Understanding Exposure, Revised Edition by Bryan Peterson

This book made it click for me. Having been interested in photography a long time, I just purchased my first DSLR last year. I love my Nikon D90 and have enjoyed using it. It takes beautiful photos. But lately, I'd been curious as to how to take shots manually. No where had I been able to find this info. I'd bought Scott Kelby books, which are great, and other field guides and photography books, but they all left me wondering just exactly how to do that. Well, Bryan Peterson laid it all out so simply!

Now I know! All you do after turning your dial to manual is to decide which setting you want to start with--aperture or shutter speed. Most of the time, I'll think I'll use aperture. Next you adjust your shutter speed till your light meter tells you the exposure is correct which in most cases will be 0. Amazing! It's that simple! Of course, Peterson covers all aspects of photography, especially the light factor: front light, back light, side light, and his concept of "The Sky Brothers" and "Mr. Green Jeans" which are great ways to remember the different circumstances you'll find.

Peterson also speaks alot about "creatively correct exposure" which will produce more interesting photos.

Even though this book was published in 2004 and Peterson says the original one was published fourteen years earlier, it is still relevant today. I just wish there had been some updates, or a note early on in the book referencing the fact that he generally prefers to focus manually. That was a little confusing to me where later in the book he explained some of his advanced techniques of night and low-light photography. That makes a difference with today's auto focus DSLRs.
 
I'm so glad a friend recommended this book to me and I can't wait to try these Peterson techniques!

I just found a copy in the catalog that was published in 2010! It might have some of the updates above. So if I were you and was interested, I'd check out this copy.

The Digital Photography Book 1: The step-by-step secrets for how to make your photos look like the pros’! by Scott Kelby

   

As a new owner of a Nikon D90, I’m very anxious to learn everything I can about photography and my new camera. I’ve messed around a little bit with photography and a lot with Photoshop and think I have a pretty good eye for composition. But, now comes the hard part, this camera has so many buttons and settings and I haven’t a clue for what many of them are used. The Digital Photography Book 1: The step-by-step secrets for how to make your photos look like the pros’! by Scott Kelby along with another book that I’m now reading, Nikon D90: Digital Field Guide, by J. Dennis Thomas (that’s another review), are bringing everything to life for me.

Scott Kelby is who I’d call an expert in the digital photography field and phenomenal Photoshop user. He has authored several books, and serves as Editor-in-Chief for a couple of magazines, is President of a professional association, and co-host of a TV video podcast. The way he lays out this book is different. It is not full of concepts, theory and technical jargon, but, it is a book of recipes, which I totally love! He tells you, if you want to get this particular shot, then you push that button or change this setting, which really starts you on the road to taking great photos, FAST. And the humor he injects is a pleasant surprise, although sometimes I think he might rattle on a tad too much when I’m really getting into what he’s saying and have to wait because he stops to tell a dumb story, especially at the beginning of the book.

So if you’re a beginner dSLR user/photographer like me and want to know which aperture to use for a portrait, why you would ever use a flash outdoors, the trick for shooting waterfalls, how to avoid the dreaded “blinkies”, and what shutter speed to use when shooting sports, then this is the book for you. I can’t wait to see what Scott has to say in Books 2 and 3.

Well, darn it, I don’t find Book 1 in our catalog, but I do find: The Digital Photography Book 2: The step-by-step secrets for how to make your photos look like the pros’! by Scott Kelby and The Digital Photography Book 3: The step-by-step secrets for how to make your photos look like the pros’! by Scott Kelby in the catalog. So go for it!

You can find The Digital Photography Book 1: The step-by-step secrets for how to make your photos look like the pros’! by Scott Kelby at Amazon if you would like to purchase it. You can even purchase a boxed set of all three books.