Posted by Rick Denney on June 26, 2002 at 21:43:11:
In Reply to: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Persichetti Serenede No. 12 posted by Jim Andrada on June 26, 2002 at 20:04:07:
The Zone System lives in that special branch of Luddites that still hauls around manual medium-format and large-format cameras. Look for me there (I doubt my Cambo is any lighter than your old Linhoff--especially with my three Super Angulons--and my Ukrainian 120 SLR's weigh five pounds each).
But I've given up the chemical darkroom. Calibrating and standardizing the darkroom is what most people think about when they think Zone System. Now, I've calibrated color films and my Minolta scanner and Epson printer, heh, heh.
But, really, the Zone System is about visualization. You observe values in the scene, you place them on the Zone scale, then you see where other values fall. The point is that the values in the print meet your artistic objectives, and you manipulate craft to see it done. I can't use my Pentax Spotmeter without the zones marked on it. As long as the sensor or film has a sensitivity curve, there will be a Zone System.
In that way, it's like any exercise we do on tuba. We may do flexibility exercises, but we do them so that we can make music. We don't play tuba just so we can do flexibility exercises. Or, we shouldn't. But there are some photographers who love the arithmetic of the Zone System more than they love images. Bah!
Rick "gamely trying to avoid a geek attack" Denney