A must read for any aspiring b/w photographer.


All you wanted U wanted to know about photograhy!!!   May 26, 1998
 4 out of 4 found this review helpful

Being a mere amateur, I had never really devoted any time to a serious reading of books on the theory of exposure until I bought Ansel Adams "the camera", "the negative" and "the print" a few weeks ago. I haven't finished reading them, but I have already read enough about the zone system to find it tremendously interesting. The way Adams explains things is well structured, accurate, deep and wide! It takes you through all the aspects of photography, gives real answers to all the questions (which do of course bear a certain level of complexity), even those you haden't thought about! Everybody should receive these books with any camera in my opinion, they are just great!!! Don't look for it any longer somewhere else, it's all here!


A detailed meticulous and useful book on films and light.   April 14, 1998
 4 out of 4 found this review helpful

This book is basically about films and light. It is the most useful book i have ever read on films and taking pictures. It offers no shortcuts nor does it give you easy solutions. But it shows the reader how he or she can develop an eye for taking pictures. The authors goal is not just to take a picture of whats there but to see something in his mind and using the media of film and light to portray what he sees. He calls this visualization. His primary tool is the film and a system of controlling exposure through what he calls the zone system. As Adams was not explaining easily understood concepts with his book it is a complicated book. But it is meticulously written and detailed. And it radiates with Adams'love for his subject. The only flaw I could find on the book is that many of the films he mentions are not in use by ordinary lay-photographers.I have had it for a year now and read it more often than I can remember.