This is the first video that actually explained everything about the zone system - both the metering and exposure in camera, and tweaking the development times. Thank you.

Great job! In my use, I never use minus development, as it tends to crush tonal separation. Films like TMY, Delta 100, and Acros don't shoulder for many 'zones' above 8 if developed in something like D76. I place the shadows on zone III, take the picture, and develop normally. I've found that both in the darkroom or with my scanner that I can easily bring those highlights down. If the brightest scene values fall above, say, zone XII, then I'll use divided development or SLIMT. I highly recommend getting a step wedge, and making some prints/scans to see what the systems will give. In particular, if you're scanning, find out what range of densities has a straight line response.

Your talk about the relationship between the zones, film exposure and development times was very helpful to me. Thank you.

Best explanation for Zone System and how it relates to development push/pull. Thank you!

I have seen this amazing tutorial several times, thank you ,great work Martin!!

Surely the most useful and accurate introduction to the zone system available on youtube! Great channel too - many thanks.

Ansel Adams and Fred Archer invented the Zone system while teaching at my Alma Mater way back in the 40's :)

Best explanation I ever heard on the Zone system...

I don't have the first clue how you produced such a succint and superbly animated video, but congratulations on a job extremely well done. Atb. 👍🏻

Nice videos theese 1&2. It helsedirektoratet me understand better. Now i Just have to go out and experiment.

Just BRAVO, BRAVO, Mr. Henson..

THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU Martin !!!! Been shooting for years but this video nailed it for me... BRAVO !!! The best example and understanding of the Zone system with film development I've ever seen. I've read The Negative but this was so well put together.... concise, well thought out and explained with images superbly.

@martinhensonphotography

2 жыл бұрын

Glad you liked it, thanks

Martin, you have no idea how your videos have helped my photography. This particular video helped me tremendously. Days ago I went out and shot metering for the shadows. Came back home" for the fun part" as you call it, and got ok negatives except for the sky. This video clearly opened my eyes and now I will put it into practice. Thanks again, and keep posting these educational videos. Stay Safe!

@martinhensonphotography

2 жыл бұрын

If your working in a darkroom , then working with a stop 5 stop textural range is the normal, if you include the none textural range then the range is extended , in the scanning workflow you can push the working range to 7 stops plus the pure blacks and whites

Did I like the video??? Well, that would be an understatement! This is an amazing video. And viewing it today for the 9 time. There is so much packed into this video! Thank you Martin! )))

Martin brilliantly put together video this will help me tremendously thank you

this is one of the best zone system explanation on youtube, thank you

Never seen such a brilliant explanation. Thank you Martin!

Excellent tutorial. Subscribed and greetings from Finland 👍🏻

@martinhensonphotography

2 жыл бұрын

Thank you

Great video - so clearly explains a really tough topic

Excellent and clear explanation.

Enjoy your videos very much..just picked up this same light meter and going to use it for my Night time shots.... My older light meter does not work well in very low light values...so after watching your videos you helped my Night time picture taking with these old folder vintage cameras....many thanks....Cheers

@martinhensonphotography

2 жыл бұрын

Your welcome, and, I applicate you taking the time to view the video

Thanks and another superb video with a wonderful explanation, loved it!

Thanks for another excellent video!

Valuable info. Thank you.

Thank you thank you thank you for these two videos, Martin. Really let me get my head around the Zone System. Cheers.

@martinhensonphotography

3 жыл бұрын

You are welcome, any questions I will try to answer, thanks

Very easy way of explaining the zone system. I also liked you video on shooting at night. I find it tricky.

Very good explanation. Thank you !

One of the best summaries I've seen! Added to my saved bookmarks.

@martinhensonphotography

4 жыл бұрын

Glad you enjoyed it!

hello martin , you diserve much more viewers and subscribers !

Really well explained, thanks 👍

Thank you, thank you, thank you! I downloaded the first video and watched over 5 times already. Just now feel that I am starting to wrap my brain around these details. So today ventured out to watch part 2. And it is just another great video! Super! So very helpful!

@martinhensonphotography

3 жыл бұрын

Glad it helps, once the penny drops it’s quite easy to work with zones, always remember for black and white film, expose for the shadows develop for the highlights, easy to do with sheet films , thanks

@cowboyyoga

2 жыл бұрын

Hi Mr. Henson! When I look at these videos, I always remember that image that popped up with that "Oh my goodness!" expression. And I am sure it was not easy to put these two videos together. Especially now after months of studying the same two videos. I bought me a spot meter like yours and am really starting to get the swing of it. I just wanted to write to you and tell you how much I appreciate all that you put into these videos! Thank you for being my teacher!

I have seen almost all videos about the zone system, especially to understand the tonal compression or expansion during development. And I have to say Martin, you nailed the best explanation out there! I will try to experiment with this so to place my shadow in the Z4 and use N-X to compensate at dev time. Well I still am using 35mm rolls so I do not know if this will work, but I’m sure it’ll be a nice training for when I’m on sheet films. What about pinhole camera in regard to this method? Can we expect good results to? Did anyone experiment this using paper instead of film at shooting time? Thanks a lot Martin for all that you do for us, it’s always a real pleasure to see your videos and how you are committed to bring quality content 😊

Excellent!!

Excellent!

@martinhensonphotography

4 жыл бұрын

Many thanks!

Hi Martin, this is definitely one of the clearest instructions I watched on youtube about spot metering. What I wanted to ask is, I bought Sekonic lightmeter couple of days ago and I am still not sure how to create profil for dynamic range for different films, are there maybe some film profiles on the internet for different films that you can import into a lightmeter? I understand that I can just google dynamic range of films, like for Ilford fp4 it says I can go from -2 till +6 to still have details, but again not sure how to make that profile in lightmeter, as there are a lot of different inputs I don't understand

Thanks for putting all the effort in yet another very educational video! One remark about the textual side notes, if I may: I have no insights in your specific channel stats, but given the fact that over-all KZread is being watched on mobile devices by a growing audience, I wonder whether future videos would benefit from a slightly bigger font in this respective. These text boxes make your videos stand out from other tutorials (apart from all the other skills), hence I think they should be as prominent as possible.

@martinhensonphotography

4 жыл бұрын

Thank you for your comment and I do take on board your remarks about side notes, something I have given no thought to, I will increase the sizes in the future

@olafwDE

4 жыл бұрын

@@martinhensonphotography Thank you.

thank you

@martinhensonphotography

4 жыл бұрын

You're welcome

I thought I knew the Zone System but the development times bit was new to me, so thanks for explaining that so clearly.

Thanks for this Martin, really interesting. I'm really curious about setting normal development times. I'm guessing if you have a roll of film which you've used in a few different settings you have to compromise on how you develop the film? If I go on an outing and take some shots that need more contrast and some that need a little less, there's no way to get round that is there? How do photographers deal with this normally?

@martinhensonphotography

4 жыл бұрын

Ideally you should apply exposure and development times to each individual negative to achieve the desired print, however, when a full roll is processed in the same developer at the same times, you really have lost a lot of control of the end result, some frames will be good others not ideal, you could carry two cameras, one for sunny days the other for dull days and develop as a compromise, or, use a developer such as Diafine were on bright days you set a higher iso and on dull days reduce it, all on the same roll of film, the dev time will still be the same regardless of iso, this will help in controlling contrast and density. It is a compromise and as I said in the video the zone system works best on individual sheets y

@georgeheppel8413

4 жыл бұрын

@@martinhensonphotography Thank you so much.

@jiml989

4 жыл бұрын

I use Diafine and know that for HP5 roll film, they recommend shooting at ISO 800 (640 for sheet film). I had not heard about shooting at different ISOs for different light conditions. Could you expand on this or perhaps do a short video on Diafine?

@martinhensonphotography

4 жыл бұрын

@@jiml989 If you think about it and what's happening to the negative when your alter the iso, so you shoot HP5 at 800iso on good days, then you lower the iso to say 200 iso on dull low contrast days, the negative is receiving more light and the contrast and density builds up more than at iso 800, so on a dull day the lower iso will allow more shadow detail because of the prolonged exposure, because Diafine is a compensating developer the shadows are developed normally but the higher values are restricted because of the way Diafine works, it exhausts quickly in those areas so you end up with a printable negative with good highlights, its a better in some ways than pushing film as you loose shadow detail, grain increases and the contrast can get to high, although some people like the effect of underexposing and increasing development times (you also get higher shutter speeds). Diafine is a different way of working and your not relying on extended times to recover from underexposure, you end up with finer grain and good negative's, I can assure you can alter iso on the same roll as and when needed and use the same dev times, try it and see

@jiml989

4 жыл бұрын

@@martinhensonphotography Thanks so much for the detailed reply!! I have learned so much from your videos. Can't wait till the next one.

I've watched this a few times and feel sort of confident about the Zone System for b/w. Have a question though - can the metering part of the ZS be applied to color slide and negative film? If so how? For example, I shot some 4x5 (or is it 5x4?) color slide last week. I naturally applied the ZS to the metering (the advice I've read/seen just says generic "highlights" and "shadows" for neg & slide metering. It just made sense to apply the ZS). I metered the highlights and put them at Zone VI. Then I found Zone IV (I kept everything to that narrow rang because of slide film's narrow latitude). Then I set exposure at Zone VI and underexposed one stop. The film still hasn't been developed by the way. The same advice says when metering for slide film to put the highlights at Zone VI then over expose one stop. I haven't shot any color neg film to try this out. All that said, should I just place the shadows for neg and slide at Zone III then expose for that reading? Thanks again for producing this video, Martin. Cheers.

@martinhensonphotography

3 жыл бұрын

Colour film, expose for shadows , slide film expose for highlights

@BillPutnamPhoto

3 жыл бұрын

@@martinhensonphotography to keep this in ZS, I would still meter color film for Zone III or even IV, and color slide at Zone VI right?

@martinhensonphotography

3 жыл бұрын

@@BillPutnamPhoto Yes your correct with the zones, you can use the zone system for slide film but in a limited way as the dynamic range of slide film is a lot smaller than negatives so for slide place the highlights on zones 6 or 7. Colour negative has a large DR, place shadows on z3 and the highlights will rarely blow out

@BillPutnamPhoto

3 жыл бұрын

@@martinhensonphotography Thanks. This will make my life moving forward a lot simpler! side note: I've been metering my slide film, regardless of stock, from Zones IV to VI but exposing for the latter. I'll let you know how it turns out when the film arrives back.

@martinhensonphotography

3 жыл бұрын

@@BillPutnamPhoto should be fine, its not set in stone, you have to experiment to find out what way works best with your own equipment

How do you use zone system with roll film?

thanks you Martin for this great video. I have just a question,how do you know if the dynamic range is 5 or 7?how do you measure the dynamic range? I haven't understood,sorry,thank you for your assistance

@martinhensonphotography

2 жыл бұрын

By measuring the darkest area with faint detail then measure the brightest highlight with detail, the difference is the dynamic range

@jeanjeanjean4360

2 жыл бұрын

@@martinhensonphotography for example if the darkest area with details is in area 3 and the brightest in area 9, the dynamic range will be 9-3 so 6, right? thank you very much Martin, very educational and interesting, thank you.

@martinhensonphotography

2 жыл бұрын

@@jeanjeanjean4360 yes correct

@jeanjeanjean4360

2 жыл бұрын

last question Martin and I promise I'll stop bothering you; for you what is the right amplitude of a dynamic range? 7? below? sorry to ask you all these questions@@martinhensonphotography

Thanks for such a helpful video. But at the 9:20 for N+1 and N+2 noticed that we should multiply normal time by 1.4. Is it correct?

@martinhensonphotography

3 жыл бұрын

No, You multiply the N+1 time by 1.4 not your normal dev time, to move the tones two stops To move them one stop , multiply your normal time by 1.4 So lets say you normal dev time is 10mins, to move zones 1 stop, 10mins x 1.4 = 14mins To move tones 2 stops 14mins x 1.4 = 19.60 mins these are starting points and experimentation is a good way of achieving optimal results Thank you

@andre.kuzminsky

3 жыл бұрын

@@martinhensonphotography thanks a lot for the detailed explanation

What about stand developing and N-1/N-2/N+1/N+2/etc developing? As I understand, by using stand development, like you showed here: kzread.info/dash/bejne/nmiG1Lqapq-XaJs.html , you don`t need to worry about N-1/N-2/N+1/N+2/etc zone compensation..? Am I correct? Great channel, by the way. Please keep posting!

@martinhensonphotography

Жыл бұрын

When you stand develop you cannot adjust times so yes correct