Re: Proper Exposure ( wasRe: Ricky's Kung Fu Pose)

[Paul Stenquist]

Precisely. No, exposing this scene correctly doesn't require a full 
understanding  of the zone system, but what you just outlined is a zone 
system approach. There are those who wold just meter the scene with a 
center weighted or averaging meter. if the table lamp is bright, they 
might end up underexposed by several stops. By concentrating on the 
element you wish to expose correctly -- in this case the skin -- you 
are applying the zone system methodology, regardless of what you call 
it. Of course it's true that good photographers were doing this before 
Ansel. But he spelled it out in great detail in his book, and went on 
to describe how to deal with elements outside of the range, highlights 
or shadows, through overdevelopment or underdevelopment. I don't think 
he invented very much of this. But he certainly described it with 
exactitude.
Paul
On Oct 22, 2004, at 8:29 PM, John Francis wrote:

Or, to paraphrase, spot-meter on the skin tone, then apply perhaps
minus one stop or so of exposure compensation?
I don't see where this requires knowledge of any Zone system ...
Paul Stenquist mused:
The Ansel rules for that combo would be to place the Indian skin at
zone four or five, depending on how dark you wanted it to appear. You
would then ignore everything else in the image and expose for that
value. It's really quite simple.
Paul
On Oct 22, 2004, at 8:16 PM, Caveman wrote:
Yeah sure. Last time I went through B&W stuff it was APX 400 pushed 
to
1600, lighting 1 table lamp, subject indian complexion skin. What are
the Ansel rules for this combo ?

William Robb wrote:
----- Original Message ----- From: "Caveman"
Subject: Re: Proper Exposure ( wasRe: Ricky's Kung Fu Pose)
I also suspect that there are about 36 frames on Frank's films all
with different subjects and light conditions.
So would you guys please refrain from over recommending this Ansel
thing. It was good for what it was designed for i.e. tuning
individual sheets of B&W film.
The principals of the Zone system can easily be applied to roll film
users. Some negs will always fall outside the range of any
generalized exposure development strategy, which is the best you can
hope for with roll film, but applying a sound scientific methodology
(the Zone system, as an example) to exposure and development will
yield a higher rate of success than the more common shoot, pray and
swear at the lab when it fucks up method.
William Robb