Finely Focused: a Guide to Traditional Photography is now available on CD-Rom from www.circleofthesunproductions.com. $25 includes First Class Postage worldwide.
Adapted from the highly-rated materials from Fine Focus Workshops, this 181-page book covers an introduction to large format photography equipment, materials and traditional processes. Based on the idea that techniques should be simple, reliable, and repeatable, the book takes the mystery out of large format photography, the Zone System, and other tools photographers use. Exercises are designed to form good habits when doing mechanical tasks, and can enable any photographer to be familiar and comfortable with large format stuff.
But more than that, author Bruce Barlow (Hey! That's me!) wades into picture-making, discussing composition, Head, Hands and Heart in photography, and gives many exercises for improving one's seeing. In fact, the exercises are at the heart of Finely Focused, and those who do them will see their images improve. Most of these exercises are applicable to any photographic format, even digital image-making.
Finely Focused is distributed on CD-ROM in .pdf format, requiring Adobe Reader 6.0 or higher. It's up to you to print any or all of it.
Finely Focused also includes the procedures, .1 ND filter and Zone VIII example used in my Film Test Kit, so if you buy Finely Focused you do not need the Film Test Kit. The inclusion of the .1 ND and Zone VIII example are what keeps me from making Finely Focused available as a download.
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