Althought this work contains a wealth of knowledge and is great for those of us who cannot translate bunches of languages, it is difficult to use.

Primary sources are cool!!

You can judge a photographer's skill by his/her photographs. All of the photographs in this book look like they were taken by Average Joe with a disposable camera. This book was written backwards. The book does not mention metering technique until chapter 8 (near the end of the book)! They mention handheld meters in chapter 7 but never explain proper use of them. The book never discusses studio lighting techniques or even portable (on camera) flash technique. They never discuss proper use of available light or use of lighting modifiers (reflectors, diffusers, etc . . .). Most of this book rants on and on about arbitrary +/- .25 to .5 exposure adjustments for a million different specific situations (mostly travel photographs) instead of explaining overall technique. Save your time and money. Read another book written by a professional.

There is too much information in this book that is way too technical or simply of no use to me. Here is a quote from the book: "With a spot meter, you can measure the log brightness range of the subject; you know that you need a log density range of around 1.1 to make a contact print on grade 2 paper: and armed with the film manufacturer's gamma/time cures, plus a good guess at the flare factor for your lens, you can select the appropriate development time."

The photographs in the book are average to the point that when looking at them I'm thinking, "I can do better than that."

The authors have a converstaional style in writing, and if you want ALOT of detail on exposure, maybe this is the book for you. There is 20 pages devoted to the chapter on film testing alone, a couple of paragraphs of which are devoted to describing the example negatives that are over/under exposed. The problem is, the negatives they are describing are in one of their other books! You would think that at 192 pages, they could at least include the examples they are refering to.

The key concept in the book is ". . .think hard about how you want a given tone to 'read' in the final picture, and adjust your metering technique accordingly."

I was really impressed with this book and how it took an average photographer through the steps towards understanding exposure. There are many fundamental concepts explained in a "layman's fashion" and I would highly recommend this book. There is only one chapter that enters into deep theory which the author suggests you may want to skip or come back to later. If you want to increase your basic understanding of film exposure, natural light and how film development plays an important part, then this book is for you!