Mastering Exposure and the Zone System for Digital Photographers

Amazon carries a fine slection of photography books from beginner - - to use in the pro studio.Ok, first off, I am an old dude who learned the Zone system back in the Last Century. Late 1950's to early 1960's, and in fact, I had a Weston meter. Decades ago, I switched to cameras with built in meters. I got away from the Zone system over time and to be truthful, I forgot about it. In the last 10-15 years I have been using hand held meters as they give the better exposures that I want for what I shoot today. I switched to digital in 2004. I recently saw a Webinar and the speaker mentioned the Zone system, and he memtioned this book. I ordered it and I can say WOW. Easy to follow, and now I am back to shooting Zone again. It tells you how to go from Duh!! to using photoshop to set everything up to fine tuning your hand held meter.

A good precis of the book is in another review, so I will limit myself to evaluation.Lee has done us all a great service by translating part of what Dan Margulis has taught into a different realm. Dan focus on post-processing, but Lee has taken some of Dan's ideas and moved them back to the time of capture; he writes with depth on the subtle issues of exposing an image properly. But the result is hard; it must have been hard on the author to write the book, and it is hard on the reader to absorb the lessons. That said, Lee's books are easier to read than Dan's, whose books have been justly described by a reviewer as follows: "they make your eyes bleed."I am no expert, and perhaps it is presumptuous of me to praise either Dan or Lee, but I will say that I regard their books as among the very best. If you learn one-fifth of what they have to teach, you will know more than 85% of the crowd. But I caution, I am without true authority to speak on these matters. I can say with authority that I have learned more from them about post-processing and exposure than I have from most of those who are commonly thought to be experts.

At first I thought that it was just an odd collection of subjects in the table on contents. After reading the book cover to cover, I really understand why it is all there. This is a great book for getting your photo correctly exposed and subsequently post processed with some really neat trics. The book also lists more tutorials on the author's website.I would not recommend this book for beginners, but I would definately recommend this book for experienced photographers. I learned a lot from this book.

In-depth book about exposure in all regards. I respect the technical reasons behind the author's direction and warn the novice that you may not appreciate all of the technical testing the author prescribes. This is not a book for someone that does not understand the earlier Zone System first, or does not have previous experience with photographic exposure, color balance, lighting, and raw processing possibilities. I disagree with the review left by "Diceman." The Zone System can be applied to digital photography, but how we implement it to digital photography is more akin to color transparency film. This makes the application more complex than the system for black and white negatives. It does work well, but it has more variables to measure. I can recommend this book if you are looking for a thorough, well tested set of techniques that can take your digital photography exposure to the highest level.

The book talks about the zone system and many other things related to exposure but it doesn't dig deep into any of them, maybe with the exception of camera calibration to use with a Sekonic 758 D spotmeter.All in all I was expecting more from this book. I bought it expecting more information on how to use the zone system with my camera but I have to say I've got much more simple and useful information from the blog [...].

A ton of good information and very thorough. A book that every photographer should own and read for good reference.

A really inspiring and informative book. Lee Varis covers covers everything essential for adopting a zone system thinking and viewing in digital. After reading his book and adopting to his way of adopting the good o'l zone system to digital I've succeeded to squeeze the best out of my Leica M9. Recommended to all who are familiar with the basics of photography and everyone who want to get the most out of digital photography. Lee Varis references to different software may be somewhat dated as time pass on but the essence of his writings and the zone system will always be useful.

Clear concise easy to follow did a great job with. Photos and diagrams and explanations Thus making easy follow and read thereby helping you the reader onto becoming a better photographer

Love the way the author has explained to us the Zone system for film but even more importantly for today is how the Zone system can be applied in a digital world.I have always wished I could present photography Like Adam Ansell and master his so called Zone System and here it is not just demonstrated with total ease and clarity, but also how to apply it in todays digital world.This includes our digital darkroom Adobe Photoshop of course, on how to set this up and how to set our cameras up too. It is brilliant and I am now working hard on developing a mindseye (Ansel Adams style.The Zone system works in all areas of photography, from product to people or animals for that matter. This is a must skill any serious photographer must learn and master.Superbly written, but please bear in mind you will need Adobe Photoshop or PS CC etc, the equivalent of a digital darkroom.

This is a real expert. The book is mind boggling, as are his Youtube videos. Humbling !

Just what I was looking for

It hardly talks about zone system.

good book