Understanding Exposure: How to Shoot Great Photographs with Any Camera

Photography to me is not like riding a bike. After a pause of about 10 years and having moved from film to digital I needed a nudge. I can honestly say, without a doubt this book hits the nail on the head, it goes through the various elements of exposure and gives pictures on the effects available. Effects which you can go out and practice without being in some bizarre far off country. Theres a chap on here that says theres too many pictures - to that chap.... hello its a photography book, going into the science of photography and equations will learn you diddly squat - you may as well read a crossword. This book gives you examples, examples which you may find are similar to the picture you want to compose, it gives an explanation of what the photographer did, the aperture and timing and mode of the camera he used to achieve it.... Its striking how little variation is needed to produce wonderful results. But the main point is - the book is easy - its not filled with mumbo jumbo its straight to the point - you want to take pictures "go out and practice - heres what I did, start there and develop" excuse the pun! All in all a great affordable book which isnt just a bunch of pictures advertising the writers own works.. Ive come across countless books giving information which just seems cut and paste and then they say heres a wonderful picture and tell you nothing about how it was achieved. I can gladly say photography wise, an astounding informative read very easy for kids to apprehend and adults too shy to ask. It positively encourages you to go out and be creative. Make this the first book you ever buy on photography!!!!!!

This is is an excellent book to help you take that step up from basic to intermediate photography and maybe beyond. It breaks down photography into easy to understand concepts and then explains them in detail. At no time does it feel as though the author is talking down to you. What he is doing is giving you the creative tools and he shows you how he uses them. How you use them is up to you! He certainly includes some pleasing photography. I take good photographs, but not every time I press the shutter. For me I wanted the book to help me up my success rate. I wanted it to help me record the picture that I saw in my mind, and not necessarily exactly what stood before me. I think the book definitely helped me. There are even some arguments and concepts that even the more advanced photographer may not have resolved. The section called Diffraction vs Satisfaction was of particular interest. In this passage the author discusses the benefits of going for maximum depth of field with the smallest available aperture or going with a more contemporary view and using an a more intermediate aperture. I tend to favour staying within the sweet spot of a lens, but Peterson is right. Nobody thought about any of this in the days of film, you always went for maximum depth of field. I must admit after reading this section I had cause to rethink my opinion. In deed, much is written in the book about depth of field and hyperfocal distance. I found the authors view very interesting. I had always understood that there was a huge difference in the same apertures of different lenses. I had not understood the difference between apertures and camera formats. The concept that F8 on a point and shoot camera may be the equivalent of F32 on a DSLR had just not occurred to me. There is a cracking photograph of a village from his Leica point and shoot. He goes on to explain why such photographs are no good for commercial purposes. But, if there ever was an illustration that you can take good photographs on whatever camera you have, then this photograph is it. If you have no idea what I am talking about in the above paragraphs, then read the book. You will get the idea in no time at all. It isn't complicated, but it is important if you want to improve your photography. If you take perfect pictures every time then this book will be no good to you. If you need a refresher or want to take a step up the ladder or just see how professionals think, then you could do worse than this book.

I was bought this book after I got my new bridge camera. I would not be without this 'bible', it is my centre of reference. I wanted to improve my skills as an amateur photographer and bought the camera for the zoom and many other options but I was a complete beginner. I have learnt so much from this wonderful guide and my photography has improved a lot. I am quite happy using manual mode, aperture, shutterspeed, playing with picture size, white balance to name just a few functions. My daughter also had a new camera for her birthday and although, she is far happy to 'play' with the buttons and experiment, I have been able to pass on knowledge I have learnt through reading Understanding Exposure. Even if you are a professional photographer, I would say it is well worth reading for reference. It is written for professionals and amateurs and is very easy to read, understand and put into practice. Wonderful examples of Bryan's work are shown to back up the narrative. I have not used the online content but I am sure there will come a time when I will do so. Highly recommended.

Note : I was a bit familiar with certain things cause I was coming from the video world, but more on the post-production side of things. It's been a long time since I wanted to grab a good camera and start taking pictures, and when I finally had the chance, like a lot of people, I couldn't settle for the all-auto modes, but I couldn't either fully grasp how to setup the damn thing in manual mode. Like my father says : those cameras are nice, but they can't capture what the eye really see... Well, they can (more or less) ! After reading almost the entire book in one go (maybe not recommended, even if it flows naturally...), I just grabbed my cam, applied my settings, and bam, I had what I wanted. This is its use : making you able to capture the scene like you envision it, not "because I didn't have a flash" or "because this X mode does that". And thats exactly what we want when taking pictures, right ? Anyway, even for a non-native English speaker, everything is clear with lots of exemples, and the pictures have most of the interesting settings for you to understand. And, well, for the rest, grab your cam and try ! I know I'll never bother with auto mode again.

Ótimo livro com muitas dicas interessantes, abordando o uso dos diversos recursos do equipamento e tėcnicas fotográficas de maneira criativa

This is my first purchase of a Bryan Perterson book and I am super impressed. I am a pretty serious amateur photography that has enjoed my fair share of experience and success in my photography. Like most who love their "camera time", I constantly look for ways to sharpen my skills and get better results in less time, relying on improved knowledge and leaving fewer variables in the photographic equation . This book has taught me a new, that which, I thought, I already knew! Bryan Peterson has an amazing manner of explanation in a well thought out arc of progressive teachings, supported by techinical insight, his personal experiences and a concise series of photos to illustrate his points. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and how I now treat (fine tuned) my work, a little differently, producing very good results, due to a new approach. I believe this book would equally serve the most hapless beginner, right up to and including, serious amateurs such as myself, it is just that good a teacher. I very strongly recommend this resource. I believe it to be worth much more than it's selling price. It could radically improve both your photograhic approach and understanding, as well as the all important results! Learn and apply... reep the rewards!

This book helped me understand mistakes I was doing and the book will also serve me as guide in future to get correct exposure!

--PREFACE-- THIS BOOK IS FOR BEGINNERS AND THOSE WHO NEED HELP UNDERSTANDING THE EXPOSURE TRIANGLE (aperture, shutter speed, and ISO). I cannot stress the previous statement enough because I have read many of the reviews of this book including the negative ones (the one and two star reviews seemed as if they were written by people with more experience than a beginner. For example one of them states that the author's opinion of depth field is wrong, which I'm not sure many beginners would know enough about photography to make such a statement.) If you are a beginner, and you have absolutely no clue on how to manually adjust your camera's settings so that you can consistently capture a "correct exposure," you need to buy this book! I also must stress that this book is not about creating beautiful compositions or how to post-process photographs. It is simply a beginners book to understanding how to correctly expose your images. The author, Bryan Peterson, gives you the tools you need to take correctly exposed photographs (he even gives some tips on choosing the "creatively correct exposure" out of the many exposure options for a given shot). However, he leaves the composition of the photo up to you, the photographer, which in my mind is the way it should be. From the many professionals, amateurs, and seasoned hobbyists that I have spoken to, you will gradually develop an eye for photography as you become more experienced, which doesn't sound like something that you can learn from a book in my opinion. If you were looking for a complete guide to becoming a photographer, this book is not it; however, I strongly recommend it as a tool to help you get there. --REVIEW-- I've been easing myself into the world of photography for a little over a year now, and I have purchased multiple books about photography, but none of them have covered the subject of exposure in the simple and understandable way Bryan does. Most books I have read speak about the exposure triangle and how each element has an impact on the exposure, but I can honestly say that I was still guessing after reading those books, and when I was out shooting, I still relied heavily on my camera presets. I wanted to make the jump to the manual setting, but I just didn't understand enough about it, and being a hobbyist, I just didn't have the time to try to figure it out myself through trial and error. However, Bryan explains exposure in such a simple and understandable way that after reading the first section of the book (which only takes about 15-20 min), I understood enough to be able to shoot in manual mode, which was extremely exciting to me. After almost a year of struggling, I understood enough about exposure to shoot the way I wanted to in only 15 min. I was so excited at this point, I almost put the book down to go out and shoot more photos, but I didn't, which was a positive because after the short introduction, he goes into more detail on what he calls "creative exposures," aperture, depth of field, and much more throughout the book. I only received this book yesterday, so I'm only to page 83, but I plan on updating my review after finishing. ONCE AGAIN, IF YOU ARE A BEGINNER, AND YOU ARE STRUGGLING TO UNDERSTAND YOUR CAMERA'S SETTINGS, BUY THIS BOOK. IF YOU ARE TRUELY A BEGINNER, YOU WILL NOT REGRET YOUR PURCHASE!