Ansel Adams: The Camera (The Ansel Adams Photography Series 1)

Book new as expected. wrapped in plastic and padding in box. Positive impression.

Ansel Adams is no longer corporeally walking the earth, calculating exposures and producing photographic visions. But his legacy, his works and his writings live on. And indeed, the Big A was a master of his craft and his written legacy still holds value even in the face of changing technology. Digital cameras have remapped much regarding how photography is done and at Universities, wet photography has been almost entirely dropped from curriculums in favor of digital media technologies. The question might for some be, is what the Big A wrote, still applicable? Yes it is.First, wet photography has not been totally eliminated. It may be argued that there are certain photographic results which cannot be obtained by digital photography that the film camera was capable of. Perhaps. But undoubtedly, obtaining a first hand and masterful knowledge of photography, digital or wet, and in particular what was done to conceive good end images, and technologically achieve those results as Ansel did, is applicable today. It's just done differently. What does not yet exist, is a good masterful book, such as Ansel's, which goes into the detail and breadth to explain how to achieve those similar results with digital media.To that end, I highly recommend Ansel Adams' book series as an intellectual stimulant which every photographer should digest wholly. Afterwards, the digital means to achieving the same levels of image fidelity and adjustments, still based on the zone system, will be at least suggested. Digital photographers exposed to Ansel's views on his craft will then find stimulus to fill in the blanks when attempting similar fidelity and adjustments with digitally obtained photographs.

Loved this book...cover to cover really enjoyed it

There was little new in this book having used Peterson's Big Book of Photography years ago as a beginner. What I did gain, along with my wife whose family operated a camera store and photography service for many years, was a great, simplified refresher along with many interesting photos by Ansel Adams giving different perspectives such as more foreground, more sky and other techniques. Cameras have changed lot since the book was written so there was a certain nostalgia remembering the many cameras we used over the years and a few moments of sadness that they are mostly now part of history. We love our Olympus OM D 4 3rds but miss my baby Yashica TLR slides. The book is a treasure for camera lovers.

This book is first of trilogy of Ansel Adams - one of the greatest aesthetic photography ideologists of 20 century, and this particular edition is the latest, it was edited considering modern tendencies of digital and optics. This book is ideal for neophytes of photography, it explaining all technical fundamentals of photography, including theory and technical aspects, and preparing reader for following parts (negative and print). Book includes very useful intertext system with "links", glossary, a lot of pictures and schemes. The text of book is very clear, straight and not too "pro" and scientific, even few mathematics formulas are very clear (and I'm not a math person at all). This book is essential to any begginer - film or digital, truly bible of photography that raised more than one generation of photographers. Best present for those who are interested in photography and best guide for those who's studying (and probably for those who's teaching as well, to get idea of step-by-step explanation). What is really good about this book that you can always refer to it if you need to clear and refresh any part or formula using glossary or index.

While a lot in this book may seem outdated at first, if you ever want to have any skill at photography and truly control your camera in manual mode everything in this book will be useful. For example the long section on large format view cameras seems outdated (for most users anyways) until you realize it explains in detail the effects of having your lens and film/sensor shifted at different angles or directions to change depth of field and lines of convergence and potential vignetting (relevant for tilt shift lenses). Very in depth explanations of many of the most basic principals and concepts of photography. This is not the DSLR for dummies book.This book really only works as part of the set of three though as they reference each other and build on concepts. It can be a bit dry at times (as in dull) and very technical (he doesn't dumb things down very often) and I would expect retention of the information would be a problem for someone starting from scratch in a single read through. It is a book that likes to explain "why" things in photography happen instead of just telling you that they happen, which is critical to really taking control of your exposures.

Let me start with the fact that I've had high school and college classes on photography so I already had some preconceived notions. This book helped change some of those. Mr. Adams works in large format (8x10 I believe), black and white, sheet film. That matters nothing to the education you can get from this book. He starts from the bottom up and explains everything in clear terms, always focusing on how the term or action relates to taking the picture. He could have gone way technical but he stops short and you can tell he wants to teach us to see and to use our tools (whichever ones we use.)If you are new to DSLR photogrpahy, SLR photography or have a loved one who wants to do better at amateur photography, this is the book to get them started. Whether you are a portrait taker, nature photographer, found object, animal or a mix, this book will serve you well, especially those with little or no training. Thanks Mr. Adams! May we all rise to your level of artistic integrity and skill.