How to Use the Zone System by Ansel Adams

Today I’m writing about How to use the Zone System by Ansel Adams. Firstly,  Ansel Adams’ Zone System is genius.  It’s how I learned to expose black and white film, and it’s so easy once you understand it and know how to use it.  I use it all the time while photographing personal work, both indoors and outdoors in natural light.  I’ve found that it works well for both color and black and white film, although Ansel initially came up with this system to get the correct tonal values for a black and white film exposure (and then create a beautiful print).

(But first…..this highly popular post is visited by 1000s of photographers like you each month. I’ve gotten 100s of requests for more info on how I meter. Swipe my Zone System Cheat Sheet below. Get your hands on the exact sheet I use every day when I’m shooting with my in-camera meter!)

TL;DR: How the Zone System Helps You Nail Film Exposure

The Zone System helps film photographers control exposure by intentionally placing highlights and shadows where they belong. This guide breaks it down in plain English, so you can meter confidently, stop overexposing, and get consistent results! Especially when photographing people.

What is Ansel Adams’ Zone System?

If you’re not familiar, his zone system looks like this (courtesy of Wikipedia):

The 11 zones in Ansel Adams’ system were defined to represent the gradation of all the different tonal values you would see in a black and white print, with zone 5 being middle gray.  Zone 0 is pure black (with no detail), and zone 10 is pure white (with no detail).  Theoretically, each zone represents one f-stop in exposure.  You’ll also notice there is an 11-stop difference between pure black and pure white. There’s a 7-stop difference between the darkest black with detail and the lightest white with detail.  That’s quite a lot of latitude to work with. It is one reason we love film, right?! So how does it actually work?

How does Ansel’s Zone System Work?

You might be thinking, “Yeah, okay, great.”  Thanks for the nerdy science/history lesson. How is this going to help me??  Okay, ready?  Let me tell you how his Zone system works. What do we all know our camera, if put at ‘correct exposure’ (the middle bar in your internal meter) exposes for?  White?  No.  Black?  No.  A camera’s sensor exposes for middle gray – Zone 5.  The same tone as an 18% gray card, weathered wood, or dirty concrete. 

No Handheld Meter Required

So what if you decide to take your kids sledding one day? You bring your camera to take some epic film photos- and you forgot your meter? How will you know how to expose? You can take in-camera meter readings of the scene you want to photograph. Place the important items (your kid’s faces, the snow, etc.) in the right zones.  

Total Creative Control

You may be asking how you place them there.  Well, if your camera, when metered on snow, is showing an exposure value of 0, you know the snow will expose as a middle gray tone.  You have to place the snow tonal value into a much lighter gray-to-white (zone 7 or 8, usually), by opening up 2-3 f-stops.  Now you will have white snow. 

Before you take the photo, do a quick meter check on your child’s face.  Your meter should show it about 1-stop down from your snow meter reading if your child has a lighter skin tone.  What if you were to also meter on black sledding tubes? The meter should be in the negatives, indicating a dark tonal range.  My kids clearly aren’t sledding here but you can see the range of values I’m talking about.

Photo Examples Using Ansel Adams’ Zone System

Without getting much more nerdy on you, I’ll show you some examples from my recent excursion to Park City, UT.  (If you haven’t gone there, I highly recommend it!  It’s a great ski area for families.)  All the film I used (Kodak Tri-x, Fuji 400h and Kodak Portra 400) were rated at box speed.

Zone System Example 1:

In the photo above, I metered on the gray morning sky and on the snow at the bottom. I used my Pentax 645n in-camera meter.  I wanted the sky to be in zone 7, so I made sure my in camera meter read +2. The snow was to be +1.

Zone System Example 2:

In the photo below, taken later in the day, I wanted the snow to be lighter and brighter.  Here, I placed the snow in zone 8 (+3).  It’s good to know it was overcast and snowing. Because it was overcast, there wasn’t a huge range of tonal values. This meant I didn’t need to worry about clipping highlights or shadows. (As I would have on a bright, sunny day).

Zone System Example 3:

Conversely, in the photo below photographed on Kodak Tri-x 400 speed film. I had a lot of middle gray mixed with a few darker and lighter tones.  I knew if I exposed for middle gray (0 in the camera meter), the photo would be exposed correctly.

Want to see more real-life examples? Swipe my Zone System Cheat Sheet below!

Zone System Quiz 1:

Can you guess how I metered for these two photos?

On the left:  I metered for the sky (+3). I then metered his jacket and made sure it would have detail (not zone 0).  On the right: Metered for the brick at middle gray.  Made sure snow was +3.

Zone System Quiz 2:

What about this color photo?

Same thing!  On the left, I metered for the concrete sidewalk at middle gray. I then checked the other values around it.  On the right,  I had quite a mixture of tonal range in here. Usually in this situation all tones will equal out to a middle gray tonal value.  If you keep the camera meter at 0, you’ll likely have a good exposure.  I overexposed anyway just to make sure, especially since I was using all forgiving color film.

Are you starting to see how to use the Zone System by Ansel Adams?  Now I have two more scenarios to show you.

How to Use the Zone System in Real Life

What do you think I did on the right?  I wanted to be able to see detail in the snow at the bottom and create a dark tunnel. So I overexposed the snow +2.  I did want to make sure I didn’t lose much detail in the blacks. But I didn’t care if I lost a little.  What about on the left?

Last, here are a couple indoor shots with Fuji 400h film rated at 400.  I metered exactly the same way.  For the elf, I wanted to expose the highlights correctly and show the glow of the light. I metered for the highlights +2-3. Next, I checked the tonal values of the red suit and the painting.  I didn’t care about the wall. 

For the right, I wanted to show depth.  I wanted the shadows to drop off, so I metered for the end of the wood and exposed +2.

Putting Ansel’s Zone System all Together

Do you see a pattern here?  Through most of these examples I overexposed 2-3 stops. I placed key items like snow, light, and skin tones in zones 7-8 all on an overcast day.  Conversely, if it was sunny out you would see a wider tonal range in your scene. 

Troubleshooting Hard Scenes

What about hard scenes? With black and white film, if the sunny tonal range is over 7-stops, do this. You’ll have to choose whether you want some loss of detail in the highlights or in the shadows.  You have to decide what is the most important range you want to expose for.  Are you okay with losing a little detail in the shadows or the highlights?

Using Other Tools

Alternatively, you can choose to compress the tonal range by adding light to the shadows via a flash or reflector. Another way to compress the range is to find a way to darken the highlights (using a scrim, perhaps).

I hope this was helpful and de-mystified how to use the Zone System by Ansel Adams. 

I encourage you to try using it on your next excursion!