Response to Zone system

Anthony, your meter wants to make everything gray. If you meter the shaded side of a tree your exposure will be for a middle tone gray on your negative, if you meter sunlit snow your meter reading will be for this same middle tone gray. The zone system interprets these readings so they fall on the exposure scale where they should so it makes sense to your eyes when printed. By making the shadow gray you are giving too much exposure and by making the snow gray you are giving to little exposure. So when you are metering the shadow you would give 1 or 2 stops less exposure than what the meter calls for and when metering the sunlit snow you would give 1 or 2 or 3 stops more exposure than what the meter calls. This is the basic premise for the zone system, to take it one step farther "expose for the shadows and develop for the highlights." Fred Picker's Zone VI Workshop is the easiest book to understand on the zone system and Ansel Adams' The Negative is considered the "Bible" on the zone system. Hope this helps.

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