Understanding Shutter Speed: Creative Action and Low-Light Photography Beyond 1/125 Second
By Bryan Peterson
Product Description
Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #585 in Books
- Published on: 2008-04-01
- Released on: 2008-04-01
- Number of items: 1
- Binding: Paperback
- 160 pages
Editorial Reviews
About the Author
Bryan Peterson, a professional photographer, is the author of Understanding Exposure, Beyond Portraiture, Learning to See Creatively, and Understanding Digital Photography. A well-known instructor, he is the founder of the online school The Perfect Picture School of Photography (www.ppsop.com). He lives in Chicago.
Customer Reviews
Be Willing to Think Outside the Box
I read Bryan’s first book, “Understanding Exposure” and thought it was one of the best photography books writtens. Therefore, when he came out with this one I didn’t buy it because I didn’t want to be disappointed with rehashes of photos I already saw or he just added a few points to concepts already covered in other books.
I was on a photo safari when someone told me how much they enjoyed the book. Therefore, I decided to buy it. I was pleasantly surprised to see how he took something as basic as “shutter speed” and successfully held my interest for the entire book.
Bryan categorizes the book based on the shutter speed. These range from the speeds that freeze action (1/1000, 1/500, 1/250), to the slower ones that emphasize motion.
The books value is in the use of the slower speeds. There is not much to learn about taking images at the faster speeds that freeze action.
I give credit because he didn’t just provide a bunch of pictures of the cliche slow shutter images (i.e., waterfalls and people walking). Instead, he shows you how to allow the moving subjects to paint the picture. My favorites examples are the boats in the water and the fields of grass. In these examples, he shows the typical image taken a faster speeds. Next, he shows how slowing the shutter speed allows the objects to move slightly thus producing very interesting photos.
I’ve taken photos of flowers in the past. I used to get upset because I couldn’t use a fast enough shutter speed when I increased my aperture for greater depth of focus without increasing my ISO. In retrospect, I could’ve used a slower shutter speed to emphasize the motion and create more colorful images. This only works if one dares to try something different.
In conclusion, Bryan does an excellent job of showing you how to creatively use what you already know.
Leaving the intellectual muddle out of it, this is a book you’ll want to own as a glorious idea generator
When I first looked at “Understanding Shutter Speed” by Bryan Peterson on Amazon I wondered how shutter speed, only one of the components of an exposure, made up a book. In fact, there are some organizational problems that are caused by choosing this particular slice as a wedge into the topic of photography. A good editor might well have wondered what the final chapter on “Composition” is doing at all in this particular book.
The great strength here is idea generation. It’s hard not to look at the illustrations in this book and say, “Hey why don’t I try that?” The caption information is explicit enough so that you can recreate the ideas shown for yourself, or use them as a jumping off point. As an idea book, “Understanding Shutter Speed” is well worth its price.
Personally, I find the text (as opposed to the photo captions) problematic. Peterson seems out of his depth when it comes to digital. He really seems to think that from a noise viewpoint you are better off underexposing by two stops and adjusting in RAW as opposed to boosting the ISO and exposing properly (he’s wrong). His discussion of ISO using a metaphor of hundreds of carpenters struck me as simply silly and without much point.
But leaving the intellectual muddle out of it, this is a book you’ll want to own as a glorious idea generator.
arpijikii
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