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Ansel Adams on Leica Q - spot metering and applying the zone system digitally.


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Hi and happy new year! 🍀

I have spent some time reading Ansel Adams The Negative., in which he also describes his zone metering.

As this is about an external spot meter and film I wondered how to best apply this to the Leica Q with it’s on board functions.

Would it be a good interpretation to adapt the model, by spot metering (and locking by pressing the thumb button on the Q) on the highlights and since it is digital, apply the exposure compensation to put the highlights to VIII or IX? With the locked exposure I would then do AF or manual focussing and hit the shutter release button. Is that the right way of implementing the zone system on the Q?

Do you shoot according to the Ansel Adams‘ zone system and what is your recommendation? 

Thanks a lot.

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The key to optimal digital exposure is to saturate the sensor without clipping relevant highlights. Clipped highlights are not recoverable, though they may be partially reconstructed through unclipped color channels. Here is an article that describes how to use spot-metering for ETTR, though I was not successful with it:

https://www.fastrawviewer.com/blog/spot-meter-exposure

I prefer looking at the live highlight warnings to determine optimal exposure. It works very well with Q2 as the "blinkies" appear only with shutter half-press and are not distracting while framing.

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Contact Alan Ross at alanrossphotography.com and ask him.  Alan has worked with Ansel and now still prints his negatives for almost 50 years.  He is not only a master darkroom printer, but is also a master with Photoshop.  And Alan is a great gentleman.  I attached the invitation and contact information from his website.

 

Alan is always happy to answer questions, provide technical input or otherwise support your photographic efforts. You can contact him for help in one of the following ways:

Email:  alan@rossimages.net

Telephone: 505.466.2335.

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vor 8 Stunden schrieb zeitz:

Contact Alan Ross at alanrossphotography.com and ask him.  Alan has worked with Ansel and now still prints his negatives for almost 50 years.  He is not only a master darkroom printer, but is also a master with Photoshop.  And Alan is a great gentleman.  I attached the invitation and contact information from his website.

 

Alan is always happy to answer questions, provide technical input or otherwise support your photographic efforts. You can contact him for help in one of the following ways:

Email:  alan@rossimages.net

Telephone: 505.466.2335.

Thank you. What a great tip!👍🏻

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This is a quote from the article:

"Because Adams made sure to prevent having pure black, he managed to make optimum use of the dynamic range of his black and white film. During the development he was able to dodge and burn the shades of gray to end up with the best possible contrast."

These sentences are a bit confusing.  Concerning optimum use of B&W film, Ansel was shooting sheet film so that the development of each sheet could be varied to adjust the contrast of the negative; this is not possible with a digital camera and is hard to do with 35mm film because each image needs different contrast but can't be developed separately.  Concerning dodge and burn in development, the author of the article of course is referring to development of the print, not the development of the film; dodging and burning are easy in Photoshop.

So this is the usual workflow that Alan Ross uses in his workshops - almost no adjustments in Camera Raw (same as Lightroom Develop Module), duplicate the Background Layer in Photoshop so all adjustments are on layers, clone out unwanted objects on duplicate layer, convert to B&W (if doing B&W) in an adjustment layer and use color mixer sliders (not filters), dodge and burn on the duplicate layer, and slightly adjust tone curve in a curves adjust layer so it is S-shaped rather than linear.  With this limited set, Alan achieves remarkable images.  If color adjustments have to be made, he paints the color opposite on the color wheel over the area that needs color adjustment.

Alan does still print Ansel's negatives.  He gets a lot of orders.  To print rapidly and accurately print to print, he uses dodge/burn mask negatives he made which are sandwiched in the enlarger with Ansel's original negative.

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vor 1 Stunde schrieb zeitz:

This is a quote from the article:

"Because Adams made sure to prevent having pure black, he managed to make optimum use of the dynamic range of his black and white film. During the development he was able to dodge and burn the shades of gray to end up with the best possible contrast."

These sentences are a bit confusing.  Concerning optimum use of B&W film, Ansel was shooting sheet film so that the development of each sheet could be varied to adjust the contrast of the negative; this is not possible with a digital camera and is hard to do with 35mm film because each image needs different contrast but can't be developed separately.  Concerning dodge and burn in development, the author of the article of course is referring to development of the print, not the development of the film; dodging and burning are easy in Photoshop.

So this is the usual workflow that Alan Ross uses in his workshops - almost no adjustments in Camera Raw (same as Lightroom Develop Module), duplicate the Background Layer in Photoshop so all adjustments are on layers, clone out unwanted objects on duplicate layer, convert to B&W (if doing B&W) in an adjustment layer and use color mixer sliders (not filters), dodge and burn on the duplicate layer, and slightly adjust tone curve in a curves adjust layer so it is S-shaped rather than linear.  With this limited set, Alan achieves remarkable images.  If color adjustments have to be made, he paints the color opposite on the color wheel over the area that needs color adjustment.

Alan does still print Ansel's negatives.  He gets a lot of orders.  To print rapidly and accurately print to print, he uses dodge/burn mask negatives he made which are sandwiched in the enlarger with Ansel's original negative.

Thanks for sharing those details. Sounds easy and effective. Have to figure out how to implement that in Capture One.

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vor 20 Minuten schrieb Ralf1960Mono:

Silver Efex Pro2 by DxO has adopted the zone system. I think there is a trial version available. You can use it stand alone or as plugin with Lightroom and/or Photoshop. 
There are some tutorials using the software on their website. 

The results look also very good. The question is just what is different from the onboard tools in Capture ONE...

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2 hours ago, zeitz said:

This is a quote from the article:

"Because Adams made sure to prevent having pure black, he managed to make optimum use of the dynamic range of his black and white film. During the development he was able to dodge and burn the shades of gray to end up with the best possible contrast."

These sentences are a bit confusing.  Concerning optimum use of B&W film, Ansel was shooting sheet film so that the development of each sheet could be varied to adjust the contrast of the negative; this is not possible with a digital camera and is hard to do with 35mm film because each image needs different contrast but can't be developed separately.  Concerning dodge and burn in development, the author of the article of course is referring to development of the print, not the development of the film; dodging and burning are easy in Photoshop.

So this is the usual workflow that Alan Ross uses in his workshops - almost no adjustments in Camera Raw (same as Lightroom Develop Module), duplicate the Background Layer in Photoshop so all adjustments are on layers, clone out unwanted objects on duplicate layer, convert to B&W (if doing B&W) in an adjustment layer and use color mixer sliders (not filters), dodge and burn on the duplicate layer, and slightly adjust tone curve in a curves adjust layer so it is S-shaped rather than linear.  With this limited set, Alan achieves remarkable images.  If color adjustments have to be made, he paints the color opposite on the color wheel over the area that needs color adjustment.

Alan does still print Ansel's negatives.  He gets a lot of orders.  To print rapidly and accurately print to print, he uses dodge/burn mask negatives he made which are sandwiched in the enlarger with Ansel's original negative.

With respect to the masters involved here, both of these methods seem somewhat anachronistic for modern digital photography. I am sure that Ross achieves excellent results this way, but digital raw files are called raw files for a reason. By optimally converting the negative and doing as much as possible in the raw converter, the tonal information contained in the file is preserved as well as possible, which translates to better gradation, lower grain and all in all, few problems.

Exposing to the right, while optimal for preserving highlight detail, can also decrease the tonal range in your shadows and highlights. One of the main reasons film works differently is that it has a natural toe and shoulder to its characteristic curve. Digital (at least before conversion) is linear, so the main concern is to clip as little data as possible. With current digital cameras there is a large dynamic range, so it is often better to expose normally (as if you were shooting slides, for example), as long as you do not clip your highlights, you will have the maximum flexibility in your data, as well as the ability to use photos out of camera for evaluation and editing (not adjustments...editing as in deciding which photos to keep). If you use ETTR, all your files will look overexposed and horrible out of camera, which means you have to do a lot more work just to get them to the level where you can evaluate them.

Making a very basic raw conversion and then doing all the work in photoshop on an extra layer will both massively increase storage requirements, and strain the tonal information in the file rather needlessly (since most of this work can easily be done in a non-destructive editor). Photoshop should really be reserved for compositing, spotting and digital editing that cannot be done well in a RAW editor.

Edited by Stuart Richardson
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I am not sure how clear I was above, but basically, the Zone system was designed to solve very specific problems that arise in the film and darkroom workflow, especially when using sheet film, where individual photos can receive different processing. The reason for the technique is because of the way that film and paper react to light and to chemical development. It is designed to optimize the characteristic curve of the film and paper to produce as many tones as possible on the print.

The digital workflow is utterly different, and the zone system has no realistic place in an all digital workflow. Best to just expose to best represent tones you wish to photograph, while being careful not to clip your highlights. When editing, try to use a good raw editor to get your image as close as possible to your finished image, and only then, if you still need to, should you export the file as a 16 bit tiff and do further editing in Photoshop.

If you don't believe me, try Ctein (we are both professional printers, so believe us...we deal with this a lot):

https://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/2011/10/expose-to-the-right-is-a-bunch-of-bull.html

Edited by Stuart Richardson
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vor 35 Minuten schrieb Stuart Richardson:

I am not sure how clear I was above, but basically, the Zone system was designed to solve very specific problems that arise in the film and darkroom workflow, especially when using sheet film, where individual photos can receive different processing. The reason for the technique is because of the way that film and paper react to light and to chemical development. It is designed to optimize the characteristic curve of the film and paper to produce as many tones as possible on the print.

The digital workflow is utterly different, and the zone system has no realistic place in an all digital workflow. Best to just expose to best represent tones you wish to photograph, while being careful not to clip your highlights. When editing, try to use a good raw editor to get your image as close as possible to your finished image, and only then, if you still need to, should you export the file as a 16 bit tiff and do further editing in Photoshop.

Thanks for the explanation. What do you think about spot metering the highlights and then visually expose so there is no highlight clipping and then in post pulling up the shadows in RAW? I do get the impression that this helps a bit not losing any structure in the highlights and having more breadth in different tones . Having said that, the Q seems to underexposed a bit by nature. Not much but I always have the feeling with matrix metering the pictures turn out a bit dark in a good way!

Edited by Rokkor
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I am not sure precisely what you mean by zone metering the highlights, but if you mean using a spot meter to place them just under clipping, then I would say that yes, that is usually the best practice in difficult conditions. But in general I would say that in certain photos highlights are going to clip...it is generally unavoidable with certain things (specular highlights or the sun, lamps etc are generally not a problem, but you do not want white walls to blow out etc). I tend to believe that unless your subject is very strongly backlit, it is best to make your file look as close to finished as possible, without clipping important highlights. That is why slide film is a good model -- you only have one chance, so you have to get it right from the start. Digital is very similar, it just gives you more tones to work with. Try to avoid pushing the file around too much in either direction. If you really pull back highlights a lot, they tend to go grey or their color will look off. If you boost shadows too much, you often get noise, banding or reddish/magenta/green color casts. Best practice is to expose down the middle, try not to do anything too heroic in post-processing. Always keep in mind as well that you want to work with the light. Processing can rarely save a photo that was shot poorly or in unrealistic conditions.

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On 1/1/2021 at 7:55 PM, zeitz said:

Contact Alan Ross at alanrossphotography.com and ask him.  Alan has worked with Ansel and now still prints his negatives for almost 50 years.  He is not only a master darkroom printer, but is also a master with Photoshop.  And Alan is a great gentleman.  I attached the invitation and contact information from his website.

 

Alan is always happy to answer questions, provide technical input or otherwise support your photographic efforts. You can contact him for help in one of the following ways:

Email:  alan@rossimages.net

Telephone: 505.466.2335.

Before calling, probably best to read his thoughts on this topic...

https://www.alanrossphotography.com/can-the-zone-system-go-digital-2/

Jeff

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"Measure your subject highlights. In general, with digital (and color transparency film), images look their best when the highlights are not blown out. If a photo opportunity is fleeting or moving, and I only have one chance for a shot, I will take a quick spot reading of an important high value, maybe a white dress or bright cloud, and give it an exposure of about 2-1/2 stops brighter than the basic meter reading (Zone V). This PLACES that dress on Zone VII-1/2. Having already done the test above, I KNOW that it will be very bright, but not “blown out”!"

Basically, he is saying the same thing I am saying...personally, I think it is confusing to call it the "Zone System" since that is so intimately tied to black and white film, but he is giving you the correct info, so if you prefer to think of it that way, go for it!

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vor 14 Minuten schrieb Jeff S:

Before calling, probably best to read his thoughts on this topic...

https://www.alanrossphotography.com/can-the-zone-system-go-digital-2/

Jeff

Thanks Jeff. This explains it well.

 

the only risk by the following approach “If you want the snow to look white (not paper white but a very light gray) you need to PLACE it on a higher Zone. If you give one stop more than the meter says, you are placing the snow on Zone VI, two stops more than the basic meter reading places that value on Zone VII, and so on. ” which is really Ansel Adams zone system in practice might be that assuming there are highlights in the sky, by metering the snow correctly the highlights might be clipped.

So in a light situation where you have snow and even brighter clouds, would you recommend spot metering the clouds or stopping down a bit and pull the snow up in post?

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