Zone System

The Zone System is a photographic technique for determining optimal film exposure and development, formulated by Ansel Adams and Fred Archer.[1] Adams described the Zone System as "[...] not an invention of mine; it is a codification of the principles of sensitometry, worked out by Fred Archer and myself at the Art Center School in Los Angeles, around 1939–40."[2]

The technique is based on the late 19th-century sensitometry studies of Hurter and Driffield. The Zone System provides photographers with a systematic method of precisely defining the relationship between the way they visualize the photographic subject and the final results. Although it originated with black-and-white sheet film, the Zone System is also applicable to roll film, both black-and-white and color, negative and reversal, and to digital photography.

  1. ^ Encyclopedia Americana. Vol. 30. Scholastic Library Publishing. 2006. p. 137. ISBN 0-7172-0139-2. By 1939 he had devised the Zone System...
    Robinson, Edward M. (2007). Crime scene photography. Academic Press. p. 72. ISBN 978-0-12-369383-9. ...Ansel Adams' zone system, was formulated in 1939–1940.
  2. ^ Dowdell, John J.; Zakia, Richard D. (1973). Zone systemizer for creative photographic control, Part 1. Morgan & Morgan. p. 6. ISBN 978-0-87100-040-8.