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The Zone System is very important to understand, especially for color slides.
Today the Zone System is the careful and analytical setting of exposure. Almost no
one does special development for each negative any more.
I learned it all from Ansel Adams' book "The Negative." He covers the Zone System
for use with color film and point-and-shoot cameras, too.
Ansel Adams, "The Negative"
Ansel worked in the days when everyone shot sheet film developed individually by
hand, and when the only decent papers were fixed contrast.
Therefore of course he suggested screwing with the development of each sheet to
print on grade 2.
Today most people shoot color or roll film and variable contrast papers are among
the best papers available. Therefore custom development of each image just isn't
happening! Today we usually use standard development and vary contrast in
printing.
Even Ilford recommends today what I do for color and B/W negatives: ensure you
get enough exposure in your shadows, develop your film normally, and then use
variable contrast paper for your prints if you need to.
For color one always uses standard development. The colors get very screwed up of
you try to vary development times. I have tried with Velvia and guess what: the
overall contrast remains almost unchanged with even a plus or minus two stop push
or pull! The DMax and shadow level changed, but the contrast of the active image
was about the same. Worse, the color balance goes a nasty cyan with a pull. Color
takes on a nice warmth with a push, although I only push when I need speed.
Here are my quick suggestions:
METERS much more here (page 77).
If you are shooting a modern SLR, use your built in meter in Matrix (Nikon) or
evaluative (Canon) and forget about most of this. You will need to know when to
compensate you meter a bit, but otherwise all Matrix and evaluative systems
incorporate the Zone System automatically.
I have a page on how to use the Nikon built-in spot meters here. (page 68).
If I am shooting a camera with no meter, I use the same meters Ansel did, and you
can still buy them today. I use either the Pentax Spotmeter V (analog) or Pentax
Digital spotmeters. The digital one is smaller and I use it today as Ansel did at the
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