The best way to learn the zone system is to read this Ansel Adams book. That's how I learned. Before going any further you need to know the zone system. Go learn it either by Ansel's book or my page here, then we'll get to the next section.
Presuming you know the Zone System:
Put the camera on Manual exposure and point the camera around while looking at the exposure bar graph. That's right, to use the Zone System you have to be very systematic and the auto modes (my usual favorites) are not the way to go.
You adjust the manual exposure so that the elements of your image are exposed, according to the bar graph, as you want them to be rendered on film.
Zone II =
Zone III =
Zone IV =
Zone V = +- 0 stops
Zone VI = +1 stop
Zone VII = +2 stops
Zone VIII = +3 stops
On many Nikon cameras like the F100 one gets only a maximum of +- 2 stops on the bar graph unless the camera is set to 1/2 stop intervals in the custom settings.
Here's where the art comes in: you are in charge. It is up to your aesthetics to determine just how you want your image to look. You need to think as a painter and ask yourself with what tone you want a certain part of the image rendered. As I said, the spot meter is not easy since it only works reliably as part of a Zone System approach.
Presuming you know the Zone System as required for using the spot meter, you know that anything darker than
A2/5 The Zone System
INTRODUCTION
Zones are levels of light and dark.
A Zone System is a system by which you understand and control every level of light and dark to your best advantage. It works in digital just as it does for sheet film. Having a system allows you to understand and be in control, instead of taking whatever you get. Ansel Adams was asked in the 1950s if he thought the Zone
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