Special thanks to Amphoto Books and Watson-Guptill Publications for providing this month’s Photography Book Club selection.

BetterPhoto Guide to Exposure

The BetterPhoto Guide to Exposure (BetterPhoto Series) by Sean Arbabi

By most photographer’s standards, the quest for consistently great exposure control is the holy grail of technical expertise. This book aims at helping you reach that goal.

About the Author

Sean Arbabi is a commercial photographer who specializes in adventure, travel, nature, and lifestyle imagery for corporate, advertising, and editorial clients. He is an online insturctor with BetterPhoto.com and frequently teaches workshops around the country on exposure and other aspects of photography.

Breakdown

• Exposing Exposure

• Digital Exposure

• Metering

• Creative Techniques

• Lighting

• Difficult Exposures

• Flash

• Editing & Cataloging

Exposing Exposure

With the knowledge of exposure comes the ability to capture quality images consistently, with more creativity, better control, and a firm comprehension of photographic equipment. In this chapter you’ll learn why exposure matters. Here Sean covers shutter speed, exposure value, aperture, depth of field, and more. This is the foundation for which the rest of the book’s knowledge rests.

Digital Exposure

This chapter can get a little technical, but I think that it’s important in the layout of the book to do so at this stage. Here you’ll find all of the standard definitions of terms like JPEG and RAW as well as which you should use and why. Image sensor size and color space are also discussed in this chapter along with EXIF data, LCD, white balance, and all of the other aspects of photography that are digital in nature.

Metering

Oddly enough I don’t think I’ve read a chapter on metering that was this well written and played such a major role in a book on exposure. It’s important to understand how different metering modes and devices play a pivotal role in the understanding of exposure.

Creative Techniques

Sean does a great job in this section of the photography book by using examples and explaining in both plain english and technical language how each shot is captured and how you might use these techniques in varying situations.

Lighting

“Controlling the quality of light is one of the most critical astistic and technical aspects of photography.” I don’t think I could have said it better. Every book on photography is going to have a section on lighting and they all play an important role in how well that book is received. This book excels at explaining how lighting affects exposure choice and allows a photographer to tap into thier creative prowess.

Difficult Exposures

Ever see one of those shots in a magazine that you thought “Wow, I’ll go and re-create that shot with my own flair” and it just doesn’t come out. This chapter is full of those types of photos. The difference is that Sean explains why you didn’t get it right the first time and how you can get right the next time. Priceless.

Flash

Consider this chapter an introduction to flash photography. It’s short and precise with enough basics to get any shutterbug started.

Editing & Catologing

Like most photography books the author shows his post-production workflow. I always think it’s a good idea to see how other’s are handling thier workflow but you have to use what’s in your budget of time and cash.

Conclusion

I really enjoyed reading The BetterPhoto Guide to Exposure (BetterPhoto Series). The photography book is filled with very useful knowledge on all aspects of basic photography and would be a good starter or addition to any photo library. It’s a bit more technical than other books I’ve read so that may be a bit challenging to some and very welcome to others. The photographs throughout are simply stunning. The charts and tables work very well and the little tips add a nice touch. There were a few places where I felt like the book kinda jumped around a bit. I don’t know that I would recommend this book to a very new beginner photographer. I think this book’s target audience is a little more experienced. Perhaps one who’s been shooting for a while and has an already basic understanding of some of the aspects of exposure but can’t seem to get a grasp on it. Nothing wrong with that at all.

I would recommend The BetterPhoto Guide to Exposure (BetterPhoto Series) to:

Beginner to Intermediate Photographers

Aspiring Commercial Photographers

Nature Photographers

Travel Photographers

Popularity: 18% [?]

Related posts:

1. Light & Exposure [Book Review]
2. The Photographer’s Survival Guide [Book Review]
3. National Geographic: The Ultimate Field Guide To Landscape Photography [Book Review]
4. Understanding Exposure [Book Review]
5. Fashion Photography [Book Review]