Understanding Exposure, Fourth Edition: How to Shoot Great Photographs with Any Camera

This is probably the best book on exposure I’ve come across. The author explains the concepts superbly, making them easy to understand and remember. I highly recommend this book.

I have been learning photography for the last few months. This book has been so helpful. I imagine I will be using it a lot for referencing back.

I purchased this book as I've always been particularly interested with low-light level photography and astrophotography. I noticed almost immediately I could take better photographs or images by bumping down an ISO level with my newly purchased Nikon D5600. I then realized I needed to learn how to use manual mode for manually choosing aperture and shutter speed for optimizing my skills, and shortly later I purchased this recently written book. PROS 1) Includes at least one really good photo, if not two or three good photos at times, depicting each photo taking scenario described. 2) Many photography taking scenarios described, targeting mainly using Manual mode, as the book's main theme is about using Manual mode instead of Program (Automatic) mode. 3) I enjoy hearing those with experience, describing their personal recommendations based on sound reasoning. (eg. Author prefers using Center-weighted light metering, as it's a technique that has yet failed and has almost always worked. I, myself, was mainly using spot metering up until this recommendation within the book, but I still have a strong preference for spot metering due to my subjects usually causing difficult positions.) 4) Author uses one or two good digital cameras (eg. Mostly Nikon D800E images with a few Nikon D3X images.), and he does thoroughly explain each scenario within generic camera terminology. CONS 1) First chapter is extremely wordy! In other words, the author tends to go significantly astray, whether intending humor or reflecting needlessly upon a scenario. I do not mind one or two astray comments (or jokes) within the introduction or first chapter, or even throughout the book, but the first chapter was extremely taxing upon my free time for reading! Halfway through the book now and thankfully the (excessive) comments were kept to the first chapter! 2) Does not describe how the digital camera performs light metering, until halfway through the book. Light metering becomes extremely critical when taking any photos or images of black or dark colored subjects, such as the book describes black cats. (I just happen to have a black cat, and was using him for photography imaging practice alongside the book! Other less knowledgeable people might have significant issues if they're unaware of this while reading the beginning half of the book.) 3) The EBook version seems to be an EPUB file format with a size of ~10MB. Clearly after seeing the file size not disclosed by either the book publisher or the referred book vendor sites, the EPUB book format's included photo images are of very low resolution! Maybe this is because I purchased the book from Google Play, but I'm presuming all the EBook formats for this book are going to contain similar image resolution for all the formats, since the publisher is referring EBook purchases directly to the Amazon, IPad, Android specific book vendors. As I stated within this review, would be nice to have a PDF format containing much higher resolution images! (Added this #3 con and purchased the EPUB version on 2017.08.07.) TIP: As with all books containing color photographs, best to buy the book instead of an EBook version. As of yet, I do not think there is an EBook or PDF version for this book, and would only buy the PDF version if the PDF version contained all the color photographs within the print copy. Else, and somewhat self explanatory, the EBook version would be useless without any of the color photographs! On the flip, a college/university level book could likely describe all the photographs within the book, if a well explained description for each photograph were provided. It's how us older folks learned long ago, when photographs were rarely used within books or were too costly to publish!

Understanding Exposure, Fourth Edition is an excellent and timeless resource for anyone serious about improving their photography. The concepts of exposure, aperture, shutter speed, and ISO are explained clearly and practically, making this book useful for beginners and experienced shooters alike. I personally use this book as a course textbook for photography workshops that I teach, and it consistently helps students grasp exposure in a way that finally “clicks.” The real-world examples and straightforward explanations make complex ideas easy to understand and apply with any camera. My only drawback is that the current edition dates back to 2016. While the fundamentals absolutely still hold true, I would love to see an updated edition that more directly addresses modern mirrorless camera systems and current shooting workflows. That said, this remains one of the best photography books ever written on exposure, and I highly recommend it as both a learning tool and a long-term reference.

IMPRESSION: IMPRESSION: Author Bryan Peterson is an actual professional photographer and an instructor and founder of the Bryan Peterson School of Photography. He teaches you all the ways to achieve proper lighting and exposure for your photography, which is more in depth than you would think. There is so much to learn!! Right off the bat you find out What is Meant by Exposure? And to answer that, exposure refers to a finished image, and entails the amount of light falling onto photosensitive material such as film or digital card. Then you have to ask yourself, "How much should my exposure be?" to which the author answers.."Your exposure should be correct." More than exposure, this book goes over many topics such as using wide angle lenses and macro photography. Topics included was also aperture conversions for fixed-lens digital cameras, panning, freezing motion, implying motion with stationary subjects, front and back lighting, the importance of a tripod, and using gray cards...etc. There is just so much covered!! It all flows together. As a photographer, I can honestly say that this book takes you on an incredible learning trip. One that I was excited to dive right into. I've been taking pictures for a few years now, but only this year have I finally learned out to shoot manually. When you have a DSLR, you can "cheat" and use auto but what's the fun in that? To take truly good photos, you need to know how to properly compose your images and sometimes that's difficult. There are so many things that get in the way and it's easy to get discouraged. I know I have personally taken a lot of time off from doing what I love because I felt like I couldn't properly compose my images the way that I wanted them to be. I'd look at other's work and find myself incredibly jealous. Then, lucky me.. a month or two ago, I chose to review this book to help me on my way! Overall, this book is a great guide! I cannot express it enough. I feel like I have learned how to use my flash properly now, whereas before I only felt comfortable using natural light only! This book is also very sturdy and definitely a book you'd want on your coffee table, despite being a trade paperback. It's large in size and definitely gets your attention! There are several sections with photos and image recipes (camera, lense, shutter speed, ISO) listed below the image, so you can better understand the camera settings to try to achieve photo goals on your own. If you like incredibly useful and helpful photography books, then this one is a must have! "Every photograph is a lie, but with that lie a mountain of truth is revealed! And the climb towards the truth is greatly accelerated when one's steps are rooted in the simple understanding of exposure." -Bryan Peterson *FTC DISCLAIMER: This book was sent to me complimentary of Blogging For Books in exchange for my honest and unbiased review. All opinions and photos are my own.*

Arrived fast, however it was a bit bent from the shipping package.

Starts with the basics and explains the principles of photography clearly. Some of the similes are a bit forced, but it's very useful and instructive

Produto novo, lacrado.

update my photography kill ! thanks !

Bom manual.

It's a great book, and the triangle concept is real easey to learn & practice . Thank you Dear Mr. Peterson, although he is in heaven now. But he has left a great work for enthusiastic photographers.