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

Book Name: Understanding Exposure, Fourth Edition: How to Shoot Great Photographs with Any Camera
Author: Bryan Peterson
Publisher: Amphoto Books; Revised edition
ISBN-10, 13: 978-1607748502,1607748509
Year: 2016
Pages: 176 pages
Language: English
File size: 19 MB
File format: PDF,EPUB

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

Just as it was one hundred years ago and just as it was in 1970 when I made my first exposure, today every camera whether digital or film is nothing more than a lightproof box with a lens at one end and a digital card or light sensitive film at the other. The same light enters the lens (the aperture), and after a certain amount of time (determined by shutter speed) an image will be recorded (on digital media or film). This recorded image has been called since day 1 an exposure, and it still is. Sometimes the word exposure refers to a finished image: “Wow, that’s a nice exposure.” At other times it refers to the digital card or film: “I’ve only got a few exposures left.” But more often than not, the word exposure refers to the amount, and act, of light falling on photosensitive material (either a digital card or film). And in this context, it comes up most often as part of a question I’ve heard more often than any other: “Hey, Bryan, what should my exposure be?” (In other words, how much light should hit the digital media/film and for how long?) My answer is always the same: “Your exposure should be correct.” Although my answer appears to be flippant, it really is the answer.

A correct exposure is what every photographer, amateur and professional alike, hopes to accomplish with his or her camera. Until about 1975, before many auto exposure cameras arrived on the scene, every photographer had to choose both an aperture and a shutter speed that, when correct, would record a correct exposure. The choices in aperture and shutter speed were directly influenced by the film’s ISO (speed or sensitivity to light). Most photographers’ exposures would be based on the available natural light, and when the available light wasn’t enough, they’d resort to using flash or a tripod. Today, most cameras are equipped with so much automation that they promise to do it all for you, allowing photographers to concentrate solely on what they wish to shoot. “Just keep this dial here set to P and fire away! The camera will do everything else, ”says the enthusiastic salesperson at the camera shop. Oh, if only that were true! Most—if not all—of you who bought this book have a do-it-all-for-you camera, yet you still find yourself befuddled, confused, and frustrated by exposure. Why is that? It’s because your do-it-all-for-you camera is not living up to that promise and/or you have finally reached the point at which you want to record correct photographic exposures consistently