Customer Reviews

Practical Artistry: Light & Exposure for Digital Photographers

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

As Harold Davis so aptly demonstrates in this brilliant book, the modern photographer has to be "one part artist and one part photographer." Thus, it falls on the photographer to have a strong understanding of light and exposure in order to create memorable works of photographic art.

For newcomers, this book can provide a wealth of information about how it is not the camera, nor the lens, but the use of light that separates the amateur from the pro. Mr. Davis has written this book with the digital photographer in mind, and it surely will become the classic treatise on the subject for digital imagery.

The book is richly illustrated with great photography by the author, but what I really enjoyed was that each of the subjects - white balance, creative exposure, shutter speed, etc. - was explained in detail and then a representative photo was used to "show" the effect of decisions that the photographer can make as they compose the shot. Whether you are a visual learner or prefer to read well written prose, this book delivers each in a well thought out manner that is easy to understand.

I also found the author's discussion of how to use the RAW digital format to capture the true nuances of light and color to be particularly informative. Initially, the RAW format can seem mystifying to a digital photographer who has not experienced the power that RAW can bring to a situation, and this book does as fine a job as any I've ever encountered at explaining how to harness RAW for best effect.

Additionally, I found that the three chapters on front, back and side lighting to have the best explanations I have ever read on the differences each of these lighting situations brings to an image.

I would heartily recommend this terrific book to any photographer - from the newcomer to digital imagery to the advanced pro - because it captures wonderfully the true building block steps that can turn a simple image into a true work of art.

I must admit that I approached this book with some misgivings. Hundreds, if not thousands of books have been written on the subject of light and exposure. Some of them are excellent (the Time-Life series of photography books come to mind). This raised the question `Why do we need another such book?' My hope for this book lay in the end of the title `for Digital Photographers' and the fact that it is published by O'Reilly (the publisher of some of today's great technical texts). This book would be worth reading, I thought, if it covered the digital aspects of photography to a useful depth.

Before I get to the review, let me say the following about myself. I am an avid amateur photographer. I am faculty at a US college of medicine where I am a medical researcher and I teach microscopy and digital imaging.

1) This book is written by an amateur for less advanced amateurs. It has little to offer middle or advanced photographers.

2) I was very intrigued by the authors idea that "... this book is rich in pragmatic details. For example, you can find the exact lens and exposure settings I used for every photo in this book.... It's very reasonable to start with this book by finding a few photos that interest you, and discovering how they were made." I thought this was a wonderful idea. It is unfortunate that the book can't be used this way. Many of the pictures have obviously been extensively post-processed and no mention of this processing is made in most of the picture captions. Thus, the information presented will not permit replication of the results shown.

3) The book needs better editing. There are multiple examples of wrong page numbers or images being cited out of order.

4) In a book for beginners, I would have liked to see more side-by-side examples. For example, showing a lovely picture is fine, but if one is discussing depth-of-field it would be useful and informative to show the same composition with several depth-of-field examples. The same can be said for several shutter speeds to show the effect on the final image.

5) Many issues are treated so sparsely (i.e. the entire topic of Layers, Blending Modes and masking is covered in a small box on one page) that they are not useful. I would recommend either concentrating the book on fewer things at a greater depth or writing a longer book.
Lastly, the book contains many technical errors. This is particularly distressing since the book comes from O'Reilly. These errors will lead to confusion for the beginner since they do not know enough to ignore the obvious errors.

Taken together, I can't recommend this book.

Light and Exposure for Digital Photographers delivers today's digital photographer a fascinating, one-stop source for achieving superior photographic results. The photographs contained in the book are gorgeous and they alone are worth the price of the book. However, it is the step by step instructions, written in simple enough language for a novice, that ensure the reader will be able to create photographs of quality, like those in the book.

Anyone who has taken photographs is familiar with the experience of seeing one thing through the lens, clicking the shutter, and obtaining an entirely different, often disappointing, result. Many of us who are fond of taking digital photos and working with Photoshop, or the like, are used to attempting to make our average photos into something special by doctoring them with the digital dark room. Once in a while we get lucky. Light & Exposure takes the luck out of it and replaces it with the knowledge necessary to get the photo we wanted in the first place and the tools to enhance them afterward.

Harold Davis offers an array of in depth facts and instructions for serious photographers, insights and observations for the more artistically inclined, and hints and tricks for the dabblers like myself to enable the reader to create works of art in photography.

Any modern photographer utilizing a digital camera will find the
information and photographs in this book invaluable. Developing a strong foundation with an artistic bent is desirable asset to a photographer. Light & Exposure for Digital Photographers is the one, essential resource for any photographer's library.

I guess I'm not an unbiased reviewer, because I love Harold Davis' Photoblog 2.0 and never miss a day of reading it. I am always amazed by his vision, intelligence and passion for photography. If his recent blog entries are still available on this page, you no doubt have noticed he's a gifted photographer to say the least.
Now, imagine that blog expanded, illustrated; illuminated. "Practical Artistry: Light & Exposure for Digital Photographers" is filled with helpful suggestions, practical tips and just plain common sense advice. And that's just the text! Harold's photography is superb, and this is evident even in the sometimes-limited format of a book.
I believe you will enjoy and learn from this book; Harold is a natural instructor. I thoroughly enjoyed and heartily recommend this book!

While too basic for the experienced photographer who already understands the interplay of focal length, aperture, shutter speed, and ISO settings, this is an excellent primer on these subjects for the new photographer. As the title indicates the focus is on teaching the reader how to work with light and exposure to get the results they want, and the results can be stunning. Harold Davis is at the top of his game as a master photographer with this book. For the new photographer who wants to move up the quality of their work from the photograph category to the art category these are the most critical things to understand and this is one of the easiest to understand books on the subject. After providing a strong understanding of these items Mr. Davis teaches how to use them to get the effect you want. He includes intentional over and underexposure, depth of field and focus, macro photography, longer exposures, and white balance. Throughout the book you will find example photographs with complete detail of what he did to achieve the effect. Pick up a good book on composition and you have the complete package to top level photography. Light and Exposure for Digital Photographers is highly recommended.

I am an amateur photographer, I care about it, and I enjoy reading about it. I find the discussion of the mechanics of getting a good shot in most photo books, and especially those with "digital photography" in their titles, really frustrating. I find they either explain how typical generic controls work (I can read the manual, thanks, and get that information about the actual camera that's in my hands), or they give a dry discussion of the relationships among the various factors and choices, without relating it meaningfully to the picture that comes out. Sometimes they are mostly a gentle introduction to Photoshop.

The least satisfying books, and there are lots of them, are the ones whose authors approach digital photography as simply a logical continuation of film photography. This happens in every field in which there is a "paradigm shift" and, believe me, digital photography is a paradigm shift. It's almost as if they do a "search and replace" on their old knowledge. Really, things are different here and, except for a couple of cultural artifacts (like the fact that we get a handful of F-Stops instead of the continuous aperture function digital could offer), one needs to start fresh.

The reason I'm griping about other books is to contrast them with this terrific and refreshing book. Although the book covers lots of other topics, the main theme is exposure (and thus light). Davis clearly correlates what you do with the dials with what comes out in your shots, and he illustrates the correlation with his own beautiful pictures. He expresses technical details and concepts clearly, and writes intelligently without ever talking down to the reader. And he does so from the perspective of true digital photography.

We all know that there are plenty of aspects of artistry that have little to do with the word "practical". But with photography, the practical side of artistry is 90% the use of light. Unless you are very lucky, you will not get that special shot unless you know how to turn those dials. Davis does a marvelous job of teaching just that.

I had the good fortune to read this book before it was published and offer comments to the author on some of the technical aspects. I recently saw the reviews on Amazon, and was delighted--but not surprised--that they were so positive. This is a book I'm really glad to own.

Being fairly new to the arena of digital photography, beyond point and shoot cameras, I often found myself underwhelmed with a lot of the pictures I have been taking. I understood what all of the settings on my camera did, and what their effects on the resulting image where, but things just weren't coming together for me. This book has helped me understand that digital photography, really is a process. From choosing the scene, and exposing for the portions that are important, all the way to loading the RAW image into processing software to put on the "finishing touches." While it doesn't teach you how to go out and shoot an award winning photo, it does give you the knowledge you need to correctly use your camera and computer as a tool to create that photo.

Each Chapter of Mr. Davis' book reads very well, and provides interesting dialog that doesn't seem to speak over my head. It's written in a clear concise manner that goes into just enough detail to help you understand why each step is important. I'm sure that each chapter in this book could probably be a book on its own. There are times that I found myself wishing to know more about a particular topic in the book, but adding such content to it would probably take away from the flow as a whole. The many sidebars in the book give you that extra bit of information you may be looking for, or just urge you to do more research on your own.

In my opinion, the best part of this book is all the wonderful examples that Mr. Davis provides in his discussion. For every concept, idea, and method that is discussed in the book there is at least one, if not multiple images detailing the application of each. Each image has an explanation of why the particular setting in discussion was chosen, along with all of the other settings used to compose each image. Simply browsing through the images and their narrative alone is inspirational and fun.

I often found myself reading this book with my camera on one side of me, playing with each setting as I read about them, and a book about my particular camera on the other side. I would often take breaks between each chapter to explore the ramifications of changing each setting on my camera and learning how it affects different outcomes.

All in all, I would say this book is aimed at people exactly like myself. New to photography as something more than just a point and shoot for the family scrap book, and eager to learn more. It contains just enough detail to help you understand what's going on inside the little box without boring you, and provides real life examples the illustrate them. It provides a window into the mind of a professional photographer willing to share important informational details into what makes a picture good.

Are you a digital photographer who is looking for a creative way to explore your world? If you are, then this book is for you! Author Harold Davis, has done an outstanding job of writing a book that treats the techniques of classical photography and the tools of the digital artist holistically.

Davis, begins by explaining that the aperture (one of the three components of an exposure) refers to the size of the opening in the camera lens. Then, the author discusses how it is important to have a good general sense of how aperture relates to the depth of field. Next, he discusses how the shutter speed does not set a speed; but rather, this setting controls a duration of time; specifically, the duration of time that the shutter is open. The author also discusses digital's powerful and flexible ability to dial in light sensitivity. He continues by showing you how correct creative exposures can be used to expose for one area of a subject, with the understanding that other parts of the photo will be adjusted in post-processing. Finally, the author discusses post-processing in the digital darkroom.

This most excellent book aims to present the best practices of the craft of photography in the context of the digital era. But, more importantly, the author designed this book for you on a number of different levels.

In the old days (before cameras had built-in light meters) every photographer had to understand the relationship between ISO, shutter speed and aperture. Then cameras got automated and photographers began to forget about this relationship. But any photographer who wants to advance in his or her skill as a photographer had better learn about this trio. This book is aimed at teaching this subject and its corollary, the nature of light.

After a general chapter on understanding exposure, the author deals with aperture, shutter speed, ISO (and the related topic, noise), light, and finally the digital darkroom. The author writes in clear easy to understand style, and the book is illustrated profusely with the author's pictures. Each picture is annotated with the image's shooting information and any special exposure considerations the author had.

Any book on exposure that I read aimed at digital photographers must pass a litmus test: Does the author show how to use the histogram? Unfortunately, other then a brief two-paragraph reference, Davis does not. Nor does he discuss the overexposure indicator (the "blinkie"). There is no reference to exposure compensation.

Some of the author's comments are a bit misleading. He says to always turn off vibration reduction when using a tripod unless the lens has a special tripod mode, which suggests that there may be some kind of tripod setting on a lens. But at least some lenses sense the lens is mounted on a tripod and thus can be left in image stabilization mode on a tripod. (To be fair, Davis does say to check the documentation.) He says ISO 1000 captures 10 times the light of ISO 100. While that is true, the faster speed only results in an increase of 4 and one third f/stops which is the traditional way that photographers consider exposure. It's too bad the author didn't try to be a little more precise about the relationship of f/stops and exposure, which some photographers refer to as reciprocity. He says that adjusting a single RAW image is better then processing in HDR for a large dynamic range. Often multiple processing of a raw image can capture the range of light in a scene. But sometimes the range of light exceeds the range that can be extracted from a single raw image.

Sometimes the author misses the opportunity to discuss important considerations that an amateur should know, as when, in his discussion of depth of field, he fails to point out that for a particular image size of a subject, the depth of field is the same for a particular f/stop regardless of focal length; or that bright light can be controlled with neutral density filters; or that the fall off of light from a flash can create dark backgrounds.

As part of my campaign against the use of the word "artistry" in book titles, I'll just note that the closest the author comes to teaching artistry is to suggest that controlling exposure can lead to more creative pictures.

It's a shame that a book with so many beautiful pictures does such a poor job of explaining such an important topic. Readers interested in a better explanation should consider "Exposure and Lighting for Digital Photographers Only (For Only)" by Michael Meadhra and Charlotte K. Lowrie.

Davis' book provides something for every type of photographer, from beginner to advanced. He not only presents good, helpful details on exposure and lighting controls for each image in the book, but includes a number of inspiring images that should encourage readers to experiment with different subject and techniques. And there are lots of images! He covers many lighting situations: landscapes, night shots, macros and some studio shots (though not as much studio examples as I would have liked).

The book may seem a bit thin for the topics covered (176 pages), but Davis covers all the necessary details in a comprehensive, easy-to-read manner. Davis' book can be a bit of a "tease"; I realize that this is not a book about Photoshop (thank heavens!), but there are occasions when Davis invokes some unique post-processing (such as when he blends an image that's been treated multiple ways for white balance), but he doesn't give any details.

If you have any questions about lighting and exposure, or creating images like the ones Davis show in the book and on his blog, get this book! You won't regret it.