The Zone System

The Zone System is a method of simplifying the tones in a photograph, in order to control how they will appear in the finished print. While this was first developed (no pun intended) for black and white film photography, and a lot of the methodology can be duplicated in Photoshop during post-processing, it is still something that any photographer can benefit from learning, understanding, and implementing in their shooting practices. Unless you just love spending extra time, per shot, in front of the computer, this should be useful to you.

The Zone System was developed in the early part of the last century, primarily by Ansel Adams and Minor White, members of Group f/64, landscsape photographers who believed in getting everything in the sharpest detail with the greatest depth-of-field.

Adams broke all the possible brightness values in a scene down into zones of reflectance. Reflectance is, literally, the amount of light that reflects off a subject or part of the scene you are photographing. Keep in mind that how much light is reflected by a surface is independent of what color that light is.

While there are some variations, here is the basic breakdown of the Zones:

• Zone 0 - It is black without detail. For digital users, this is an area of black where no amount of lightening in Photoshop will bring out detail, because detail simply was not captured.

• Zone I - Careful, with the exception of 0, all zones are identified with Roman numerals. Zone I is also black. If there were no Zone 0 parts of the image, you wouldn’t be able to tell something was Zone I. Still no details.

• Zone II - Detail is beginning to appear, but it does not have texture. You can tell texture is there, but it would take a little photoshopping to get it visible.

• Zone III - This is the lowest shadow value where you can see the detailed texture in the shadow. As opposed to a black line that is a tree trunk (Zone I or II), you can see the line of the bark in the tree if it is in this Zone.

• Zone IV - Dark gray. Think of the skin tone of the majority of people who are not Caucasian.

• Zone V - Middle gray. That 18% gray card? That’s Zone V. It is also important to know that the meter in your camera is designed to either make the single object it is pointing at a Zone V, or average the whole scene out to a Zone V.

• Zone VI - Light gray, moving towards white.

• Zone VII - Moving closer to white, but still with plenty of detail. This is the Zone for Caucasian skin. It is also the last highlight value where you can see the full texture of the surface.

• Zone VIII - Highlight where you can see some texture, but it is starting to fade.

• Zone IX - Almost no detail at all. Things that are painted white usually fall in this Zone.

• Zone X - Paper white. In a classic darkroom, no silver would fall on this Zone at all. Those specular highlights (pointy stars of light) that reflect off of polished chrome are Zone X.

If you have pictures where you like one part of the frame, but some other parts look too bright or too dark, this is for you.

Your camera averages a scene out to Zone V. This is fine if you can use a gray card or find something in the frame that you think is middle gray, and take a meter reading off of that. Not only is this tough to find, but it doesn’t guarantee you won’t still have shadows that are too black, with no detail, or highlights that are too bright or “blown out”.

So Zone System photographers use a method called place-and-fall.

In order to make the picture look the way you want it to, the better choice is to answer the question: “What, in this scene, do I want to be the darkest part where I can see full detail?”

In other words, what should be Zone III? If you “place” Zone III, everything else in the scene will “fall” into a Zone relative to that. Since you aren’t trying to guess an average, but making a conscious choice for one of the extremes, you gain greater control over how everything looks.

You’ve picked your scene, say a portrait of a person with dark hair, and you want to make their hair the darkest part of the scene where you can still see full texture. Dark, but you can still see every strand of hair.

Either using the spot-metering mode on your camera, or by zooming in, or stepping closer to the subject, fill your viewfinder with just your subject’s hair. Be careful, if you step physically closer, not to cast your own shadow on the subject.

Now take a meter reading and note the shutter speed and aperture recommended by the camera.

But don’t just recompose and shoot at those settings. Remember, your camera meter is calibrated for Zone V. If you shoot at these settings, the hair will be Middle Gray, two stops lighter than you want it.

Instead, go back out to your original composition and fix the shutter speed, aperture, or EV to two stops below (darker than) that recommended meter reading. This puts the hair down to Zone III. Each Zone in the system represents one full stop on the camera.

This works best if you are shooting in Aperture or Shutter Priority mode or, better still, Manual mode. Remember, when you step back, the meter reading in your viewfinder will change, so you have to note what it was when you stepped in and go to that meter reading, then down two stops.

Shoot, verify, and enjoy.

None, yet.