Understanding Exposure

When I first started with SLR photography I looked at the recommended reading material on several photography websites I ended up purchasing three books:  Understanding Exposure by Bryan Peterson, The Digital Photography Book by Scott Kelby, and The Photographer's Eye by Michael Freeman.

I started with Understanding Exposure: How to Shoot Great Photographs with a Film or Digital Camera by Bryan Peterson.  At the time the second edition of the book was on the shelves but now there is a third edition, which I have quickly leaved through at the store and appears to have all of the old content with some new material on HDR, flash photographer, etc.  I am certain that the book is still as valuable as, if not more than the edition I have.

For a beginner photographer this is an amazing, indispensable book.  The book is based largely on the photographic (or exposure) triangle and how to use it to your creative advantage.  The key word there is "creative".  There are several correct exposures but there are fewer or even just one, as Bryan puts it, "creatively correct" exposures.  He also discusses light meters (particularly the one built into the camera) and how to use them to your advantage.

Chapters on aperture and shutter speed discuss how to determine which settings are creatively best for your current shot (depth of field, motion blur, freezing motion, etc.) and how to adjust the other element(s) of the triangle accordingly (little is done with ISO, though it is discussed).  The chapter on light is among the most important chapters, though I think I originally understood it the least.  Bryan discusses several different lighting conditions and how to take advantage of them.  The section on 18% Reflectance may have lost me a little bit at first, but I think I understand it much better now.  It has to do with when you should trust your exposure meter or not and how to adjust accordingly (he suggests using your hand in most cases, something I have yet to try).  The part about using the sky to set the exposure in certain cases is something I have long been using on my on Canon A620 point and shoot for years to avoid over exposed sky and it is nice to see that I did that correctly (though I was shooting in automatic mode for that).  Also, his suggestion about metering (-2/3 exposure) to green backgrounds seems very interesting though my attempts at making that work have not turned out so well.  I will continue to practise.

The example shots provided in the book are, in many cases, stunning.  One of my favourites is the sunflower that illustrates Depth of Field (I'm not even a huge fan of flower photography, but that may convert me).  I'm sure the updates in the new edition are also excellent.

This is a fantastic book for someone just starting out and as I have progressed it is still interesting to come back to it once in a while to revisit the basics.  After reading the book I become more comfortable moving over to the manual, aperture priority, and shutter priority modes.

So now all my pictures should be perfect right?  It seems that they aren't.  I guess thats part of the challenge of photography, knowing the technical stuff is not all there is.  It's when and how to use it properly.  I continuously revisit this book to add to and update the techniques in my repertoire.

I will discuss the other books mentioned in the future.

Originally Published: 08/11/2009
Updated and republished on the date of this post.