I always determined film speed by making zone I exposures at different film
speeds and a densitometer. I then determined development time by exposing at
zone VIII at the proper film speed and after determining a "standard print time"
The amount of print time required to get maximum black through a developed but
unexposed negative, printing for that time and determining which development time
gave me a proper "zone VIII" print.

Correct if your meter is accurate and your shutter is accurate.

Rather difficult and the accuracy is questionable, however in theory and general
practice you can do it by placing the two negatives on a light table of even
brillance or by placing the negatives over the spot meter and shining the enlarger
light through the negative. A densitometer/or analyzer is the best way to establish
accurate results. You could also print both negatives using the same exact enlarger
exposure, paper development time and visually determine the difference. You would
have to determine first black on the photo paper before hand
because the Z1 neg is going to print all black.

    I am assuming you were photographing a gray card or something
similar.
Each zone in the zone system is one stop apart. The difference
between 1 second and 1/15th is about 4 stops (1/16th to be exact) so
the two should be 4 zones apart. This assumes no reciprocity effect.
The zones of the zone system are related to printing paper density,
running from paper white to paper maximum black. The density range of
a reflection print is somewhere around log 1.5 to log 2.0. This bears
no direct relationship to the densities on the negative because
nothing is said about the contrast grade of the paper. The paper
contrast relates the contrast, or density range, of the negative to
the density range of the paper. The higher the paper contrast the
shorter the density range on the negative that is needed to produce
the full range of densities on the paper.
  Development controls negative contrast. In this way negagives vary
from prints. Prints are nearly always developed to the maximum
contrast the material is capable of. Film for pictorial puposes is
developed to a much lower contrast than the maximum. The idea is to
match the contrast of the negative to the contrast of the paper. The
Zone System was designed to help photographers make negatives which
would print with good tonal rendition. The idea is to fit the scene
contrast onto the film so that the desired range of tones will print
on _normal_ grade paper. Since varying development also varies the
minimum and maximum densities of the film it is desirable to expose
the film so that it is neither too low in density for the shadows to
have good detail or so great in density that it requires long printing
exposure times.
  I think one reason for choosing to vary the negative contrast
rather than matching by paper grade was that the curve shapes of the
different paper grades did not always match so the tone rendition was
not always the same for a lower contrast negative printed on higher
contrast paper and a higher contrast negative printed on lower
contrast paper even though both negatives were exposed correctly. Some
graded papers are better than others in this respect, but there are
few graded papers on the market today. For variable contrast paper
there may still be an advantage to controlling negative contrast
because some VC papers do not vary highlight contrast much from grade
to grade.
  I am rather of the opinion that more conventional senstometric
methods may be less confusing than the zone system but they are really
just different approaches to the same end: getting consistent and
predictable tone rendition on prints.
  Most B&W negative materials will produce good tonal rendition over
a wide range of increased exposure once a certain minimum exposure is
given. The main advantage of keeping exposure to a minimum consistent
with good shadow detail is that thinner negatives tend to be less
grainy and sharper than denser ones. This makes much more difference
for small negatives than for large format ones.
  Now, after all this exposition I am still not sure I am even
addressing your question, my excuse being I have been awake too many
hours.

Richard Knoppow
Los Angeles, CA, USA
dickburk@ix.netcom.com

What are you talking about?