Happy Friday!
Each week a group of amazingly talented photographers from Facebook Group challenges each other to take on an assignment or weekly theme. I have joined two years ago. My first year was strong, but my second year was hard due to fostering of few really difficult and time consuming behavior issues dogs. This weekly challenge is a great way to network, get to know each other, and just try new things in general. I love being creative and I will do my best to wow you!
This week's theme is: The Zone System. The Zone System is something new and I have to be honest I had a hard time understanding the weekly challenge. I read several articles and I love that I actually learned something new!!! It has been raining for days now, but I was lucky to get indoor and outdoor photo this week. Photography is not only about taking a photo, but also understanding manual settings on so many levels.
So what is the zone system?
The Zone System divides the tones from white (with no detail) to black (with no detail) and all of the grays in between into 11 Zones (counting 0). And of course it can also be applied to the color equivalent of the gray tone. Neutral Gray is the middle zone, which is Zone V (5).
For this weekly assignment we were required to use a gray card, but I didn't get mine in time, so I am improvising and mixing in some color in my Zone System. This definitely takes lots practice to fully understand it, but here are my two examples.
The most useful when photographing animals, landscapes, and macro.
Here is an example how I used the Zone System. This handsome boy is my foster boy Rocky. He has lots black but with hint of a texture (his fur) even in shadows. I didn't wanted to miss out on the blacks, so I metered off his dark spot on the right. I placed my meter at Zone II and -3 on the meter. I then took a picture and chimped (looked at my LCD and histogram) and moved my meter +1/3 a stop. These are my SOOC and edited versions.
This boy is so photogenic! And this assignment is pretty hard, but more and more I read about it I was able to grasp the concept. Truly in photography practice is the key and learning something new is crucial. Let's show one more example and I will send you off to another photographer.
My personal style is to overexpose my images. As you can se, I could not help it in post-processing :) I hope you learned something new about Zone System in Photography. What steps did I take? Or how to even start and practice this way of shooting?
1. Set your camera to Spot Meter.
2. Determine what Zone you will be metering off of and go ahead and spot meter off of that area.
3. Dial in the exposure according to the charts below.
4. Double check your exposure by checking the histogram, checking blinkies, or by chimping (whatever method you normally use) and adjust accordingly by 1/3 stops.
This will be different for Nikon and Canon users because the in-camera meter is set up differently.
For Nikons, the meter goes from +……..0………-
For Canon and Other users, the meter goes from -…….0…….+
Regardless whether your meter goes from positive to negative or negative to positive, the Zones are the same.
Zone III 3 = -2
Zone IV 4= -1
Zone V 5= 0
Zone VI 6= +1
Zone VII 7= +2
I hope you enjoyed this very technical assignment and I can't wait to see how other photographers handled their week! Never stop learning and expending your horizons. Step out of your comfort zone, that is the best way to learn something!
Remember, this is a circle of photographers and we try to get others participating. Please scroll down on each blog and visit the next photographer. I hope you enjoy the talent and diversity in our group. If you want to join our group let me know! Up next is Spotty Nose Pet Photography in Los Angeles area
Have fun!
Pavlina