ygelman Loc: new -- North of Poughkeepsie!

In light (no pun intended) of another thread, some questions came to mind regarding the origins of A. Adams' Zone System.

I admit I've not studied it; I only know about it from a practicing/practical standpoint.

Did he have instruments like densitometers or something like that? Or did he just start with what he considered equal steps of shading from pure black to pure white -- and the measurements came afterward? I know in Photoshop, with the Info Panel displayed, the percentage readings of a step tablet go up by the same amount if the steps are even, but perhaps that's just a tautology, i.e. it's called "even" if the percentages go up evenly.

With the readings I had, I don't remember anything addressing that question.

Rongnongno Loc: FL

The zone system while attributed to a single person (naming) is really the result of a collaboration of many photographers.

These photographers were also part of what was known as the '64 Group'. The name was their recommended aperture for landscape...

A very interesting quote from A. Adams
We are kind of far from that freedom today!!! We all have to conform so we fit in holes like little pegs...

rook2c4 Loc: Philadelphia, PA USA

There have been a number of systems around by others before Adams developed his own, some not so dissimilar to that of Adams' Zone System. It is quite plausible (if not likely) that he simply refined an already existing system he was familiar with to make it fit his needs. The main reason we are most familiar with his system is because he wrote about it in great detail and in an easily understandable manner.

BHC Loc: Strawberry Valley, JF, USA

While Ansel Adams had a good deal of technology at his disposal, his skill was his ability to (sometimes seemingly arbitrarily) pick a mid-range and divide the remainder of his scenes into 11 zones or stops. There were many times when he took pictures without the benefit of an exposure meter, using other criteria to determine exposure and/or delegate zones.

Apaflo Loc: Anchorage, Alaska

Adams' Zone System was based on work done in the late 1800's by Ferdinand Hurter and Vero C. Driffield. Their work included what is known as the H&D Speed numbers for rating film speed, published in 1890. Adams, in the 1984 edition of "The Negative", also credited 1940 articles in "U.S. Camera" by John L. Davenport as the basis for the initial publication about the Zone System by Adams and Fred Archer.

The only connection between the Zone System and Group F64 is Adams. No other members were involved in codifying the Zone System, and Fred Archer was never part of Group F64. (In fact Archer was famed as a Pictorialist, or exactly the opposite of the Group F64 style.)

In the late 1930's (after Group F64's dissolution in 1935), Adams was teaching photography at the Art Center School in Los Angeles where Fred Archer was the professor who had set up the photography department. Together they worked out a system to teach students the rather well known and understood, but complex and difficult to grasp, principles of applying sensitometry to film exposure. They did not invent the system, they codified it.

Uuglypher Loc: South Dakota (East River)

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Here's just a brief summary of the history of the Zone System of Exposure I've been able to glean from various writings of Ansel Adams .

Many of Ansel Adams' most famous and beloved images were made many years before 1940 when he and Fred Archer began to design the system of instructing photographers about exposure based on practical photosensitometry.

Adams and Fred Archer (both on the faculty of the Art Center School, Los Angeles, CA ) "...set out to plan a way by which the students would learn the 'scales and chords' to achieve technical command of the medium. The resulting codification of practical sensitometry was called "The Zone System."
We often forget that Adams was a concert-class pianist who, in his twenties, made the conscious decision to give up music and devote his life's efforts to photography.

Adams reports that "...we based our first plan on articles by John L. Davenport that appeared in U.S. Camera in the Autumn and Winter edition of 1940"
Davenport was the first to systematize predictable film sensitometric results and subsequent print tonal range and tonal spectrum through standardization both of usage of the Weston Master light meter and of various facets of film development.

See: <http://archive.org/stream/ConstantQualityPrints/davenport_1940_pt1-2#page/n0/mode/2up>

Davenport's work was broadly based on the contemporary state of the science of emulsion photosensitometry, in turn based solidly and, in essence, entirely upon the seminal work of Hurter and Driffield ( of Hurter and Driffield Curve - "DH Curve" - fame) in the 19th Century.
See: <http://archive.org/details/memorialvolumeco00hurtiala>

Adams and Archer refined and condensed the complex technicalities of sensitometry and Davenport's innovative and complex scheme into a practical system of exposure readily accessible to the ardent photographer.

Adams taught this "Zone System of Exposure" to photography students at the Art Center School as well as to colleagues and workshop participants until, in a short time, it took on a life of its own.

The teaching and writings of Minor White, an Adams acolyte and early advocate of he ZSE, did much to establish the ZSE in the canon of modern photography.

Dave in SD

Pablo8 Loc: Nottingham UK.

One doesn't have to follow the 'Zone-System' in making decisions regarding exposure, in whatever medium. I regard it as a tried and tested formula. It works for me!! If you 'Go your own way'..expound, and extol your own theories...and when your name is Globaly attached to that system, you will be able to 'shout it from the roof-tops'. I'll be listening..

ygelman Loc: new -- North of Poughkeepsie!

Ahh! Dave, Yours is the kind of reply I was hoping to get! It somewhat verifies what I thought had to happen but your reply really spells it out. And the two links are great.

(By the way, I finally had to write "https" rather than "http" to get the archive.org link to work.)

Thank you!

And to Pablo8,I agree wholeheartedly. Often, the idea remains in the head and informs the testing of different methods. That's what I was implying in the other thread.

Uuglypher Loc: South Dakota (East River)

Hi, ygelman,
I should have noted that the major source of the notes I posted was:
"The Zone system - A Basic Explanation' by Arsene Baquet and Steve Holtz"
I had added them to my notes from Adam's writings and failed to correctly attribute them. The " Basic Explanation " by Baquet and Holtz is, from my personal perspective, the single best, clear, and concise explanation of the Zone System of Exposure I have yet found.

The basic reference, of course, is Adams' "The Negative"

More detailed dissertations are:

Zone System Manual, by Minor White,1961, Morgan&Morgan Inc. Publishers,NY

and

"The New Zone System Manual, by White, Zakia, and Lorenz, 1976, Morgan&Morgan, Dobbs Ferry, NY
Although written from the perspective of B&W film photography, the dogital photographer will have no trouble translating the concepts to the digital context.

Another reference of comparative historical interest is:
"Manual of Correct Exposure" by H.P.Rockwell, Jr, 1941,
Ziff-Davis Publishing C., Chicago, IL
This small book, a summary of the standard of B&W film exposure, was being written at the time that Adams and Archer were developing the Zone System of Exposure. This publication, as well as those of Davenport confirm that Adams and Archer were not working in a vacuum and did not develop the ZSE out of whole cloth (which, in all fairness, they never claimed to have done !)

In the late 1940s my father (a technical and advertizing writer for Eastman Kodak and then for J.Walter Thompson, the NY Advertizing Agency that took over Kodak's advertizing) introduced me to the Zone System, having had access to Adams' and Archer's early materials in the Kodak archives, and presented it in comparison with, and contrast to the principle in Rockwell's manual. The relative concise logic and simplicity of the Zone System was even then obvious to my young mind! My father made sure I cut my teeth on DIY dry glass plates exposed in his father's 5x7 view camera, before training me, and then hiring me as his D.R. assistant developing his roll and sheet film and preparing his contact proofs. When I was finally able to get my first SLR (a pre-war Cine-Exakta) the Zone System in my blood and has remained so for the subsequent ...what?...67 years.

It does my heart good to see that the ZSE still inspires interest and quite logically provides guidance in photographic exposure well into the digital age. I would love to have the opportunity to read Adams' posts in UHH holding forth on use of the ZSE today.

Dave in SD

pete-m Loc: Casper, WY

I use it too, and have been for years. But I agree with you, one should use whatever works for one.

The late Fred Picker has an excellent book about the Zone System based on B&W film photography.

Pete :D

agilmore Loc: Baltimore

I started taking photos in 1963 with a pinhole camera that I made in shop class. Now, 51 years later, my equipment has noticeably improved: Canon T3 DSLR. I've always struggled with exposure, and recently bought a used copy of Ansel Adams' book The Negative which explains the zone system (I got it as a recommendation from this forum). Having read it recently, I thought I might try to summarize a few key points that are fresh in my mind.

1. Adams said that his photographs were typically 'better' than the original scene, i.e. he was not looking for realism, but for artistic quality.

2. Keeping #1 in mind, he would measure the brightness of the point(s) of interest using a spot meter, then decide what zone he wanted them in, in the final photo. Then he used the appropriate exposure (and development) that would place (shift) the brightness to the place he wanted it in the final photo.

I have been thinking about this in recent weeks since finishing the book, and realize how simple the principle is, although it may be a bit more complex in implementation. Nonetheless, he points out his freedom to apply manipulation to get the artistic effect he wanted. Indeed, he pre-visualized the final, manipulated photo before he ever clicked the shutter

I suppose this general principal is used in other areas, such as writing fiction. We enjoy reading novels, not because they are exact replications of life, but artistic manipulations of real (or sometimes not so real) life in a fashion that draws us in and gives that "suspension of disbelief" so we can be sucked into an absorbing, entertaining plot.

I think my photos will be better after understanding the zone system. It is a tool, and I like to have lots of tools in my tool box, so I will continue to be on the lookout for other systems and tips to advance the craft.

Alan

EmilMiller Loc: Miramar, FL

"but to indicate what we consider to be reasonable statements of straight photography."

I've always been a big fan of Ansel Adams and greatly admired his dedication to knowledge and technique of his craft. But no one manipulated photography more within the limitations at the time. From the beginning, his "pre-visualization" of the scene suggests that as an artist, he had a point of view. Time of day, direction of light, choice of lens, composition, manipulation of both exposure and processing (film & paper), he bent what was available to him to create the image he wanted to project. It's what we all do when a scene strikes us as photographic. Yes, we've all "taken" photographs and even Ansel admitted that "Moonrise" was him being lucky as he drove up on the scene from the road, but his craft took over from there to capture the one image before the light disappeared.

Uuglypher Loc: South Dakota (East River)

Given that admission we should realize that in the years subsequent to his making that negative he himself (not to mention other assigned printers) printed it in a variety of manners indicating that his " pre-visualization" was up for considerable revision after-the-fact.

Dave in SD

EmilMiller Loc: Miramar, FL

Dave, that's a really great point. I known that I've grown and changed my perspective as my craft has developed; and I'm willing to bet that Mr. Adams did as well. I often (maybe too often) return to photos and play with presets and PP to see if thee's more to what I originally saw. I believe it's called evolution, and your observation probably is as good an argument for my original comment as anything.

ole sarg Loc: south florida

Perhaps I am all wet but hear me out. I think most just grab the camera and say I think I will shoot birds or grass today and then go to a place that has birds or grass and get light meter readings, set aperture and speed and then start taking pictures - in fact hundreds of them. But, how many actually spend a week studying the location under various light prior to taking the first shot? Adams would spend a month or more doing so and that is what makes his photographs so great.

On UHH we have for instance birders and sports folks. Those who get great photographs know their subjects and the location(s) where they shoot. In short, they have developed an expertise and that is reflected in their photographs. I would bet that they shoot fewer frames then those who do not have that expertise.