From reading "The Negative" by Ansel Adams, it seems that a black and white negative can effectively record essentially all the zones. However, I thought I remember reading that film can only record 3 stops/zones of contrast. Is this incorrect, or does it apply to color film, or am I missing something? Thanks in advance.

-- Chris Werner (cbwerner@att.net), October 24, 1999

Answers

P.S.

If the film matters I am most interested in TMAX 100 and Technical Pan. Thanks.

-- Chris Werner (cbwerner@att.net), October 24, 1999.

color has about a five stop range if memory serves me. I have pulled up to a 15 stop range into an easily printed neg before using a very dilute developer, this was with plus x at the time. I now use tmax 100 but have not had an occasion to do this with this film.

-- mark lindsey (lindseygraves@msn.com), October 24, 1999.

I don't know where the 3 stops came from. That would only apply to very high contrast films.

In Adam's time, ten exposure stops/zones was about the limit to the shoulder. Delta 100 doesn't really have a shoulder, it just keeps on going, and has given me 20 stops with ordinary development, but I wouldn't want to really use the top end without low-contrast development. T-Max 100 would be similar.

If you really want an answer, why not try it for yourself? Shoot a grey card at the metered exposure, then with an extra stop, 2 stops,... This doesn't just give you a theoretical number, but also shows you what the density and grain is really like at high exposures.

-- Alan Gibson (Alan.Gibson@technologist.com), October 25, 1999.

Film can record a lot more zones than paper can reproduce. Typically, a paper can reproduce no more than 7 stops.

-- Ed Buffaloe (edbuffaloe@unblinkingeye.com), October 25, 1999.

The shoulder is said to result from the combination of film and developer. With today's materials, there is hardly any shoulder. Yet, paper will typically reproduce a contrast range of approximately 1:100, which is more or less equivalent to the seven stops (1:128) quoted above. The problem with the long scales is therefore that you have to compress the steps between the extremes, and if such a compressed scale looks good in a print. The number of exploitable scales also depends on the negative format used. There is some loss of apparent contrast as the prints get bigger, so it might be wise to use less zones on 35 mm than on medium or large format, provided the same care is taken in the development of the negatives (which is difficult, because large format allows for individual processing, and the other two don't). From my experience, one can safely use zones III to IX on 35 mm material, III representing full shadow detail and IX some hightlight detail. More zones usually need special precautions during printing (burning/dodging) if detail is to be preserved.

-- Thomas Wollstein (thomas_wollstein@web.de), October 26, 1999.

It is rumored that Ansel had three secret zones known only to him. ;-)

-- Jim Steele (jdsteele@erols.com), October 30, 1999.

As I understand it, in the basic zone system zone III to zone VIII are the only ones that will reproduce any detail in the print. Zones 0 through II are slight variations in black and zone IX is pure white. The Density Parameter System, which is a refinement of the basic system, has many more zones. In fact, you can create as many zones as you want with it. But it requires excedingly precise measurements of all the parameters (film sensitivity, shutter and apeture accuracy of your camera, development times and temps, print times, chemical mixtures, and on and on and on). But it still falls within the basic zone scale. Zone 0 is black as black gets. Zone IX is pure white.

-- John Laragh (jwl@taconic.net), November 08, 1999.