It is a fair question. "Why bother?" There are very sophisticated automatic meters out there. The automated exposure systems are versatile and fast. Those same systems usually generate a negative that can be used to make a print that allows the viewer to recognize the original subject. These systems free the photographer from having to think about the many relationships and numbers associated with "photo math". Plus, who bothers to work in black-and-white any more?

And frankly for most photographers, there are not sufficient responses to these points such as to justify the time and trouble of using the Zone System.

Still maybe there is something worthwhile in it. Answer a couple of questions about your own photographs.

How often have you created a photograph that had the power to evoke the emotional response that even the worst Ansel Adams' reproduction has on people?
Extremely often or infrequently?

Never mind whether anyone else can respond emotionally to your work, can you respond emotionally to your work? How about the work you did two years ago?

If you wanted to, would you know what to do technically to increase the emotional power of your work? If you have tried to increase the emotional power of your work, were your efforts successful? If they were not successful, do you know why?

Rather than go on with a long list of related issues, one final occasionally telling question, would you say you "Create photographs" or "take pictures"?

So what's the point?

The point is that when Adams photographed, the thing he was discussing with the viewer was his subjective emotional response to the world. He, and other successful users of the Zone System, knew a photgraphic language to translate between a mental impression of subject and the physical piece of paper the rest of us look at when we are viewing one his prints.

More or less, it is as simple as that. The Zone System can be thought of as a language to translate your subjective response to the world onto a piece of paper.

That's the point, and that's why to bother.

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