Simplified Zone System: Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Zone System, simplified - Farzad's 5-stop approach
Excerpts from The Simplified Zone System Book

Chapter 1 Sample page:

1.13. What is a Zone?
Of all the terms we discussed, perhaps you are least familiar with this term as it applies to photography. Although the term “zone” will be covered in detail in Chapter 6, the following example will give you a solid foundation for a better understanding of this term.
Perhaps the most familiar application of the zone concept is the North American Time Zones. These zones extend from Nova Scotia (Canada) to California. As shown in Diagram 1.13.0, we have divided the “time” in North America into five 1-HOUR divisions or areas. This extends from the earliest (Atlantic Time Zone) to the latest (Pacific Time Zone) with the Central Time Zone in the middle. Assume that the time in Birmingham Alabama (Central Time) is 6:00 a.m. By examining the illustration, the time in New York state would be 7:00 a.m. and time in California would be 4:00 a.m. If we use the Central Time as our base of reference, then:
By adding 2 hours to Central time we get Atlantic time.
By adding 1 hour to Central time we get Eastern time.
By adding 0 hour to Central time we get Central time.
By subtracting 1 hour from Central time we get Mountain time.
By subtracting 2 hours from Central time we get Pacific time.
In this important example, our unit was “TIME” and we divided it into five 1-HOUR divisions or “ZONES.”
In photography, the measure of the brightness of a subject is its “TONE.” Since our complex subject can have many tones, we can divide these tones into many divisions called “ZONES.” As with Time-Zones, each of these “Tone Zones” will be “ONE STOP” away from each other.
If the last paragraph left you confused, that was intentional. Even if you do not understand it, I want you to think about it. The subject of zones will be covered extensively in the following chapters.

2.4 The Federal Express (FedEx) Story
Federal Express Company (FedEx) is the world’s largest express transportation company and carries more than two million packages daily. Many of these packages are delivered overnight to hundreds of destinations in the US. For many years, until the volume became overwhelming, all packages from different cities, irrespective of their final destination, were flown to Memphis, Tennessee, to FedEx’s Super hub. From there, the packages were sorted and placed on a plane and flown to their appropriate destinations (except all packages whose final destination was Memphis)! Diagrams 2.4.1 and 2.4.2 illustrate the similarities between your meter's operation and that of FedEx’s original operations.

2.5. Let's relate the FedEx’s centralized process to the conclusions of our assignments.
When sending a package from one city to another, the package always ended up in Memphis before it was shipped to its final destination. For many years, Memphis was the base for the FedEx operations in the same way that the 18% gray image tone is the base for your meter's operation.
When you point the reflective meter in your camera at any simple subject and the meter in your camera shows a normal exposure, it is simply creating an 18% gray image tone.
For the original FedEx, Memphis was considered to be the city where all packages must change planes to reach their final destination.
For your camera, 18% gray base can be considered as a point through which all image tones must pass before reaching their final destination. The only difference is that your camera does not know where these tones are coming from and where they are going to. The final destination of any gray tone at the gray base must be determined by the skilled photographer. Photographers having the knowledge of light measurement, know what the original tone looks like and they use their skill to create the correct image tone on film.

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The confused photographer's guide to photographic exposure and the Simplified Zone System by Bahman Farzad covers the Simplified (5-stop) Zone System, Incident metering, spotmetering (spot metering / Partial Metering), Pentax Spotmeter used as example) Misc. exposure techniques from Sunny-16 to Moony-64.
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Copyright 1999, The confused photographer's guide to photographic exposure and the Simplified Zone System by Bahman Farzad