Digital BW, The Print

But what's your point? Are you trying to start a discussion about 
something? Are you trying to ask a question? Just pontificating? What?
--
Bruce Watson

djon43 wrote:

>
> http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/zone_system.shtml
>
> Ansel's system centered on TRAINING THE EYE to previsualize and
> control B&W from color scenes. It only SECONDARILY utilized densitometry.
>
> Slightly knowing the man (a customer) and better knowing some of his
> disciples, it was obvious that he attracted attracted anal retentive
> types, some of whom became fine scenic photographers (as opposed to
> portrait, journalistic, or illustrative), many of whom became
> merchants in tourist galleries (as in Carmel, Moab, NYC).
>
> AA's B&W gospel was not the ultimate and his densitometry was just a
> particular spin.
>
> Ansel's particular spin on Zone System was, in addition to his own
> obsessive mindset, substantially due to the fact that films and papers
> were not as predictable in his early days as they became in the
> Sixties (the B&W materials...critical color still required testing,
> batch-by-batch, but skilled color photographers worked VISUALLY,
> developed advanced VISUAL skills, just as Ansel taught in B&W) .
>
> Ansel elected to use densitometry when it became available. His early
> prints weren't technically as wonderful by modern standards as were
> the early images themselves, due to his aspirations, not to early lack
> of densitometer...if you've seen his life's work in hundreds of
> original prints you see that.
>
> Ansel's primary technical gift to us (facilitated by Minor White, the
> better teacher) was PREVISUALIZION of zones: Learning reliably to see
> specific zones of grey in color scenes, controlling them in exposure,
> processing, and printing. 
>
> The beginning and center of that process was learning to identify Zone
> Five...which EVERYBODY in the 60s and 70s had to learn visually,
> whether or not they ever heard of Zone System or Ansel: Basic proper
> use the TTL meters in the various FTNs, F1s and Spotmatics...which are
> designed specifically for Zone Five (same as Kodak's grey card).
>