Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?Form.ShowMessage=1101169

In following some of the threads on this Forum, it appears that there is quite an interest in exposure and contrast control, using the methods first formulated by Ansel Adams. I posed the question recently if there were any special "tricks" for applying the Zone System to digital photography? [I guess I was somewhat dissapointed with the response from the group, BTW, so maybe this is just beating a dead horse.] I did pick up a pretty nice, simple book, "The Practical Zone System" by Chris Johnson. Very nice for implementing exposure and contrast previsualization. But also fairly specific to B&W wet darkroom. Digital is covered a tiny bit, but mostly with the slant, "...it's like an expensive television that crashes." The Zone System deals with being able to previsualize what the final print, (or projection, or CRT image), will look like, while in the field, looking at the original scene. It is basically knowing how to corectly use your available tools to execute your artistic interpretation, the way you want to. I've always separated the classical Zone System into two parts, exposure in the camera ("expose for the shadows"), and contrast control on the darkroom, ("develop for the highlights") The principals of exposure control with digital cameras are very similar to those used with analog cameras, but the tools available are often much more sophisticated. Contrast control for digital development, and how the image will finally look on the particular viewing media, is not similar at all. The neatest tool the digital cameras bring to the Zone System is the ability to actually view the histogram of captured brightness range, in the field, at the instant of the exposure. The LCD examples shown here are from dpreview.com, for various major camera brands; Nikon, Canon, Minolta, Sigma, (Olympus and Sony do not seem to have this feature). Looking at the histogram, one can immediately tell if a lot of pixels are "bunching up" at the low end or the high end. Some of the cameras even allow zooming into a smaller section, and showing the histogram of that section. Sort of like a super light meter! Useful in deciding if significant shadow, or highlight, detail has been lost. To a first guess, exposure will be correct if there is no significant "bunching" at either end. Refining this some, exposure will be useable if areas of significant detail are not rammed up against either end. Here, all important tones will be "captured," and one can always then adjust final relationships in photoshop. But if significant detail is lost, at either end, it will later be impossible to recover. [One could imagine a "smarter" digital camera, that measured this histogram continuously, and used the result to adjust the exposure...] Since I generally plan on doing "levels" adjustment in Photoshop, this centering of the histogram is usually sufficient to bring back useable images. [The perceptive will note that I'm lying here, as I do not actually own a digital camera...] Given the ability to zoom to a particular area, and measure the histogram of that area, would in principal allow the digital photographer to adjust the aperature or shutter speed to "place" that area on any chosen Zone. [Again, I think this is neat stuff, worthy of some mini-tutorials. But that may be only my twisted slant on things... I'd be interested in hearing from you digi-folks; Do you ever use the histogram features of your cameras? What is the best way you've found to capture the correct exposure?]