The Confused Photographer's Guide to On-Camera Spotmetering (The Confused Photographer's Guide to . . . Series) (The Confused Photographer's Guide to . . . Series)

While this book is obviously useful for many people who are totally new to photography, it is not a view of the simplified zone system as it says. People who learned that they have a spotmeter from this book will need to read a lot more for any understanding of the real zone system.

The zone system can only be practiced with a combination of exposure and development. It is not child's play.

The basic message is correct. You haven't a prayer of knowing what your black and white picture will look like unless you are already an expert or turn off the automatic exposure gizmos and get to know your subjects through a spot meter.

Color is another matter, of course, and the vast majority of people make color pictures.


Fundamentals of SPOTMETERING.   May 27, 2000
 2 out of 2 found this review helpful

Bahman Farzad has written the all-time reference BOOK on SPOTMETERING. He has explained indetail 'what metering is' and then gone on to explain SPOTMETERING, where, how and when to use it. Although I use an OLYMPUS OM4T which is not mentioned in his list of CAMERAS with built-in spotmetering, this book and its progressive chapters clearly re-taught the correct way of using it. This BOOK is really 'THE BOOK ON SPOTMETERING On-BOARD or HANDHELD'. HIGHLY RECCOMENDED.


Your camera's manual won't tell you this   April 7, 2000
 5 out of 5 found this review helpful

I was traveling to Europe and I wanted to bring home some good shots of places I might never be again so I stretched and bought a Nikon N90. I read the manual cover to cover and followed all the rules I dutifully highlighted in bright yellow.

Matrix metering (explained in detail in the manual)was going to simplify my life and improve my photography. Nothing came out the way I saw it.

Spot metering was barely discussed in the manual (a total of 2 sentences). After reading Bahman's book I understand the single most powerful tool for taking better pictures and I am.

I have a bag full of accessories but nothing has improved my pictures or heightened my interest in photography like this simple book.


I have not seen my slides exposed this well before...   April 6, 2000
 3 out of 3 found this review helpful

Thanks very much to Bahman Farzad, this book explains spotmetering very well. I have read alot of websites that try to explain this. But after reading them my main headache was "where do I take the reading from? and when I get the reading, can I just shoot or do I have to check something?" I love this book, I found the answers to cure an anoying question. I would recommend this to anyone who would like to know, how to correctly use spotmetering. At first it seems a bit of a struggle to understand it all, but, it will fall in to place as you read on. Make shure at the end of the first chapter, go and try it out, try what you have learnt. I did, and was very succesful.