Besides learning what features your camera has and how and when to use them. The next most important thing is to understand exposure and what the shutter speeds, aperture settings and ISO settings mean, how they work together to create the perfect or not so perfect picture and how to adjust them to achieve the look you want for your images. Anyone can take a picture with perfect exposure, but it takes a photographer to take a creative shot.

 

I would be willing to bet that of all of the people in the world today that use a digital cameras that have either full manual mode and/or aperture and shutter priority mode that 90% of them never use these modes. That is a real shame as these modes are not nearly as difficult to use as one might think.

 

It is the use of the manual, aperture priority, shutter priority and ISO controls that Understanding Exposure helps you learn and understand. Besides being in full color with lots of inspiring shots showing you what is being talked about, the book is very easy to read and the concepts involved are done so that even someone that has never touched a camera before in their life can understand them. The book gives equal time to film and digital in fact the differences between the two technologies is covered whenever needed so that no matter which of the two technologies you use you have information that applies to you. Fortunately most of the information on exposure applies to both digital and film, but when it doesn’t the differences and when needed possible workarounds are included.

 

The other thing I like about Understanding Exposure is that there are exercises included to help you learn the material you just covered. Not only are these exercises easy to do, but they are fun as well and they do a good job of helping you understand what is being covered. These exercises are a real boon for people that like to learn by doing and experimenting.

 

Chapters:

Chapter 1: Defining Exposure
Chapter 2: Aperture
Chapter 3: Shutter Speed
Chapter 4: Light
Chapter 5: Special Techniques and Filters
Chapter 6: Film vs. Digital

This is a fantastic book and one I highly recommend for anyone that wants to learn about exposure how it works, why it works, how to use it. With the sample pictures showing what is being discussed it is a very easy book to use and learn from. The included exercises give you something to do that specifically teaches you what is being covered and they are fun as well.

 

At the back of the book in the Special Techniques and Filters section there are some really fun things to help you get more creative with your exposures and shooting. Things like how to use a gray card, how to almost always get the perfect exposure when dealing with side lighting, backlighting, odd contrast shots and more. These sections are worth the price of the book alone.

 

The only thing that I noticed is that for some reason the author can’t get the term for the CCD of the digital camera correct. He calls it several different things throughout the book. It doesn’t hurt the book and it doesn’t make the material being taught hard to understand it is just strange. Early in the book he calls it a “digital card” later on he calls it “digital media” and so on all of these are clearly referencing the CCD or CMOS sensor since he is talking about the amount of light and how long that light is allowed to fall on the film or the CCD of the digital camera it would have been nice if he had used the correct term and been consistent about it. But, like I said it is easy to understand what he talking about so it isn’t a big problem. Just an interesting note.