print in the digital world. Leica has helped us by producing a raw histogram that shows similar divisions as the Zone System, albeit corrected for the response of a sensor. Thus it is possible to follow a similar workflow in postprocessing, mainly by the curves tool. Measuring in Photoshop is your friend

[250swb]

Thus it is possible to follow a similar workflow in postprocessing, mainly by the curves tool. Measuring in Photoshop is your friend

 

Good grief, I'm not disagreeing that post processing can't adjust the characteristic curve of an MM file. I'm saying it is not a direct correlation to one stop exposure equals one tonal zone as in the film Zone System.

 

I fully acknowledge the appreciation of the fine details can only be understood if you process one sheet of film at a time, but the overall principles apply to most areas of photography (including digital) in an understanding of what your camera can do, and how to make it do it.

 

Steve

[jaapv]

Are we disagreeing then?