Beyond the Zone System

by Phil Davis

Book Overview

This fourth edition of Beyond the Zone System makes the science of photographic sensitometry both accessible and useful to interested photographers. It will appeal to any serious photographer interested in knowing how the materials and processes of black-and-white photography work. Instead of describing rote procedures to be followed blindly, this book provides the basis for understanding what needs to be done and why. This book relates theory to...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0930764234
• ISBN13: 9780930764234
• Release Date: January 1981
• Publisher: Curtin & London
• Length: 186 Pages
• Weight: 2.07 lbs.

Customer Reviews

A book that will serve as a great reference for as long as you take photos

The late Phil Davis was a well known teacher and innovator. In this book Mr. Davis details a complete system that one can use in order to understand the basics of exposure, and how to test film and printing paper so as to create negatives that are exactly matched to ones enlarging or contact printing paper. However, the book is way beyond a simple "how to manual". In essence, Mr. Davis expands on the zone system, and creates an easily understood basis for black and white photography. He explains the basic science behind correct exposure and printing, and creates an easily understood exposure "system" that one can return to again and again. One cannot easily summarize all of the nuggest of knowledge and information that are contained in this book. Mr. Davis makes the zone system more accessible and understandable. There are few books that one would list as "absolutely necessary" reading for anyone contemplating the creation of black and white images on film. Beyond the Zone System is a book that should be dog-eared, read and reread, until the concepts of exposure and development become-excuse the pun-ingrained. The information is presented in a clear fashion with numerous easily understood graphs and images that make the concepts easily understood. To my mind, Beyond the Zone System stands aside Anselm Adams books as the BEST books for photographers seeking to learn how understanding that the best images must start with an understanding of one's materials.

Unusual and technically superb photography text

Phil Davis was a professor at University of Michigan when he developed this intense system of exposure and development for classic film photography. The Zone System, as developed by Minor White and his associates, takes into account areas of shadow and highlight and has the photographer do some pretty fancy calculations for exposure and development. This system is particularly of interest to those who use view cameras that take a picture on a sheet of film that is contact printed or minimally enlarged. The contact print has miniscule grain and by following the Zone System, photographers have created exceptional images of great beauty that are unequalled in photography. The problem with the Zone System is that it is complicated. Phil Davis spent at least fifteen years researching his version of this method, and this book is the result. Davis provides examples, charts, data, methods, instruction in using light meters. There are detailed examples of how to make test strips. This is a distillation of much of what he taught in his university courses. The method is said to be especially effective for studio photographers, whereas the traditional Zone System was definitely geared for outdoor natural light photography. If you are a film photographer who does their own development and printing, this is a valuable reference.

Beyond the Zone System

The title of this book really summarized the book. It gives the theory behind the procedures that many advanced photographers already know and use. I don't know of many people who are going to apply his techniques directly, i.e. sensometers, etc. Rather this book gives a theoretical basis for some of the techniques that Adams and others used. It essentially gives university or grad level experiments to allow the reader to test and prove the concepts for themselves. So if you were looking for a "How to Book", you will be disappointed. Read Peterson's book, first. Learn how to apply the zone system. Then read this book to understand what you are doing.

A must-read for advanced photographers

This is a book all master photographers who shoot and print their own work should understand and use. It is a definitive work on the science and engineering of photo sensitive emulsions that applies not only to standard silver-halide photography but alternative methods as well like Platinum/Palladium, gum bichromate, cyanotypes, etc. although the other methods are not directly covered by the text.This book was written for the "left brain" with all its formulas, methods and explanations. But, it is detailed enough that the brain does not have to fill in the blanks of information not included as is the case with many such books. There is a section that addresses a method of exposure form a more "right brain" view and draws on the experience of using a light meter for photographers who are at that level. I do not believe how well written this book is compared to others dealing with the same subject. I wish I had found this book years ago.

I don't often give 5 stars - Name is misleading

First of all, I rarely see a book to which I'd give five stars, but this certainly deserves them! Besides that, the greatest praise I can give to a book it to make it as stained and tattered as my copy is! This means I've carried it with me everywhere so I would have it to read every spare second I had.I think the name of the book is misleading. Had I known what this book was really about, I would have gotten it a long time ago. The Zone System (the seminal reference is probably THE NEGATIVE by Ansel Adams) is fairly straightforward, and some authors hash is to death and try to make it more complicated than it is. I thought this book was another "make something simple more complicated" books like that, but it's not. It might better be called "Sensitometry for Photographers."It is a technical book on sensitometry - characterizing how photographic film and paper respond to exposure and development - and how to use that information to your benefit. It answers questions I've been asking for a long time, such as, "How is the ISO speed determined for film," and, "Why do B & W photographers rate their film at a speed lower than ISO?"The book eventually does describe the Zone System and explains technically what it is doing, but doesn't try to complicate the system. The book discusses how the light meter determines exposure, and how to make a densitometer from a spot meter. It also introduces a simple and handy "incident zone system" using an incident meter that provides good exposure without a well-developed sense of visualization on the part of the photographer.Be warned: This book IS technical in nature and involves a lot of graphs. Even though the author attempts to allay your math fears, reviews math principles and even goes in gross detail on technical drawing and graphing techniques, if reconciling your checkbook sends shivers down your spine, you're probably not going to make it very far through this book. (However, it's a joy to engineer-photographers such as myself tired of physical principles being oversimplified in other sources.)Although the book is directed mainly toward large-format sheet-film photographers who can develop individual exposures independently, I think that any serious amateur or professional photographer would benefit from reading this book to understand the interaction of light, film and paper, and how to get the best from your materials. Many of the principles and procedures can be applied, at least in part, to roll films to ensure good exposure.