Book Review: Understanding Exposure

[scottbergerphoto]

I just finished reading Understanding Exposure by Bryan Peterson, Amphoto. It is well written. There are ample beautiful pictures to inspire as well as demonstrate the described techniques. The book limits itself to a thorough description of shutter speed, aperture, film speed(ISO), and how to use all three to their fullest advantage. There are a few non fatal errors in which words like increase/decrease are reversed, but they are easy to spot. There are no brand plugs or product pushing.
FWIW, I highly recommend it.
Scott

[Tom W]

Thanks, Scott. Despite my stubbornness, I'm still willing to learn. I'll put this one on my list of reading material.

[Lagged2Death]

I found this at the library (I swear Amazon said it was out-of-print just a few days ago...) and I also feel this is a worthwhile book.

He does have some idiosyncracies that make the book a trickier read than it might be. For example, he refers to f/22 as a "large aperature" and f/4 as a "smaller aperature" (going by the denominator of the fraction rather than the value). I think some of his explanations of how certain shots were made could be clarified with just a single extra sentence or phrase here and there, but you can always figure out what he means.

But I have looked at quite a few photography books, and I haven't seen any that included as many, or as carefully explained examples of the techniques discussed. He also eschews any sort of off-camera meters - he says he doesn't own either a spot meter or an incident meter. So his techniques involve only the careful use of in-camera metering, which is a boon for budget-challenged hobbyist types (like me!)

It looks like (www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0817463003/qid%3D1083779607/103-5800276-5799834) there is a revised edition due in August.

[garethhhhh]

I have that book too. I bought it when I first purchased an SLR and it was very helpful.

It's a good read.