Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1999/09/27
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]From: Johnny Deadman <deadman@jukebox.demon.co.uk> Sent: Monday, September 27, 1999 06:46 Subject: [Leica] Zone blues > Wouldn't you like to be able to look at a negative > and know exactly what was wrong with it and how to fix > it? Sure, but that usually amounts to "needs more exposure" or "needs less exposure." > Or to look at a scene and know exactly how > to figure out the exposure for the rendition you > want? The rendition I want is the one that provides the most detail. All I have to do (and in fact all I _can_ do) is correctly expose for the midpoint of a five-stop range, and that's what I'll get. The whole notion of zones, from what I've seen, seems to imply that I have complete control over not only exposure but also development and printing. In fact, I control only exposure. Development is always the same, and there are no prints. I cannot control the lighting in the scene being photographed, and the entire negative must be exposed at once. So the only thing I can do is pick an exposure. If I expose for the part of the photo I consider important, that should be sufficient. I can't expose for two different parts of the scene independently, so it doesn't matter what exposure is required for the rest of the photo, since the one exposure for the important part overrides it. > ZS is only a formal way of saying 'expose for the shadows, > develop for the highlights' ... I have no control over development. I can only control exposure. -- Anthony