B-band rest frame absolute magnitudes as a function of redshift for galaxies of the 10k-sample residing in the central area of the zCOSMOS field, in the redshift range considered in this paper. Two time-evolving luminosity volume limits are shown with dashed lines: the red long-dashed line represents the fainter limit (M_B = −19.3 − z), for which we are complete up to z = 0.7, and the orange short-dashed line is the limit M_B = −20.5 − z, for which we are complete up to z = 1.0 but for which we have enough galaxies only for z ≥ 0.4.