Saturday, April 23, 2011

Zone Heads

Today I made some head-shots using the Linhof 210mm and Pentax spot meter. I wanted to place the face (asian darker skin) on zone V 1/2 but then the hair fell off below zone 2 (I want to see some detail in the black hair). I did exposures where the hair was placed up higher so I could get more shadow detail but that also pushed up the face into the zone VII/VIII area.

I think I might have to try metering the hair in the future and place that on about Zone III and let the face fall where it falls as long as its not to high Zone IX or higher, then burn down the face. I might also try exposing the hair for Zone III and using N-1 development to bring down the face a bit.

I need to perfect all of this before I leave for Cambodia, where I hope to shoot dozens of head-shots this way.