Hi all,

was reading up on the zone system for exposure and read myself into a confused conundrum!

my understanding of the zone system is where you find a scene you like, meter it, and determine where you want you shadow zone to lie, then determine where the highlights lie then develop for which zone you want the highlights in/which zone they fall in.

for example, say i came across a scene, metered the shadows at zone V, say 1/60 at f/5.6, i want them in zone III, so to expose for zone III i'd use 1/250 at f/11, then I'd determine the zone the highlights fall in, say zone VII.

I think that's right, though here's where i get a little unsure..
at zone VII it is 4 stops above zone III. A normal development time is for 5 stops difference between shadows and highlights. putting my zone VII highlights into a N-1 category.

So in order to develop my film, i would take a normal development time and reduce it.

though i forgot where i was told this, but for N-1 highlights, I should reduce my development time by 20%???

Am I correct in saying this? or am I completely left field???

Cheers,

Tim