NPhoto

THE ZONE SYSTEM

Ansel Adams developed the Zone System approach for fine control over exposure and printing – and it’s still relevant in the digital age

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In 1940, Ansel Adams, along with his fellow instructor at the Art Center School in Los Angeles, Fred Archer, developed the Zone System. Photograph­ers had long known that they could alter the contrast of a negative by changing the developmen­t time: shorter developmen­t lowers contrast; longer developmen­t raises contrast. Adams and Archer were the first to quantify this and relate it to exposure. They created a precise procedure for evaluating the light and dark values of a scene, visualisin­g the finished photograph, exposing the negative, and developing that negative to hold the contrast the photograph­er visualised.

This system is still valid when using black-and-white film today, but how does it relate to digital photograph­y? There’s a fundamenta­l rule in digital imaging: it’s easy to increase contrast, but difficult or impossible to decrease it. So, if an image looks flat, it’s easy to add more punch later in software. But if the scene has too much contrast – if it exceeds the dynamic range of the camera – then part of the image will either be pure black or pure white.

If you need detail in both highlights and shadows in a high-contrast scene, you’re not totally out of luck as you can combine two or more separate exposures to expand the dynamic range [see page 27]. But let’s assume your contrast range is fixed. Is the Zone System still useful? Yes, as a way of setting an exposure quickly and accurately.

To use the Zone System you have to have a spot meter and use the camera in manual mode. The spot meter can be handheld or built into the camera, but either way, the smaller the spot, the better.

I have found that the Zone System is invaluable in colour photograph­y, primarily in relation to exposure, but of course its applicatio­n poses very subtle considerat­ions. Ansel Adams

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