Practical Artistry: Light & Exposure for Digital Photographers (Practical Artistry) | 
 enlarge | Author: Harold Davis
Publisher: O'Reilly Media, Inc.
Category: Book
List Price: $29.99
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Avg. Customer Rating:  9 reviews
Sales Rank: 48268
Format: Illustrated
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 176
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.3
Dimensions (in): 15.8 x 8.9 x 0.5
ISBN: 0596529880
Dewey Decimal Number: 778.7
EAN: 9780596529888
ASIN: 0596529880
Publication Date: April 4, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Condition: Brand new book. Shipped from our NYC store. Slight Shelf wear to cover. Pages are clean and unmarked.
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Product Description
You may be passionate about photography, and own a digital SLR with perhaps more advanced equipment as well. But do the photographs you take with this powerful equipment come out as well as you'd like?
With this fascinating and beautifully illustrated book, you learn how to apply the techniques and principles of classic photography so you can make great images with today's digital equipment. Harold Davis, author and renowned fine art photographer, puts the focus in Practical Artistry on light and exposure, two crucial concepts you need to understand and master if you are to truly capture the images you see.
Davis presents a generous number of his own images in each chapter, complete with technical information and an explanation of what he was trying to achieve. These striking photographs not only illustrate the lesson at hand, but also serve as inspiration for your own efforts. Browsing the photographs alone will tell you a lot.
Topics covered in this book include: - Camera, lenses, and equipment
- Understanding exposure and measuring light
- Relationship of aperture to shutter speed and ISO
- Working with depth of field
- Natural lighting, studio lighting, and the use of flash
- Light and color temperature
- Working with white balance
- Photographing at dawn or dusk
- Photography at night
- Capturing motion
- Telling a story with your image
- Capturing people, places, and things
- Setting up a digital workflow
- RAW processing and double RAW processing
- Adjusting exposure and reducing noise
- Black & white photography
- And much more
Concise and to the point, Practical Artistry clearly demonstrates that photography, essentially, is writing with light, and that the type of images you produce depend on the many choices you have for using that skill. Harold Davis gives you an array of choices in full living color.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 4 more reviews...
 Strong course on the basics July 15, 2008
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
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.
 Essential info for any photographer. May 26, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
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.
 Pretty Pictures May 26, 2008
4 out of 10 found this review helpful
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.
Great combination of technical and artistic info May 26, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
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.
EXPOSING THE LIGHT!! May 25, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
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.
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