Your timing is perfect. Just got back from a workshop with Bruce Barnbarm at his home darkroom and studio. Learned so much about how to use the Zone System. While working in the darkroom we discussed your channel and how good it is. Thanks.

@DistinctionPhotoLLC

25 күн бұрын

Wow, I am so jealous!!! And thank you, that made my day! I have seen pics of his darkroom but imagine it is something to see. Did you get to spend time shooting setting up shots etc... That is something I would love to see him do. Hopefully I can get to a workshop at some point to!

@customerbf

23 күн бұрын

We got to go out and shoot, develop the negatives, do a portfolio review and print/reprint or images in the darkroom. A power outage for 2 days kept it interesting. Lots of stories from 60 years of shooting.

At the risk of offending everyone... Most "zone system" videos are like a doctoral statistics class that mathematically explains how the color green is red and you've been wrong your whole life. What I got from this video: expose for the shadows (which I comprehend and you demonstrated); develop for the highlights (which I comprehend and you demonstrated); then go shoot images and see what happens. I still might've missed your point, but I comprehend expose for/develop for/go shoot images and see what happens. Thanks

@DistinctionPhotoLLC

25 күн бұрын

Really was trying to take a very technical subject and make it easier to understand and implement. So thank you, I feel like I accomplished this by your comment!

@user-ry1nv8qf1n

15 күн бұрын

@@DistinctionPhotoLLC Its not a technical subject, is actually the opposite of technical. Its really just matching gray colors, what is technical about this? It's just terribly explained, trying to sound technical. Most of his book is a waste of time, repeating everything and going around with anecdotes that just make easy concepts complicated. Is not hard. You take a reading of an area, and think of what gray you want that area to look. The reading gives you middle gray, you look at the scale see how many stops your color is from middle gray, and adjust the exposure by that many stops. What is technical about this?

@DistinctionPhotoLLC

14 күн бұрын

@@user-ry1nv8qf1n I think it gets technical if you want it to be. Measuring film densities and matching them to you preferred printing paper/ developer is where it gets more technical. But it does not have to be like you say

Excellent tutorial,great!

@DistinctionPhotoLLC

24 күн бұрын

Thank you for the feedback! Greatly appreciated 👍

You are natural born teacher 👏👏👏🙌👌🏻

@DistinctionPhotoLLC

25 күн бұрын

Thanks a lot 😊 Appreciate the feedback!

A clear, concise, informative tutorial. And very much appreciated. Cheers

@DistinctionPhotoLLC

23 күн бұрын

Thank you!

Whoa🤯 - I finally get it! I now understand what I need to do to get better negatives. Amazed!

@DistinctionPhotoLLC

19 күн бұрын

Very cool!

There aren't many You Tube photography videos on exposure which aren't complete nonsense. This is one of the few. Some people might find it hard to grasp, but that will be because they have swallowed the nonsense - which entails thinking that 'exposure' means how dark or light the final photo looks. It makes it impossible to comprehend videos like this which are all about separate stages of exposing, developing and printing. For those that find it too technical, it's well worth going through and thinking about. Great video.

@DistinctionPhotoLLC

23 күн бұрын

Thank you, I think it gets confusing because it is the norm to just adjust a digital images brightness and contrast with a slide even on our phones. So the negative film process can take some thinking like you said to really wrap your head around what is happening.

Great video. The advice to know your materials - stick to one film and one developer while you're learning this stuff - is the most important I think. I'm teaching my 11 year old daughter how to shoot, develop and print film at the moment, and it's all being done with HP5+, Xtol and Ilford MG V. She's learning fast

@DistinctionPhotoLLC

24 күн бұрын

I agree. Though it can be so hard to do. You have to be committed. So easy to get distracted by all the great options out there. If I had to pick one film for all formats and everything. I think it would be HP5. Just so easy to work with! Awesome that your daughter is printing! My daughter is now 11 and we made a pinhole camera and print for her science project at school. So cool to see them grasp the process. Though she would rather be doing Gymnastics at the moment… Appreciate the feedback!

Well done, Matthew, respecting your intention as an introductory piece. I think the one thing I would add is simply a note, that it is called the Zone System, not the Value System. That is, if we place a continuous tone-gradient from black to white above or below the step tablet of zones you showed, we see that what is represented by the 10 zones (originally it was 9, 9 being pure white) is actually that continuum: Each zone, on the tablet, is a textureless, single gray value (or "brightness"), even though we speak of Zones II - VIII as having (at least some) texture, which necessarily means a *range* of values. We may use a 1-degree angle-of-acceptance meter, but anytime we include the texture of a surface within that tiny circle, our reading is in fact an average of those various included values. I mention this because it's not uncommon for students to believe at first that only a specific value can be a Zone IV or a Zone VIII, while, in the real world, a subject can be anywhere within that one-stop range, a "low" or a high Zone VI, for instance. As you said, avoid fixating on absolute exactitude. And, as we grow more experienced with subject readings, we recognize that the degree to which texture is or is not revealed in, say, a "low Zone III" area, depends on the range of values within that averaged area, small as it may be.

@DistinctionPhotoLLC

24 күн бұрын

Thanks Phillip, Great info and point about the metered area even with a spot meter typically being an average of different tones in the scene. I sometimes find this to be the hardest to interpret and place where I want them!

@philipu150

24 күн бұрын

@@DistinctionPhotoLLC Yes. For those new to this: Where a high range of values exists in the texture included in the metered area, as in any averaged reading, the high values can lead one to underexpose, pushing low-medium and lower values toward (or past) the film's sensitivity threshold, i.e., no printable texture.

Best explanation in a long time. Thank you! Have you read or heard of the book Zone Systemizer, by John J. Dowell & Richard D. Zakia?

@DistinctionPhotoLLC

12 күн бұрын

Thank you!, no I have not but will look into it!

there is one other option for zone system, in 120 , that is to use the 205FCC and its zone mode, with contrast control knob (on the mag), to set +1/+2/-1/-2 aka the amount of exp. compensation required for an N-1 or N+1 development.

@DistinctionPhotoLLC

25 күн бұрын

I have not heard of this... sounds interesting!

@andyvan5692

24 күн бұрын

@@DistinctionPhotoLLC yes, if you look in the manual, as it is, it describes a basic way of using it, and esp. since this has a 'spot meter' built in, and has lens /film mag connections, so you set asa on the mag, and f stop on the lens, the contacts send this info to the meter, so everything works, and the meter is a +/- 1/12 EV accurate, according to manual and KZread videos, the electronics even offer a flash meter, well worth investigating.

Great content and tips, just avoid the constant flash on your video

@DistinctionPhotoLLC

24 күн бұрын

Noted, thanks!

🙏🙏🙏🙏💙💙💙💙💙👍👍👍👍👍

@DistinctionPhotoLLC

24 күн бұрын

👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

Sorry but this is no the zone sytem, you are just using the "zones". The zone system uses a densitometer and need a few rolls of film to "calibrate" a film/developer combo.

@DistinctionPhotoLLC

25 күн бұрын

I hear what you are saying… However you can calibrate your materials in many ways. You do not need a densitometer or anything complicated. You can simply use your own darkroom paper. Which is potentially more useful and accurate for what you are printing. I can think of several ways to get great results with this… one way is to test and plot and test some more. Making a video on this would get lost and be to technical for most. This was meant to help people understand it better. I also would argue that using the zones basically is the Zone System. How you do it has always been open for debate. Even by Ansel Adams

@giovannigranada8836

25 күн бұрын

Mr perez please move forward to create the ultimate perfect and eternal Zone System Channel where you can enlighten the world with your unique and once in a lifetime knowledge so we mortals can take a sip of your holy grail of knowledge……..👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼

@chriscard6544

25 күн бұрын

he is right somehow, but it would need more videos about how to correctly test and explain also f-stop printings. Pictorial Planet channel has great videos about it.

Summary, take a reading of the darkest shadow, and decide if you want to underexpose by 1 stop adequate detail, 2 stops almost litte detail, 3 no details, 4 full black. This books are so outdated, so much data for so little information why do you still recommend this?. 16 minutes to explain something you can explain in 2 minutes if you use a proper light-meter that gives you aperture & shutter speed.

@DistinctionPhotoLLC

14 күн бұрын

Spent 16 minutes for the people who do not understand it. You clearly do but for a beginner this can be really hard to understand. One more thing is exposure is just half the equation. Knowing what your final print density is the endgame and there are quite a few variables, so it is by nature a bit complicated The books are still an invaluable resource to anyone wishing to print there pictures in a darkroom. We have an easier time today but the books lay the best foundation, and that is why I would recommend them. Outdated? Very few printers today are capable of printing how Ansel did… might be worth a look at how he made his negatives.

You should get to the point sooner in your video.

@DistinctionPhotoLLC

21 күн бұрын

Ok