Understanding Exposure: How to Shoot Great Photographs with a Film or Digital Camera (Updated Edition)
by Bryan Peterson
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Book Summary Information
Author: Bryan PetersonEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2004-08-01
ISBN: 0817463003
Number of pages: 160
Publisher: Amphoto Books
Book Reviews of Understanding Exposure: How to Shoot Great Photographs with a Film or Digital Camera (Updated Edition)
Book Review: BRILLIANT PORTAL FOR US OLD TIMER PHOTOGRPAHERS IN THIS BRAVE NEW POST-FILM WORLD
Summary: 5 Stars
We who once dragged film SLR setups throughout this hemisphere (including Central America and Machu Picchu) after high school classes with ancient hand held light meters and exposure tables, we who struggled to develop in jungle heat night and day beyond the recommended temps, we who find point and shoots as creepy as automatic transmissions, for us this book is our saving portal to the digital dimension of the SLR format we know and love and feel most at home.
Now that the latest DSLR surpasses ten mega-pixels, we safely ride behind the crest of the latest wave, finding great bargains in beautiful tools such as the Nikon D40, at an irresistible price which leaves money to get essentials like a longer lens, lens filters, the semi-soft case, and the dream of the surprisingly costly Speed-light. The old tripod still applies, as well as a surprising number of creative technical tricks, as well described in this book.
One asset of the D40 is the wiggle room for bracketing and other fun stuff, including changing ISO without waiting for a film roll to run out (as there IS no film). This present book fully covers all such old tricks, and is written by a very talented, knowledgeable and prolific professional photographer of landscape and portrait. The author is a true artist with the camera, and also a very good writer. He like me prefers natural or ambient light, and shows us how best to use it in the new technology.
Okay, as mentioned in other reviews, he tends to use apian simile to illustrate technical points, but I find that more compelling and illuminating than distracting. He also loves his wife and is not afraid to show it, as she frequently appears in his startlingly beautiful photographs, and not just for the sake of saving on a model's release. To paraphrase James Joyce's famous evangelical parody: No greater love has man than this, than to lay out his wife for his friends, and for us his readers and students as well.
I am grateful to Mr. Peterson for sharing so generously his art and his techniques in a clear and lucid manner, which reawakens within me all that I ever knew, and then some, much more. He rekindles within me that love of photography I thought died long ago, as eyes and mind dim, and as I got hit by the rising cost of film and lab fees. I was ready to hang up the camera forever and close in peace my camera eyes. Mr. Peterson challenges me to remember and to open my eyes once again.
The title seems to indicate this extensive book deals with "nothing more" than exposure and how it works, as if he would send us forth with light meter in hand to "get a feel" for how light works under different circumstances. This book teaches so much more in nearly every aspect of taking a picture, including composition, depth of field, shutter speed and ISO. Peterson thus expands his definition of EXPOSURE to include all of these and more. Please read the ENTIRE title: "Understanding Exposure: HOW TO SHOOT GREAT PHOTOGRAPHS . . ." (emphasis added) and you understand the richness and comprehensive nature of this well-packed book. It is as if this talented and trained commercial photographer with experience in every aspect of photography wants to tell us all he knows, and so we find on nearly every page a side-box full of other information which might not have to do with exposure per se, but is in itself very informative.
In short I strongly recommend this book for anyone returning after the first shock of the new technology, as a way to understand how to incorporate our old instincts within this brave new digital world, and I can also recommend it for the new photographer who is graduating beyond the point and shoot digital camera and wants to gain greater creative control.
This book liberates all photographers to their creative vision, and opens new avenues to beauty, truth and art with light, nature, civilization and people. This can be a path to Zen and the Art of Photography, the Semiotics of Photography. And it can be a very wise guide to this new frontier.
I wish I had gotten the lens with an aperture ring, as I always preferred to set the depth of field rather than shutter speed on my trusty old AL-1, and this book awakens hunger for that old method. I'll study my D40 manual to find the tricks and techniques which allow me to forget the camera and just take the best possible shot. One thing about DSLR, you don't have to shoot a roll to keep a shot, but can shoot till the SD card fills up, with no expense in deleting and re-shooting!
This book is well worth the cost and should be read carefully and gratefully by anyone with any sort of SLR camera to learn to master every aspect of exposing those megapixels to well balanced and beautiful light.
More Understanding Exposure: How to Shoot Great Photographs with a Film or Digital Camera (Updated Edition) reviews:
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Summary of Understanding Exposure: How to Shoot Great Photographs with a Film or Digital Camera (Updated Edition)
More than 100 vivid, graphic comparison pictures illustrate every point in this revised classic and can help any photographer maximize the creative impact of his or her exposure decisions. Peterson stresses the importance of metering the subject for a starting exposure, and then explains how to use various exposure meters and different kinds of lighting. The book contains lessons on each element of the exposure-aperature, shutter speed, iso-and how it relates to the other two in terms of depth of field, freezing and blurring action, and shooting in low light or at night. A section on special techniques explores such options as deliberate under- and overexposures, how to produce double exposures, bracketing, shooting the moon, and the use of filters. Understanding Exposure demonstrates that there are always creative choices about how to expose a picture-and that the decision is up to the photographer, not the camera.Equipment Books
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