Book Review: Understanding Exposure

Understanding Exposure by Bryan Peterson.

This is my second book on photography and it's a really good book.

Who the book is for?
The book is most useful for an amateur or an advanced amateur, who wants to understand the basic tenets of photography: Aperture, Shutter Speed, ISO, and Metering. In other words all encompassed into one "Exposure"

How the book is structured?
The book is based on a unifying theme of determining the CREATIVELY CORRECT EXPOSURE. The author tries to sew this theme by building up an introductory understanding of Exposure, and then deep diving into Aperture, Shutter Speed, and Light(Metering). The icing on the cake is the second last chapter called "Special Techniques and Filters" which talks about multiple exposures and filters.

What did I learn?
In this section, I'll try to explain what kind of photos I could take after reading this book. I'm categorizing photographs according to the learnings from thsi book. I'll highlight a learning and then I'll display a photograph about how I could put that learning to use. Please keep in mind that I'm a novice. I just bought my first camera - I didn't even have a point and shoot before - a month back. Please don't have high expectations of these pics. They are more of my experiments...

1. Aperture

Depth of Field
a. Shallow DoF: This is a pic of Chrysanthemum against the grass in the garden. The book tells us how to get a shallow DoF with the camera settings. It also leaves the reader with the question, what kind of picture do you want? Depending on the question, it guides us to use the appropriate settings.


b. Great DoF
The book also tells us about how to achieve great DoF. Of how to keep the foreground, subject, and background in focus. It also tells you about a wonderful concept of Who Cares aperture range of F8 - F11. Coupled with this video on youtube, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BfOC_Msb1dI
I could easily understand the concept of DoF

2. Shutter Speed

a. Freezing Action
The book then takes the reader into another dimension of taking the creatively correct exposure: Shutter Speeed. It talks about three types of shutter speeds: Freezing Motion, Panning Motion, and Implying Motion.



b. Implying motion
This is the same photograph as of the ride above. I was thrilled to get this photograph. Though I would agree that the exposure isn't proper - perhaps I could have waited 30 more mins - yet it explains the concept of what beautiful pics one can achieve after understanding shutter speeds.



As you delve into more details in the subsequent pages, the book starts to talk about the relationship between Aperture, Shutter Speed, and ISO. Of how effecting one of three you can have a totally different pic, but only one of them would be creatively correct :). The creative correct pic idea must be killing you :), but I think you'll have to read the book to understand it...

3. Metering(Light)

The book then adds another dimension to understand th creatively correct exposure, i.e., METERING.

a. Spot Metering
The book then talks about the concept of the light meter. It explains the difference among various metering techniques. This pic is an example of Spot Metering - It's that of lamp post by the road that is seen from my rear garden. Notice, only the lamp is visible but nothing else...


b. Matrix Metering
The same pic now shot with MATRIX metering. Notice, that now the lamp post, the adjacent roof top, and the garden fence is also visible.




c. Low light photography
The book gives a bit of an understanding of what to shoot and how to shoot objects at night. I just chose this pic because i was thrilled to get one. You'll find lots of good examples in the book though




The book also talks about the following:
- Backlight
- Frontlight
- Sidelight
and where to get the meter reading from. I haven't had a chance to experiment with these lights because its just yesterday that I finished reading this book.

4. Special Effects and Filters
The book then emphasises the aspect of using filters. It covers the use of Polarizing filters, Neutral density filter, and Neutral Density Graduated filter

a. Polarizing filter
This one's of the sky without a circular polarizing filter






This one's of the sky with a CPF on.







At the end of this book, one gets a feeling of a filled stomach, or that of the graduation day - assuming that you're through :), but for me it was a feeling of having an appetizer before the ordering the main menu. There is so much to be learned from this book. For e.g., after reading this book, I can now look at a photograph and tell what kind of aperture:shutter speed:ISO:Metering would've rendered this shot. Isn't it amazing...I now have to experiment more and as in some of his videos on youtube Bryan Peterson says, Keep Shooting... :)

A challenging journey

Hi
This is a post that I'll use to blog about my preparation for GMAT. This is in continuation with my blog at this address:
http://www.beatthegmat.com/my-strategy-for-gmat-please-review-t11115.html

Nano

11th January, 08 was a day I felt very happy. TATA - an Indian conglomerate which also make cars - launched the cheepest car in the world named Nano. It is as costly as the DVD player of Lexus.

As I see India, it can be broadly divided into three class of people: rich, middle class and poor.It is the middle class where the line of divide is growing weaker as more and more people are jumping into the rich bracket, which is again forcing rich to become super rich.

India has a lot of disparities which is also growing at a very fast rate. One can see the glitz of the Hilton and the Taj's and yet on the roadside you would see people begging for alms. So there I was on the eve of New Year standing in a queue outside Rock Bottom - a popular disc in bombay. I shelled out some 2500INR ~ 75USD to stand in a queue which was half a km long and it gave me a feeling that I was not privilidged enough. Even after spending this much of money I was sweating in the heat outside. As I was swelting the heat I saw these poor people - mothers with small kids in their laps begging for money .5 INR or 1INR or 5INR(if they are lucky), small kids with no clothes on wondering why their is a queue outside this place. It is not a temple and there is no Ganesh Pooja going on. Such is the disparity, where at the same place I am shelling out 2.5 grands for 4 hrs to enjoy the best music, wine and cuisine, there were people begging for a rupee or two.

Let us take a look at the growing middle class in India. I can safely divide the middle class into upper middle class and lower middle class. IT has brought a revolution in India and today we can see more and more people earning salaries which their previous generation might not have imagined in their entire tenure. This upper middle class which has its root in the IT is fast spreading them in the not so forbidden category now - the rich class. The class of people which remains untouched by this IT revolution remains the lower middle class. Obviosuly their is more to it than written.

It is the growing divide between the upper and lower middle class that is a cause of concern for India today and I am confident that Nano is there to bridge it. Let's contemplate how.

There are three types of customers for Nano:
1. Rich who wants to buy it for the sake of fun
2. Upper middle class; where college going kids, housewives might buy as an extra option
3. The lower middle class which until now was thriving on scooters or motorcycles.

It is the 3rd type of customers that interests me. Millions of people in India belong to the scooter clan which is pictured as this in the words of the man himself who made it possible - Ratan Tata, "I observe families riding on two wheelers - the father driving, his kid standing in front, his wife seated behind him holding a baby" Owning a car is still a distant dream for them. Imagine when these set of people think of buying a car that is just double the price of the scooter that they buy, gives them the comfort of 4 wheeler, a brand called TATA and a bloated social self esteem of having a car what will happen. In my thinking India will prosper as Nano will try to bridge the growing disparity between the upper and the lower middle class. For the poor class, I still don't see an option as they lack even the basic necessities but that is a separate issue altogether.