New Photo Series 2: Negative:: The Ansel Adams Photography Series 2

Excellent book.

go to book for every photoenthusiast

I am also a former owner of the early ‘80s edition of this book. There is nothing wrong with this edition in comparison with the older volume, except all the illustrations are in halftone, where the hardcover images are done in rotogravure. Thus, I yanked one star.Now if stuff like that doesn’t bug you, by all means buy this book. Film photography begins here—even more so IMHO, than the camera itself. For that matter, the principles of the relationship between subject & image, and light are still germane in the digital age in which we now exist. The math is the same, it’s just the materials have changed.Even if a photographer is not making negatives for wet prints in a darkroom, but scanning for digital presentation, understanding the Zone System and how it applies to imagery can yield great improvements in one’s work.That said, the elegance and luminosity of the rotogravure images in the hard copy are sorely missed. Take a look at a copy in a local library or used book store, and the difference is stunning.

The core of this book is probably the zone system. Before reading the book, I had heard many comments on how complicated and inpractical this system is. However, I found this system to be a extremely reliable, easily understood and an applicable system to work with. It is IMO the best system to work with. There are obviously many contents about shooting in films. Ansel passed away in 1984. I dont think you can expect him to write about digital age even if he could predict the rise of digital camera. Still, the zone system and many insights are extremely helpful even for digital photography. I am also surprised on how well the book is written with many detail samples and how the zone system can be applied to these samples. This is a must have for anyone who wants to make better exposures.With the zone system, you will know exactly how bright/contrast your photo should turn out. You will know which part of your picture will be underexposed, which part of your picture will be overexposed even before you take the picture because you can predict which zone each individual part of the picture will fall into with just a few metering and calculation. In turn, you can control exactly how your picture should turn out, and what exposure will get you the best photo. Some people may complain that it requires too much metering. Actually, you only need to meter the most important parts (usually the brightest and the darkest part, or your favorite part) of the photo in order to make sure they appear fine in your picture. Taking a few meter will save you a lot of time from going back to PS your pictures. Ansel is a genius to come up with this system!

This new paperback book was printed in 2021 on glossy paper with clear printing and excellent reproduction of the photos. It is a 2002 reprint of the 1981 version, so the information is 40 years old, but I still found it an excellent source of detailed information on the nuts and bolts of home developing black and white negatives. The order arrived quickly and is reasonably priced. Thank you to the Ansel Adams Trust for making this classic book available.