The Practical Zone System for Film and Digital Photography

Classic Tool, Universal Applications

Chris Johnson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781315465319
• Edition: 6
• Topic: Mezzi di comunicazione e arti performative
• Subtopic: Media digitali

This sixth edition of The Practical Zone System by Chris Johnson updates the classic manual on Ansel Adams's landmark technique for the digital age. For photographers working digitally or with film, in color or black and white, in the studio or on the go, this simple visual language helps to control contrast and, through a process called Previsualization, provides photographers with the power of free creative expression.

This new edition discusses recent advances in technology and potentials for their use in zone photography, including HDR, smartphone cameras that shoot in raw format and smartphone light meters. Johnson demonstrates how the Zone System is a universal visual and conceptual language that dramatically simplifies the problem of creating and rendering complex lighting setups.

chapter one
“Will It Come Out?”

Introduction

During a portion of a fourteen years experience as an amateur photographer, I always supposed that a good judgment, combined with experience (the latter implying the generous use of time and plates), would eventually enable me to obtain a good negative every time I exposed a plate. … That was my greatest mistake.

… From “My Greatest Mistake”

—by William Bullock
Bulb and Button Magazine, September 1900

Before the vast popularity of digital photography, the loneliest people in the world were probably photographers in darkrooms waiting to see if their negatives turned out the way they had hoped. This is true for photographers still working with film, and an equivalent problem exists when digital photographers compare the previews they see in their cameras to the results they get when they attempt to make a fine print from the image file.

Add to this the frustration of trying to make a fine print from a bad negative, and it is easy to see why uncertainty about photographic technique can be a major stumbling block for many photographers. The anxiety that you may have lost an important image goes a long way toward explaining the proliferation of automatic cameras and, more recently, digital photography that provides instant confirmation that your image is worth saving.

An important related issue to consider is the fact that very often, the most imaginative and effective rendition of a photographic subject is not one that simply records what the photographer saw in a simple or literal way. The works of classic artists like Bill Brandt or Wynn Bullock (not related to the above-cited author as far as I know) are dramatic examples of this principle. Direct translations of the visual world are often lifeless and boring.

Smartphone photography is an exciting genre unto itself, but for many kinds of professional or creative work, automatic point-and-shoot cameras are too limited.

What many photographers need is a clear and direct working method that allows for creative photographic “seeing” and that produces predictable results. This is exactly what the Zone System is designed to do. When used properly, it will allow you to deal confidently with any exposure or development problem you are likely to encounter, regardless of the kind of photography you intend to do.

Anyone familiar with the work of Ansel Adams or Minor White knows how powerful a creative tool the Zone System can be. Until now, the problem has been finding a way of making the Zone System practical and efficient for photographers who would rather devote their time to being fully present in the photographic moment.

I recently came across a quote by the renowned master photographer Wynn Bullock that makes this point beautifully. Wynn is the creator of the iconic photograph on the cover of this book. Titled “Let There Be Light” it is a perfect example of what can happen when a powerful creative vision is combined with an alternative but aesthetically ideal combination of exposure and film development (refer to Appendix V, “Examples: Zone System Applications,” for more details about the making of this image).

Wynn Bullock and Ansel Adams were friends and Wynn’s experience with the Zone System is expressed in a statement he wrote at some point in the early 1970s: “I studied and practiced the Zone System. Finally, I thought ‘What the hell. It doesn’t work unless I constantly test equipment and materials. I would rather spend my time concentrating on and reacting to the world around me.’”

I completely understand Bullock’s feelings and saving photographers from the drudgery of constant film and developer testing was one of my primary motivations for writing this book. The irony is that, in practice, the Zone System is remarkably easy to use. I discovered this after spending almost two years wading through the available literature and experimenting with homemade densitometers in my basement.

When I began teaching photography, I quickly discovered that if I simply taught my students what I was doing in the field instead of boring them with the complicated details of why it worked, it was as easy for them to learn the Zone System as it was for me to use it. In other words, it is not the system itself that confuses people, but rather the highly technical details some people use to explain it.

The Zone System can give you a completely new way of photographically seeing the world around you. When you begin using it, the path between what you see or can imagine in front of the camera and what you get in your prints becomes very clear and direct.

Let’s consider a number of questions that beginning students usually ask at this point.

What Exactly Is the Zone System?

Basically, there are two technical problems that frustrate serious photographers. The first problem is how to give your film the proper amount of exposure (the correct aperture and shutter speed). It is very difficult to make a fine print from a negative or digital file that is seriously under- or overexposed.

Digital photographers often think that they are immune to this problem because they can instantly see a “preview” of their images. There are two problems with this approach: First, the image the camera shows you is actually more of a “postview” than anything else. The moment and the action you were photographing are gone by the time you see the image. If a different exposure would have produced a stronger photograph, it’s too late at that point to make that change. Second, the image generated by the camera is a small JPEG version of the resulting digital file. You don’t get to see the true uncompressed version of your photograph until you download it into your computer. This is when digital photographers sometimes discover that their image is full of digital noise in the darker areas of the subject or blown-out highlights.

So-called “averaging” methods of exposure are unreliable, and bracketing cannot assure that you correctly exposed any given frame of your roll.

The Zone System teaches you a simple way of using any reflected-light meter to achieve exactly the exposure you want every time.

The second problem is how to produce printable negatives or digital image files from scenes that have too much contrast or, in the case of film, sometimes not enough. The processing instructions provided by film and chemistry manufacturers are not adequate for dealing with the variety of lighting situations facing photographers in the real world, and Adobe Photoshop cannot solve every photographic problem.

With film, the Zone System teaches you how to control the contrast of your negatives by systematically adjusting the amount of time you develop your film. In essence, you will learn that film exposure and development are the only variables that you need to control to produce consistently printable negatives. For digital photographers, the Zone System can help you avoid many of the problems caused by underexposure of too much contrast in the first place.

If all the Zone System did was allow you to record a variety of photographic subjects consistently and accurately, that would be a real advantage for many photographers.

On the other hand, we would all be transformed into sophisticated automatic cameras. In fact, through a key element of the Zone System known as previsualization, the Zone System functions as a powerful creative tool that allows photographers a remarkable degree of creative flexibility and control over the photographic process.

A good analogy can be made between the Zone System and music theory. Music is a logical organization of instrumental or vocal sounds that allows coherent melodies to be created and recorded. The Zone System is a functional codification of the science of sensitometry (the study of the way light and photosensitive materials interact) into a simple and manageable working method. Just as a musician who can read music is able to play any annotated score, be it jazz or classical, photographers can use the Zone System to interpret what they see in any number of creative ways.

Why Is Photographic Technique So Important?

Definitions of art compete with each other for relevance but I think most thoughtful commentators on aesthetics would agree with John Dewey that human experience is at the heart of all creative projects. And yet, as immediate and sure as any experience is to any given individual, it is frustratingly difficult to convey the meaning or content of what we experience to someone else. Often, the stronger and more important something we experience is, the more skill and resourcefulness is required to transmit that meaning through our work. In the case of the visual meanings that photographers experience, this is why photographic techniques is so important.

The balance between structure and content in art is an important measure of mature work. Too much emphasis on one or the other will weaken the overall impact of your images. Sloppy or careless technique is distracting to the viewer, and yet overly structured photographs are often stiff and boring. The goal of students should be to master the technical aspects of the medium so that they can easily give their work the structure it needs to be effective, without that effort impeding free expression. The Zone System is specifically designed to give photographers that freedom and control.

Is the Zone System Outdated?

Camera manufacturers give the impression that taking good pictures can be simple and automatic, so the suggestion that any given camera or meter can solve all your photographic problems is designed to inspire confidence and increase sales. Under average conditions, any good automatic camera can give you adequate results. Unfortunately, camera manufacturers cannot anticipate the variety of lighting problems that even a casual photographer routinely encounters. For this reason, automatic cameras, even when used properly, produce disappointing results much of the time.

Also, as I mentioned earlier, it is impossible to design a camera that will adapt automatically to the departures from the norm that are so important to creative photography.

The essence of art is learning how to break aesthetic rules in coherent and effective ways. To depart from average results, you need to understand the nature of the problems you are likely to encounter. The Zone System will provide you with a working method that is flexible enough to deal with these problems and give you creative control over the medium.

If the Zone System Is So Important, How Were Good Photographs Taken without It?

By necessity, early photographers became masters of estimating light values and developing by inspection (see Appendix O). If there was any doubt about the exposure, they could always bracket just to be safe. Also, as will be discussed later, the photographic printing papers used by early photographers were extremely tolerant of mistakes in development. With the increase in the speed of modern photographic papers, this is no longer true.

As you will soon learn, standardized methods of exposure and development simply are not consistently reliable. Photographers need ways to adapt their techniques to suit the variety of problems they are likely to encounter. Many experienced photographers have developed personal working methods that are essentially derivatives of the Zone System adapted to their style of shooting. The advantage of learning the system from the beginning is that it will save you a great deal of time, money, and frustration.

Do I Need a Spot Meter to Use the Zone System?

No, although it must be said that spot meters are generally more accurate than wide-angle meters, and they make choosing the correct exposure surprisingly easy. For serious photographers a spot meter is well worth the investment.

Isn’t the Zone System Useful Only with View Cameras?

No. With a view camera, each frame is exposed and developed individually. As you will see, this makes applying the Zone System to large-format film photography very simple. On the other hand, the principles that govern the Zone System apply as much to roll film as they do to sheet film. Compromises are often necessary when using the Zone System with 35mm cameras, but understanding the principles involved will give you all the control you need to get consistent results.

How Does the Zone System Apply to Digital Photography?

Correct exposure and contrast control are just as important to digital photographers as they are to those shooting film. The advantage of understanding the Zone System is that it provides a flexible and consistent method for visualizing and applying effective techniques to your work.

Chapter 10, “The Zone System and Digital Photography,” provides detailed explanations for how to use the Zone System with digital cameras.

Can the Zone System Be Used with Smartphone Cameras?

Not in any direct and simple way. The Zone System is an applied method of creative exposure and film development and using it effectively requires being able to manually control the exposure you use to take a given image.

At first glance it ...