EZ Zone System Part 3: How to Fix Burned Out Highlights

Welcome to Pictorial Planet.

In today's video I'm finishing the series with how to fix those blown out highlights. With this fix you'll finally have the EZ Zone System sorted out for whatever film and developer combination you use.

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John

[nilzthorbo]

I'm becoming more and more aware of the importance of proper negative development. I've always thought "yeah, I can somehow fix this with split grade printing, dodging and burning and such in my darkroom", but I've found that it's much easier to print from well developed negatives! And *how* to do that is what I learned from you.

Sometimes friends ask me, if i've teached me all that stuff myself. And yes, somehow, i already did it the self-taught way, but in reality i had many lessons with this great teacher Mr. Finch

I think, i will place an order for your book next month. I am already looking forward.

Thank you and greetings from the Black Forest

[Rotogravure]

Using the film between frames for test purposes is very clever.

[raybeaumont]

Nicely done John. The old ways are still be best. My PanF is rated 32EI but then dev'd in my own 2 bath formula. Works for me. Best wishes from The Rhondda.

[kniganastole]

Great result! It's time-consuming, but it's worthy!

[EricsEdgeVideos]

Very nice end result. Better than I had expected. Thank you for this.

[juliencott]

Thank you for your tutorials, very well explained and great content :)

[mrSmith-lchk]

Thanks you so math. Now i know more than before.

[stigofthedump]

Thanks John, another great series ! It really adds to you previous series on Matching Your Film To Your Developer. I'm just in the process of optimising FP4 with D23 myself, having been forced to move on from Orwo UN54, but that's by the by, I really appreciate you sharing all this information in ways that are so easily digestible.
Steve

[paolociccone]

John, thank you again for bringing such fantastic content. This is another very useful video series. I used s similar technique with HP5 but I was developing with a 25% shorter time and still having some problems with the highlights. Next time I'll use the 30% "discount" 😀. Cheers!

[davyboyo]

As always, thank you John, you are a great resource to all of us 😊

[ionvasile]

With night photography, when you have light sources in your frames, is this method good? Or i will have to shorten the development time even more?

[AndrewHenderson]

Thanks again John fab video, I've been waiting all week for this. last weekend I was in London shooting some HP5, I rated it at iso 250, so would I be correct in reducing development by 20 % ?

[baggerrider]

Thank you for this very informative series. Very helpful and educational. I was wondering what you thought of using a compensating developer like Diafine to protect those areas that might tend to be overexposed. I’d be very interested in your feedback.

[SilntObsvr]

I would suggest that, depending on the mood and appearance the worker seeks, any of these three exposure/development combinations might be preferred. For a mood of depression or danger (like a horror movie scene, perhaps), the duller shadows might be preferred; the blocked-up sky and other highlights might be desirable in order to "paste" in a more dramatic sky from a different negative or to convey a mood of surrealism or dissociation, while the final combination of one stop higher exposure and N-1 development could be seen as a "baseline" desirable for most subjects and moods.

What's important here is to *know* what result to expect so you can produce the negative and positive *you* intend. My own preference is to run my shadows deeper than you do, which (along with my compensating development technique) might be a major reason I'm happy with box speed even with films commonly considered nowhere close to their rating (like Foma 400).

[gregpantelides]

Mr. Finch,
Thank you so much for this excellent series of videos! I've recently begun using Ilford's Microphen to push HP5 to 1600. I am really enjoying how this developer maintains HP5's fine grain while being pushed. Ilford says that this developer yields an increase in film speed. My question is....how is this possible? How can a developer increase the sensitivity of a film emulsion to light? My understanding is if detail doesn't make it onto the negative it cannot be recovered via development. My educated guess is that perhaps it is able to pull more detail from the shadows out of the latent image than a standard fine grain developer.Thank you so much for any insight you are able to provide. :-)

[GeorgiosKalaydjian]

Very beautiful balanced tonality, thank you.
I have a question please, what will be the results if you stand or semi-stand develop the film?

[photozen]

Where have you been? hope everything is ok.

[rolandofuret]

Hi John, it means that by reducing the ASA from 50 to 25, you have placed the shadows in zone 4, and by developing -1N you have compensated the highlights by 1 stop to put it back from zone 9 to zone 8 again. Am I correct?
By using 510 Pyro for instance, with your minimal agitation method, you just put the shadows in zone 4 and develop as normally. Am I correct? Cheers, Rolando

[dummatube]

Ilford used to have a chart for the development v ASA ratings. In the 70’s and 80’s when we still used film for commercial work we always overexposed Pan F and FP4 by one stop and developed in ID11 or D76 for 8O% of the normal time. However, we used more diluted developer so that the initial development time was longer as more concentrated developer with short times could lead to streaking and uneven highlights!

[azadpeymaparham]

Hi John, when you say "halve the film speed and reduce the development by 30%". Do you mean set the ISO on your camera half of the box speed and then develop the negatives based on the box speed ISO reduced by 30% or reduce the development time by 30% for the halved ISO?

e.g.: for Ilford HP5+,

set the ISO on the camera to 200 ISO and then develop the negatives for 6' 20" (9' for box speed - 30%) in Ilford DD-X 1+4 at 20C

OR

set the ISO on the camera to 200 ISO and then develop the negatives for 4' 55" (7' for ISO 200 - 30%) in Ilford DD-X 1+4 at 20C