I am guessing then that he chose his subject matter carefully knowing he was more or less working to a 5 stop range
Not really, no. With proper testing of your chosen film and your equipment, quite detailed texture can be seen in Zone III and with even the faintest, darkest texture revealing itself in Zone II; though, sometimes you
really have to look hard to see anything in Zone II.
Therefore, we're looking at more of a 6 - 7 stop range.
One of the subjects that Fred liked to photograph was winter scenes in Vermont which, on sunny days, can involve quite high contrast. I've seen many of his original prints and I never viewed them as lacking anything. Therefore, he must have been doing something right.
Ian G - I, too, started with AA's books trying to understand and incorporate his techniques into my own B&W photography. Then, I found Fred and attended his workshop in 1979. He was a student of Ansel's (attended his workshops), but felt that AA's teachings were too involved and complicated, and that there was an easier way to utilize the Zone System without all the gobbledygook. He wrote a very thin book called "Zone VI Workshop" outlining his "watered down" version of the Zone System. The principles outlined in this book is what he taught at his workshops for many years. He was derided by many peers (not Ansel) because these peers felt that Fred's teachings on how to test for and use the Zone System were just too simple. I'm simple...so, naturally, I followed his path!
Years later, I played around with Phil Davis's BTZS system to make sure I wasn't missing anything, but found his techniques
much too complicated and involved.
I guess the point here is that there's no ONE way to do things, right? We all find what works for us and, if you're serious, you stick with it and get on with the hard part; making images!
IanB - you might want to give some thought to the negative crafted using Steve Sherman's EMA technique. IMO, though I don't have years of experience with these negatives, yet, the resulting negative using his development techniques might provide the
perfect negative for both analog and desktop printing. In the analog darkroom, you can employ sophisticated split-grade printing techniques, and on the desktop you have a nice low contrast negative for scanning. So far, I'm finding that when scanning to a linear file, when I convert it using the ColorPerfect plugin I rarely have to tend to highlight clipping and the shadows are well represented, too. Works for me!