Product Description

Contrary to popular belief, when you buy an expensive camera the exposure skills DO NOT COME with it!

When you buy an expensive GUITAR, you KNOW that playing skills DO NOT COME with it! When you buy an expensive CAR, you KNOW that driving skills DO NOT COME with it! When you buy an expensive CAMERA, why, then, do you NOT KNOW that exposure skills DO NOT COME with it?

This book teaches the beginning Digital/35mm photographer (9th grade level) the simple and practical methods of correctly exposing a subject. This is also the world's first Digital Zone System book that addresses the application of the Zone System of exposure using current manual digital cameras including many of today's D-Slrs. The book covers in detail the applications of a camera's meter, an off-camera spot meter, an off-camera incident meter, and easy-to-remember techniques for exposing sunlit to moonlit subjects without a meter. The book uses Farzad's simplified 5-stop technique using 100 ISO color slide or Digital Film as its base, but the same techniques can be applied to Black and White, as well as color negative film with different ISOs. Since all the thinking is done before the photographer takes the picture, the book is ideal for this millennium's 35mm photographers that use one-hour processing labs. Since all the exposure decisions are made ahead of time (before the picture is taken), the technique saves the digital photographer many hours that he or she would waste behind the computer trying to figure out what he/she wanted to capture in the first place. The highest level of math required from the reader to understand this book, is to be able to multiply and divide a number by two. Also in the fourth edition (with the Lotus flower on the cover), a special calibration section is added to the end of the book for all those photographers who have spent a few thousand dollars on their D-Slr and are consistently getting underexposed and unacceptable images.

The fourth edition also includes Digital footnotes and assignments for photographers using manual digital cameras. The book also includes Digital as well as 35mm exposure cheat sheets for Canon EOS 5D, Canon EOS 10D, Canon EOS 20D, Canon EOS 30D, Canon EOS A2/A2e, Canon EOS Rebel TI, Canon EOS Rebel XT, Canon EOS Rebel Xti, Canon PowerShot G5, FujiFilm FinePix S7000, Minolta Maxxum 5, Minolta Maxxum 7, Minolta Maxxum 9, Minolta Maxxum STSi, Nikon Coolpix 990, Nikon Coolpix 5700, Nikon Coolpix 8700, Nikon D50, Nikon D70, Nikon D80, Nikon D200, Nikon F4, Nikon F5, Nikon F100, Nikon N70, Nikon N90, Nikon N6006, Nikon N8008s, Pentax *ist-D, Pentax 645N, Pentax MZS, Pentax PZ1P, and Sony DSC-F717.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #35213 in Books
• Published on: 2007-01-11
• Released on: 2007-01-11
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 292 pages

Review
"..to help teach light measurement without the students needing a math or science degree" -- Petersen's Photographic Magazine

"..written for the photographer who is interested in the understanding of light" -- Today's Photographer Magazine

"One of the easiest-to-understand books on exposure and the Zone System that we've ever seen" -- Outdoor Photographer Magazine

From the Author
The reality of life is that there is not a single metering system in the world that can give you a correctly exposed image for a given subject every time. If you do not believe this, set your expensive Digital Camera to its most advanced exposure mode and take pictures of a black surface and a white surface. When you look at the resulting Digital Image, negative, or slide you will be disappointed. Cameras of today, very much like the cameras of fifty years ago, are incapable of recognizing and recording extreme tones such as a black and a white surface. What you are going to get from this crude experiment is a medium gray image tone. To add insult to injury, you will have absolutely no clue which one of these resulting images is for the original black or white subjects. As this experiment demonstrates, there is not a single metering system that, without your help and intervention, can capture what your eye sees and what your mind wants to capture. Of all metering systems available to the photographer, the Zone System of exposure with the help of your on-camera or off-camera spot meter is the only one can give a consistent and predictable reading to the photographer EVERY TIME! Once equipped with this knowledge, the photographer can use his or her skill to determine the correct exposure for a desired subject. The major difference between a skilled photographer and an unskilled one is that the latter never questions the camera's readings. The skilled photographer has the knowledge to interpret the spot meter's reading according to the subject tone, and to capture desired image or capture it as the eye sees or desires it. The Confused Photographer's Guide to Photographic Exposure and the Simplified Zone System is the first book ever published that deals with the new millennium's Digital Cameras (5-stop Zone System). Unlike other reflective metering systems (including average, center-weighted, and matrix, and others), in which the unskilled photographer is at the mercy of the camera's vision (?), with the applications of spot metering and the Zone System of interpretation, the skilled photographer is in control of the tones as well as the details in the final image. The book uses color slides or Digital Film as a training tool to get the point across.

About the Author
Bahman Farzad is a Freelance Photographer and a Systems Engineer. He also taught photography at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (Special Studies) for 16 years. Bahman and his daughter Parastoo "Paris" Farzad founded the Birmingham School of Photography in 2004. A graduate of the University of London, he holds two Master's degrees in Engineering and Computer Science. He has won numerous awards in photography and graphic design and has published articles and photographs in many photographic magazines including American Photo, Popular Photography, Petersen's Photographic, and Darkroom and Creative Camera Techniques. He is also the author of "The Confused Photographer's Guide to On-Camera Spotmetering" on which Outdoor Photographer Magazine commented, "Farzad offers simple solutions to the sometimes complicated light metering issues of the modern equipment."

Customer Reviews

Under expectations
Bahman Farzad's simplified Zone system is a good down-to-the-point book. It really passes through the idea, and on that aspect is very good. It lacks, however, examples, I mean application examples - as Farzad 'sells' his book through the beautiful photos on his site. Another point is that the book is needing an update, although it is a 2007 edition. I also purchased the other book, 'On Camera Spot Metering', that dissapointed me, as it is mostly an exerpts-copy of the former book. I recomend the Simplified Zone System, but not the On Camera Spot Metering.

Excellent & useful
I really like this book. It consists of exercises & a bit of theory, the book is filled with learning examples to understand exposure. A brilliant idea & well worth the money.

It Really Works!
This is succinct and straight to the point. I have been looking for something like this for years. If a highly trained 76 year old idiot like me understands the methodology and make it work , anyone can. Cannot praise it highly enough.