Dune

[GB1]

Thaks Rod. I also like the original color best. I've tried a few expts to darken the sky, none worked very well.. I would have to mask out the sky and it would take a long time to get right (a friend of mine tried, a very quick edit, and you could very easily see the transition). I think its best without the bush (sounds like a political statement eh)

DR, I must have 1000 shots of bushes in the plains of White Sands. I will post one or two of those (the better ones) sometime. It's always a challenge to show an isolated bush with just the right lighting and background detail. I have about 1000 misses.

John, Thks, you should go out there and really see it (and photograph it)!

Grandpaw, that doesn't raise my eyebrows. I like Ansel Adams a lot, but not necessarily for the shots he has taken. I guess I look at him as more of a pioneer, sort of like Hillary climbing Mt Everest first but now thousands of people have done it. His zone system to calculate exposure back when there were no meters (I don't think) was great too. Thanks a lot of the comparison though. I actually work with someone who bumped into him in Yosemite once, he was carrying his tripod and just said hi.

G

[AgingEyes]

His zone system to calculate exposure back when there were no meters (I don't think) was great too.
G

Of course there was exposure meters. Here's from page 6 of "Black & White Photography" by Ansel Adams, published by Hasselbled:

"My basic approach to photography depends on visualization of the final print before the exposure is made. When the print is conceived in the mind, either as a realistic statement or as an intentional 'departure from reality,' the brightness values of the subject are determined (by careful exposure meter readings) and are placed appropriately on the exposure scale. The negative is exposed and developed for the desired rendition. The print from such a negative requires a minimum of development control, dodging, or use of extreme paper contrast grades."

That's the Zone System.

Despite what is said above, Ansel Adams did spend many hours on making one print.

[GB1]

Of course there was exposure meters. Here's from page 6 of "Black & White Photography" by Ansel Adams, published by Hasselbled:

"My basic approach to photography depends on visualization of the final print before the exposure is made. When the print is conceived in the mind, either as a realistic statement or as an intentional 'departure from reality,' the brightness values of the subject are determined (by careful exposure meter readings) and are placed appropriately on the exposure scale. The negative is exposed and developed for the desired rendition. The print from such a negative requires a minimum of development control, dodging, or use of extreme paper contrast grades."

That's the Zone System.

Despite what is said above, Ansel Adams did spend many hours on making one print.

Ok. I wasn't sure if meters existed at that point yet (not to say that they were all that accurate.. I keep thinking when the "sunny 16" rule came around: before meters, or when they decided that they couldn't rely on them. Reflective meters have their limitations, of course). I always thought that the Zone System was for exposure and not printing since you make tests right there in the darkroom and see what you have, but I have seen similar analysis for prints. Since the exposure is the same for all zones, the system was essentially an attempt to obtain the correct exposure or even lean it one way or the other depending on what might be best for final printing. For example, slide film photogs often underexposed their shots by a 1/2 f stop or so to add a more saturated look (not to mention that slide film printing was much more forgiving of underexposure than over.........),

[AgingEyes]

I always thought that the Zone System was for exposure and not printing since you make tests right there in the darkroom and see what you have, but I have seen similar analysis for prints. Since the exposure is the same for all zones, the system was essentially an attempt to obtain the correct exposure or even lean it one way or the other depending on what might be best for final printing.

The system is to allow the photographer to get the result he/she has conceived before even pressing the shutter button. "Zone" is just another name for "stop" or "exposure value". You open up one stop and you get Zone VI. You close down two stops and you get Zone III, so on and so forth. So I'm not sure what you mean by "...the exposure is the same for all zones" because it doesn't seem correct to me. As far as correct exposure is concerned. One could ask what a correct exposure is. But because exposure affects the look of the final photograph, the correct exposure should then be the one that you want the final photograph looks like. And it starts with visualization. But since you can only have one exposure setting for each photo, some part of the picture could be over/under exposed because of the setting you choose. In the old day, you try to fix that by adjusting the way you develop the negatives and the prints. And you know how much adjustment you need to make because you already have done tons of experiments to find out what the result would be if, say, you develop the negative a bit longer than "usual". Everything is under control, in a system.

These days, we try to fix things with...Photoshop, shooting HDR...

[GB1]

The system is to allow the photographer to get the result he/she has conceived before even pressing the shutter button. "Zone" is just another name for "stop" or "exposure value". You open up one stop and you get Zone VI. You close down two stops and you get Zone III, so on and so forth. So I'm not sure what you mean by "...the exposure is the same for all zones" because it doesn't seem correct to me. As far as correct exposure is concerned. One could ask what a correct exposure is. But because exposure affects the look of the final photograph, the correct exposure should then be the one that you want the final photograph looks like. And it starts with visualization. But since you can only have one exposure setting for each photo, some part of the picture could be over/under exposed because of the setting you choose. In the old day, you try to fix that by adjusting the way you develop the negatives and the prints. And you know how much adjustment you need to make because you already have done tons of experiments to find out what the result would be if, say, you develop the negative a bit longer than "usual". Everything is under control, in a system.

These days, we try to fix things with...Photoshop, shooting HDR...

The zone system was explained to me a bit differently than what you are saying here, but it's quite possible that my understanding of the term doesn't correspond with the correct terminology. What I was shown was a scene-evaluating procedure where, say you have many different shades of intensity, and want to calculate the correct exposure, or exposure you want, based on the luminance of different parts of the scene (much like a grid). Of course, you cannot use different aperture and shutter speeds on different grid areas (unless you have a graduated ND lens), so you basically choose your mid point and go from there. I've seen a workup of such, explaining how Ansel calculated it. Looks like I mistakenly thought the cells were the zones

Anyways, seems like matrix metering has compensated for a lot of this today. I think what's next up is a camera manufacturer will invest a way of internal, dynamic 'masking' so that the bright areas of a scene can be automatically reduced to a desired amount, sort of like a grad ND does But, that will take a pretty powerful CPU, and probably require it the camera/scene to be stable. We'll see.

GB

[AgingEyes]

What I was shown was a scene-evaluating procedure where, say you have many different shades of intensity, and want to calculate the correct exposure, or exposure you want, based on the luminance of different parts of the scene (much like a grid).

That's for determining the dynamic range. That's part of the process.

so you basically choose your mid point and go from there.

You choose where you put Zone V and other values. But that does not necessarily mean you choose the average/middle value of the brightest and the darkest values of the scene. If that part of the photo that you want it to turn into the look of a Zone V in your print happens to be higher than your "mid-point", then you adjust the way you process the negative and the print. It is a system to get the result you conceived. And you can get that because you know exactly what steps to take if your Zone V is higher than the "mid-point". It is like following a flowchart. If a happens, do this. If b happens, to that, etc. Measuring the brightest and the darkest then take the middle of the road is one way to use a spot meter to get the exposure reading to use. You can get that instruction from a spot meter manual. Zone System is more than that. Anyhow, you can read my quote above again from Ansel Adams. Straight from his mouth. If you want to know more about Zone System, you can read his book "The Negative". Chapter 4 of that book is titled "Zone System". You will find it is more than just taking exposure readings (Chapter 3 is "Exposure").

[GB1]

That's for determining the dynamic range. That's part of the process.

Anyhow, you can read my quote above again from Ansel Adams. Straight from his mouth. If you want to know more about Zone System, you can read his book "The Negative". Chapter 4 of that book is titled "Zone System". You will find it is more than just taking exposure readings (Chapter 3 is "Exposure").

Thanks for the information, AE. It isn't really important enough for me to read, though, I'm too busy shooting I'll let the matrix metering do its job.. it's seemed to work so far.

GB