Exposure has always been at the heart of photography. Too little and your image is too dark, too much and it is washed out. But even beyond that, for that perfect exposure, coming close is not good enough.
While the concept is simple, in practice, it is infinitely complex. It all comes down to a dose of light that is controlled by a shutter speed, an aperture, and the speed of your film or digital media. Understanding exposure is worth the effort because not only does it allow you to get it right, but also helps you understand what "right" is, and that is what Michael Freeman's Perfect Exposure intends to show you how to do. This book is 192 pages in length and breaks out into five chapters.
Chapter One, "Fast-Track and Foolproof," begins by looking at a decision flow. This is not a "system," but rather the way you have to begin to think. When you are on a shoot, there is not much time for anything other than the shoot. There is usually not even time for exposure decisions. So these things really need to be made unconsciously.
First you look at the basic method of decision flow and the key decisions that you will need to make. You follow it through to some topics about brightness and exposure, and then you're shown three case studies that show you how the decision flow works under different conditions.
Chapter Two, "Technical," digs in to how things work. Because of the vagaries of how digital capture works, you will find a great deal more to consider with regard to exposure. Here, you begin with how the light on the sensor fills up in a linear way and how too much can result in the loss of data.
Then you move on to examining exposure and how noise can affect the image. You examine the sensor's dynamic range capabilities, look at highlight clipping, scene dynamic range, high and low contrast, the various types of metering, scene priorities, and how to expose for color.
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