Black+White Photography - UK (2019-12)

49

B+W

Right

I knew it was going to be a challenge to get this

shot but because I was shooting on black & white

negative film I could follow the basic Zone System

premise of exposing for the shadows at the

bottom left of the frame. Were I shooting sheet

film (or even roll film) I could have then decreased

the development time to compensate for the high

contrast, but I was shooting 35mm film and this

rarely makes sense as there are far more frames

that need to be considered. So instead, I simply

let the highlights fall where they were.

will decrease, placing greater importance

on focusing accurately, while handholding

your camera at slower shutter speeds

increases the risk of camera shake.

Although image-stabilised lenses will help

if you’re using a compatible SLR system

(Canon IS and Nikon VR lenses first

appeared for their respective film cameras),

a tripod and a cable release are arguably

much more important for film photography

than they are for digital capture.

Put simply, exposing film is not as easy

as shooting digitally. This is a major part

of the challenge (and fun) that comes with

shooting film, but it can also be a source

of great frustration. However, here we are

going to work through exposure in a way

that guarantees you will be able to nail

your shots, or at least start to understand

when and why they might not be coming

out as you planned.

E

ven if your camera is fully automated,

or you’ve set it to work in a point-and-

shoot fashion, it needs to know how

much light the film should receive

and for how long. The key to this is

a lightmeter which is simply a light-

measuring device – either in the camera

or a separate item – that measures the

brightness of the scene you’re aiming it at

or the intensity of the light falling on it.

There are several ways in which

The Zone System was developed by

landscape photographer Ansel Adams

and photography instructor Fred Archer

in the late 1930s / early 40s as a means

of producing – from a technical standpoint

• the best negative for printing.
  Some film photographers still zealously
  employ the Zone System in their work,
  while others choose to ignore it, but the
  most important thing to remember is that
  great photographs have come from both
  schools of thought: the Zone System is
  not compulsory but nor is it redundant.

ZONE SYSTEM

lightmeters can be used but the principle

that underpins them all is ‘18% grey’.

Essentially, lightmeters are calibrated to a

mid-grey tone that has 18% reflectance and

works on the basic assumption that all of

the tones in the area you are taking your

meter reading from would average out to

this mid-grey if they were mixed together.

Depending on the meter or metering

pattern, this could be the entire scene or

just a small part of it, but in every case the

lightmeter assumes the same thing: if you

mixed all of the tones in that area together

they would be 18% grey. Based on this

assumption, the meter can then suggest

an exposure for that area that would also

average out at mid-grey, so it’s a case of

‘mid-grey in, mid-grey out’. Of course,

for this to work, the 18% grey assumption

actually needs to hold true. Although a

surprisingly large number of scenes and

subjects meet the mid-grey ideal, it is not

always the case: a bright beach scene with

near-white sand and a bright sky; a polar

bear in a snowscape; or – at the other

extreme – a frame-filling shot of a black

panther, are all scenes or subjects that

would average out to be much lighter or 

© Chris Gatcum