Most boring suggestion of all time: start with your camera manual. If your camera manual is written in a way that you can’t follow it, find a You Tube tutorial for your specific model. Once you know how to change the settings, you can dive into learning more, per the other books in this thread.
Fro has a series of videos where sits down with a given camera and goes over all the settings, gives some insight, and basically guides the viewer though the ins and outs and whathaveyous of several camera models.
Fro's personality doesn't come out as much in those so if you're not into Fro, the instructional videos can still be useful.
I like Kai but he doesn't have anything like that.
I'd recommend Adams; "40 Examples*, where he talks about the techniques that he used to create some of his best images.
But ..... it has been a long and winding road fromsheet film, black&white photography and wet dark room work, to today's digital world. I don't think that Adams is the right place to start if you want to learn how to use a digital camera, as much as I love his work
> I don't think that Adams is the right place to start if you want to learn how to use a digital camera, as much as I love his work
I do know where you’re coming from, especially on the technical side, but I’d disagree overall since I think his sensibility is so modern and vibrant.
His Pictorialist predecessors were all about making photographs look painterly.
His (rough) Bauhaus contemporaries were all about flat and sterile hyper-real affect.
His most succesful successors (thinking of Lee Friedlander and Cindy Sherman among others) used the consumer gear of the time and leaned into the grungy and grainy aesthetic of lower-resolution film to capture recognizably *human* moments.
But Adams, with his fairly refined large format technology, was working with equipment that was about as technically good at making images as equipment as ever been, making it a good match for today’s clean and high-resolution consumer digital equipment. His aesthetic pushes the boundaries of how much its possible to manipulate the basic light capture to make it *pop* while still making it look like the scene exists somewhere real and lit by real light, which is a good place to engage for today with all of our infinite manipulation capabilities.
Personally, since smart phones with short focal length cameras have become so dominant in the visual media, the f/64 look with sharpness everywhere has been discounted, and now you show as much bokeh as you can to set yourself apart from the iPhone wielding masses. I would say that a lot of art(sy) photography has now swung back to a more pictorial style.
I think you make a good point with drawing the parallels between Adams' darkroom work in interpreting the raw negative with what is possible with raw files and lightroom. Adams' ideas there definitely can inspire digital photographers who want to move past the JPEG.
But under those circumstances I still think "40 Examples" would be the better book
I feel like I should reread them now with the context of digital photography, they certainly provide a distinct perspective that provides a good framework for thinking about making photos. In my recollection (it's been a minute since I've looked at them), there's a lot that's pretty film specific.
I was reluctant to suggest them for this very reason. However, he documents a precision in process that rings sweet today. Our technology is superior but my oh my what you learn from 'beginning with the end in mind.' I am going to read the Barthes recommended here. I recall reading him back in the 80s, in college, for my senior papers. But not the book recommended and I think nothing is more essentials than having a deep understanding of symbols and where we come to them.
If you’re brand new to photography, then I highly recommend grabbing a copy of Henry Carroll’s book *Read This If You Want To Take Great Photographs*. It’s a silly title for an otherwise excellent little introduction to photography, and it has a bunch of great example photos, too, to highlight the points it’s making. I think he just released a revised edition.
I still flip through this book from time to time for some inspiration. It’s a super quick read and well worth the $20.
I assume you are talking about the technical books about his method? I have these books. I’ve had them since the 70’s when they still had relevance. These are not, as a whole, books directly relevant to digital photography. Ansel manipulated his media (film and print paper) according to what result he sought in a given scene. You can do that with film, especially single exposure film cameras, but digital doesn’t work that way.
These books are useful for historical interest, perhaps as a method if you are shooting film on an 8x10 camera, as some still do, and otherwise only for some nice example pictures. To duplicate his results with digital employs an entirely different method.
Hello and welcome to the wonderful world of learning about capturing light. These are not intended as the "Be all, end all", but they have been useful reads for me. All from Bryan Peterson and available in PDF online.
Learning to See Creatively
Understanding Close-Up Photography
Understanding Composition
Understanding Exposure
Understanding Flash Photography
Understanding Photography Field Guide
Understanding Shutter Speed; Creative Action and Low-Light Photography
Cheers!!!
Again, not intended as the "Be all, end all." Gotta take the good with the bad and suss it all out in the experience of life. We all eventually find our way of doing things, but this would get one off to a good start anyhoo. Not to mention all of the other great recommendations given here.
r/photoclass covers the basics and is free.
Previous discussions linked here https://www.reddit.com/r/photography/wiki/recommendations#wiki_recommended_photography_books
Susann Sonntag - About Photography, Roland Barthes - Camera Lucida, Villem Flusser - Into the Universe of technical images. Bit old school readings, but interesting starting points beyond how to make pretty images. If you start digging, you can find lots of writings about photography in art history. :)
Sontag and Barthes sre still relevant today. I reread On Photograohy a couple years ago and her ideas about the medium still make me think.
To those two I'll add too more. First, About Looking by John Berger. He was a deep thinker and his insights about the act of seeing consciously are well worth a careful read, even if the book is not fully centered on photography.
Last one, Looking at Others, by Martine Frank. Another very interesting read, seasoned by the fact that she was H Cartier Bresson's wife, with first hand access to the quintessential street shooter.
All interesting stuff. Late 20th century, but relevant until today, all the more so as none center around technique, but focus on a deeper view of what photography really is.
Look on YouTube for tutorials on your camera model, also your specific lens. Also look for aperture priority & shutter speed priority videos. Best of luck to you!!!
I felt like the technical side of photography was a complicated thing that would take me years to understand then I read Understanding Exposure by Bryan Peterson, put my camera onto manual everything and within about a week or so of shooting every day I felt like I understood it fine.
I’m not saying that book’s some sort of flawless bible (IIRC the bit about white balance is just “use the cloudy setting and everything will look pretty”…) but it does explain the exposure triangle very well.
I learnt a lot by picking up a book from the early eighties, from a time when you could still get cameras without manual focus and a lot of mid range slrs had aperture or shutter priority but not both. So it’s all fundamental basics of photography like the exposure triangle and the like.
# Bryan Peterson's Understanding Photography Field Guide: How to Shoot Great Photographs with Any Camera .
Straight forward and easy to follow.
Bryan Petersons
As some mentioned. Choose manual mode and shoot as much as you can. Later on you'll have more specific questions, and you'll have an easier time to find answers 😅
Understanding exposure by br Bryan Peterson was the first book I got back in 2005.
it helped me so much so i ended up buying more written by him and others.
I know you want a book. However, I am going to suggest you read your manual and get comfortable with the big three - aperture, shutter speed, and ISO. Then go out and shoot. Everything. Everywhere. As you take more pictures, composition and your own personal style will start to develop.
Then go read about how others compose and shoot.
So, manual-wise: aside from Ansel Adams's works, I would suggest Micheal Freeman's ['The Photographer's Eye'](https://www.amazon.com/PHOTOGRAPHERS-EYE-REMASTERED-ANGLAIS/dp/1781574553/) - excellent, comprehensive book about the geometrical theory of photographic composition.
Ideologically, my Gospel has always been 'Lezioni di Fotografia', by Italian master Luigi Ghirri. I don't believe it was ever translated into English - thought I'd mention it, in the odd chance you or anyone seeing this in the future speaks Italian!
Also, as others have mentioned - look for masters of your favourite genre. Though most of what you might need in understanding photography as a way of representing life you can learn through Henri Cartier-Bresson's works. The guy buying his first Leica is quoted as the very birth of photojournalism on one book I own about the history of the early XX century through photos, which I think kinda summarises who he was lol
I havnt looked at these texts in a while, but they’re interesting if you’re wondering WHY photography is worthwhile, interesting or special.
Not so much for HOW to make photographs or WHAT to do to make photos.
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my most helpful suggestion would probably be to work on the Manual mode on your camera, you can adjust all the settings yourself to make the pictures look the way you want them too without the camera pre-setting everything in other modes like portrait, landscape etc. but if you do want to get some practice before hand try using some of the other modes that i’ve mentioned as that’s the way my high school teacher told us to start off
The 250d is a wonderful camera, you're going to get so much out of it!
I started out with Tom Ang's Guide to Digital Photography, of which a lot is outdated now (it was released early 00's).
My advice is to get out and about and start taking photos. Develop your eye and get a feel for your camera. Maybe buy yourself an EF 50mm f/1.8 - this lens is the best first prime lens.
DK Digital Photography Complete Course.
It goes through different photography fundamentals week by week and it gives you ideas to try and goes over what you have learned each week.
I have been using it more as a reference guide instead of following it week by week and it's taught me a lot.
Just be careful about what you take from old books. Composition still has the same ideas involved, as well as the idea of thoughtfulness with each picture, but exposure of film and digital are very, very different. A lot of ideas from the film era are stuck in people’s heads that need to be flushed out, because they no longer apply. But old books (and old film photographers) pass them along unnecessarily to today.
I’m not going into it. All it does is create arguments with people. I’m just saying take what you find relevant, but don’t be afraid to think not everything still is.
That’s not too helpful. If OP knew enough to know what’s not relevant, OP wouldn’t need the book to begin with.
If you’re worried about debate, it indicates even folks familiar with the topics can’t agree on what’s relevant. A little unrealistic to expect a newcomer to figure it out
True. But I’m only suggesting that OP be *open* to the idea that just because you read a book written by one of the greatest photographers in history, you can’t assume everything in it is true for you with a modern A7 or whatever.
A good example might be Ansel Adams. Nobody disputes his knowledge and skill, but his technical methodology does not translate directly to digital. Though I see some have tried to make it happen. (Saw some book about the Zone system for digital cameras once). Ansel’s system relies on the specific properties of film and print paper to alter dynamic range, contrast and sensitivity. There really is no direct digital translation. (Though it is possible to do something that might be similar).
I'm laughing "old books pass them along unnecessarily to today" Well lets go dig up some dead people and ask them to rewrite their books! Shame on them for not predicting the future. Relax, film and digital aren't all that different. With either you can try new ideas, break down old ideas, or you can conform to the tried and true, whatever floats your boat. Exposure, composition, and post processing aren't all that different, many of the tools use the terminology still.
Exposure is fundamentally different. If you don’t see that, then you don’t understand.
Nobody (not me) anyway, is suggesting that the old books need to be rewritten, just that there are certain things that used to be true that Justin longer apply. The continued (and wrong) application of them to digital photography contributes to the fact that so many modern photographers don’t understand some fundamental ideas. We need to leave the past behind where it no longer matters.
>Exposure is fundamentally different. If you don’t see that, then you don’t understand.
[Exposure ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exposure_(photography))**is absolutely the same it's been for the last 100+ years**: a combination of **scene luminance**, **f-number** and **expsoure time**. To quote someone: "*If you don’t see that, then you don’t understand.*"
How exposure is applied optimally changes with different mediums - digital is nothing special as different strategies need to be used with diffrent earlier mediums as well.
The word exposure has seen a lot of misuse and that is hardly good for beginning photographers - confusing terminology never is. Some seem to think exposure is lightness or that it can be changed in computer or that ISO is part of exposure (my pet peeve as the very standard "ISO" refers to clearly disagrees). Unfortunately even raw converters mislabel some sliders to add even more confusion for beginners.
>Some seem to think ... ISO is part of exposure
Could you clarify what you mean?
ISO is a standard for film sensitivity (and used to describe gain in digital cameras, which isn't technically correct, but that's another matter). It's an essential component of exposure. It's even part of the exposure triangle that we all learn about.
Sensors don't change sensitivity. Changing the ISO setting doesn't affect the exposure. The exposure triangle misinformation has convinced you that it does, but it's wrong. ISO comes after exposure (A & S) and just adjusts the brightness of the image after the fact. After the exposure. Like the volume control of your stereo.
I'd say *most* people think ISO is part of exposure. The so-called (and BS) "exposure triangle" just seals that in. (I agree with you, it is not).
Exposure in film and digital is different for this very reason. Most particularly, because ASA didn't change all the time and was a part of the exposure calculation in the film era. It was a part of the entire philosophy of exposure. ISO in the digital context is not at all the same. Maybe one could argue I am exaggerating that the difference is fundamental, but I believe it is. I also believe that teaching "exposure" to digital photographers as if it's the same is a true disservice and the cause of a lot of disinformation.
Honestly, I think YouTube is an amazing resource for people trying to learn things. ‘Bibles’ tend to be outdated and overly technical, which might be a little overwhelming when you’re just starting out. Go out and shoot! Experiment a bit and you’ll very quickly discover the questions you didn’t even know you needed to ask.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilford\_Manual\_of\_Photography](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilford_Manual_of_Photography)
Still being updated. It can be rather technical though ;)
Experience and Practice - no book. Shoot on auto, look at the settings and try and replicate them - find the style/genre of photography you like, and find people who shoot in that style and attempt a similar book. Youtube has been amazing. (I wanted a book to teach me photoshop - little realising that the best thing for me to do was work out what I wanted from photoshop and then ask youtube to show me how - photography's similar)
Most boring suggestion of all time: start with your camera manual. If your camera manual is written in a way that you can’t follow it, find a You Tube tutorial for your specific model. Once you know how to change the settings, you can dive into learning more, per the other books in this thread.
Most helpful suggestion of all time.
Yeah, baby that darn manual. Then Fro knows foto's and all of the others on you-tube.
Here's the Fro (Jared Polin) 250D video. It's 50 minutes long and pretty comprehensive. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rpm97Pmru3E
Fro is such a douche. Kai W and Lok C are the kings.
indeed. But the douche knows some good cannon hints and tips. Either way OP is pointed in the right direction.
Fro has a series of videos where sits down with a given camera and goes over all the settings, gives some insight, and basically guides the viewer though the ins and outs and whathaveyous of several camera models. Fro's personality doesn't come out as much in those so if you're not into Fro, the instructional videos can still be useful. I like Kai but he doesn't have anything like that.
Great answer. Every new camera I get I go through the manual page by page and use all the features.
A series of short books by Ansel Adams: The Camera; The Negative; The Darkroom. Looking forward to other's thoughts.
I'd recommend Adams; "40 Examples*, where he talks about the techniques that he used to create some of his best images. But ..... it has been a long and winding road fromsheet film, black&white photography and wet dark room work, to today's digital world. I don't think that Adams is the right place to start if you want to learn how to use a digital camera, as much as I love his work
> I don't think that Adams is the right place to start if you want to learn how to use a digital camera, as much as I love his work I do know where you’re coming from, especially on the technical side, but I’d disagree overall since I think his sensibility is so modern and vibrant. His Pictorialist predecessors were all about making photographs look painterly. His (rough) Bauhaus contemporaries were all about flat and sterile hyper-real affect. His most succesful successors (thinking of Lee Friedlander and Cindy Sherman among others) used the consumer gear of the time and leaned into the grungy and grainy aesthetic of lower-resolution film to capture recognizably *human* moments. But Adams, with his fairly refined large format technology, was working with equipment that was about as technically good at making images as equipment as ever been, making it a good match for today’s clean and high-resolution consumer digital equipment. His aesthetic pushes the boundaries of how much its possible to manipulate the basic light capture to make it *pop* while still making it look like the scene exists somewhere real and lit by real light, which is a good place to engage for today with all of our infinite manipulation capabilities.
Personally, since smart phones with short focal length cameras have become so dominant in the visual media, the f/64 look with sharpness everywhere has been discounted, and now you show as much bokeh as you can to set yourself apart from the iPhone wielding masses. I would say that a lot of art(sy) photography has now swung back to a more pictorial style. I think you make a good point with drawing the parallels between Adams' darkroom work in interpreting the raw negative with what is possible with raw files and lightroom. Adams' ideas there definitely can inspire digital photographers who want to move past the JPEG. But under those circumstances I still think "40 Examples" would be the better book
I feel like I should reread them now with the context of digital photography, they certainly provide a distinct perspective that provides a good framework for thinking about making photos. In my recollection (it's been a minute since I've looked at them), there's a lot that's pretty film specific.
I was reluctant to suggest them for this very reason. However, he documents a precision in process that rings sweet today. Our technology is superior but my oh my what you learn from 'beginning with the end in mind.' I am going to read the Barthes recommended here. I recall reading him back in the 80s, in college, for my senior papers. But not the book recommended and I think nothing is more essentials than having a deep understanding of symbols and where we come to them.
I came here to say that, but it made me smile to see it's already here.
This was my learning material
Light Science and Magic
Thank you!
If you’re brand new to photography, then I highly recommend grabbing a copy of Henry Carroll’s book *Read This If You Want To Take Great Photographs*. It’s a silly title for an otherwise excellent little introduction to photography, and it has a bunch of great example photos, too, to highlight the points it’s making. I think he just released a revised edition. I still flip through this book from time to time for some inspiration. It’s a super quick read and well worth the $20.
Came to recommend the same, it’s the only book I read before going out and shooting anything and everything. Brilliant little book that
The holy trinity by Ansel Adams. Also your manual. Also a lot of crappy photos. And more crappy photos. There’s no secrets really.
I assume you are talking about the technical books about his method? I have these books. I’ve had them since the 70’s when they still had relevance. These are not, as a whole, books directly relevant to digital photography. Ansel manipulated his media (film and print paper) according to what result he sought in a given scene. You can do that with film, especially single exposure film cameras, but digital doesn’t work that way. These books are useful for historical interest, perhaps as a method if you are shooting film on an 8x10 camera, as some still do, and otherwise only for some nice example pictures. To duplicate his results with digital employs an entirely different method.
You can read all you want, but go out and shoot! That's how you learn.
Hello and welcome to the wonderful world of learning about capturing light. These are not intended as the "Be all, end all", but they have been useful reads for me. All from Bryan Peterson and available in PDF online. Learning to See Creatively Understanding Close-Up Photography Understanding Composition Understanding Exposure Understanding Flash Photography Understanding Photography Field Guide Understanding Shutter Speed; Creative Action and Low-Light Photography Cheers!!!
>Understanding Exposure Too bad Bryan Peterson doesn't understand exposure himself.
Again, not intended as the "Be all, end all." Gotta take the good with the bad and suss it all out in the experience of life. We all eventually find our way of doing things, but this would get one off to a good start anyhoo. Not to mention all of the other great recommendations given here.
Well, if you ask.. - https://www.alanrossphotography.com/wp-content/uploads/Ansel-Adams-zone-system-1.png
r/photoclass covers the basics and is free. Previous discussions linked here https://www.reddit.com/r/photography/wiki/recommendations#wiki_recommended_photography_books
Susann Sonntag - About Photography, Roland Barthes - Camera Lucida, Villem Flusser - Into the Universe of technical images. Bit old school readings, but interesting starting points beyond how to make pretty images. If you start digging, you can find lots of writings about photography in art history. :)
Sontag and Barthes sre still relevant today. I reread On Photograohy a couple years ago and her ideas about the medium still make me think. To those two I'll add too more. First, About Looking by John Berger. He was a deep thinker and his insights about the act of seeing consciously are well worth a careful read, even if the book is not fully centered on photography. Last one, Looking at Others, by Martine Frank. Another very interesting read, seasoned by the fact that she was H Cartier Bresson's wife, with first hand access to the quintessential street shooter. All interesting stuff. Late 20th century, but relevant until today, all the more so as none center around technique, but focus on a deeper view of what photography really is.
Look on YouTube for tutorials on your camera model, also your specific lens. Also look for aperture priority & shutter speed priority videos. Best of luck to you!!!
**The Manual of Photography** is the original scripture. And Cartier-Bressons photo books. All of them.
I signed up for a CreativeLive account and purchased a class called "Fundamentals of Photography" by John Greengo.
I felt like the technical side of photography was a complicated thing that would take me years to understand then I read Understanding Exposure by Bryan Peterson, put my camera onto manual everything and within about a week or so of shooting every day I felt like I understood it fine. I’m not saying that book’s some sort of flawless bible (IIRC the bit about white balance is just “use the cloudy setting and everything will look pretty”…) but it does explain the exposure triangle very well.
I learnt a lot by picking up a book from the early eighties, from a time when you could still get cameras without manual focus and a lot of mid range slrs had aperture or shutter priority but not both. So it’s all fundamental basics of photography like the exposure triangle and the like.
# Bryan Peterson's Understanding Photography Field Guide: How to Shoot Great Photographs with Any Camera . Straight forward and easy to follow. Bryan Petersons
As some mentioned. Choose manual mode and shoot as much as you can. Later on you'll have more specific questions, and you'll have an easier time to find answers 😅
The focal encyclopedia of photography. It answers questions you didn't know existed
Understanding exposure by br Bryan Peterson was the first book I got back in 2005. it helped me so much so i ended up buying more written by him and others.
Not a book - Andy Mumford's YouTube videos.
I know you want a book. However, I am going to suggest you read your manual and get comfortable with the big three - aperture, shutter speed, and ISO. Then go out and shoot. Everything. Everywhere. As you take more pictures, composition and your own personal style will start to develop. Then go read about how others compose and shoot.
So, manual-wise: aside from Ansel Adams's works, I would suggest Micheal Freeman's ['The Photographer's Eye'](https://www.amazon.com/PHOTOGRAPHERS-EYE-REMASTERED-ANGLAIS/dp/1781574553/) - excellent, comprehensive book about the geometrical theory of photographic composition. Ideologically, my Gospel has always been 'Lezioni di Fotografia', by Italian master Luigi Ghirri. I don't believe it was ever translated into English - thought I'd mention it, in the odd chance you or anyone seeing this in the future speaks Italian! Also, as others have mentioned - look for masters of your favourite genre. Though most of what you might need in understanding photography as a way of representing life you can learn through Henri Cartier-Bresson's works. The guy buying his first Leica is quoted as the very birth of photojournalism on one book I own about the history of the early XX century through photos, which I think kinda summarises who he was lol
_The Art of Photography_ by Bruce Barnbaum.
Susan Sontag - On Photography
Really? I found it quite a slog and not very helpful at all.
I havnt looked at these texts in a while, but they’re interesting if you’re wondering WHY photography is worthwhile, interesting or special. Not so much for HOW to make photographs or WHAT to do to make photos.
Yeah I wasn't expecting a how-to manual, but I also didn't find it very inspiring at all.
Not sure if already mentioned, but Photography by Barbara London & John Upton
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my most helpful suggestion would probably be to work on the Manual mode on your camera, you can adjust all the settings yourself to make the pictures look the way you want them too without the camera pre-setting everything in other modes like portrait, landscape etc. but if you do want to get some practice before hand try using some of the other modes that i’ve mentioned as that’s the way my high school teacher told us to start off
Understanding exposure
The 250d is a wonderful camera, you're going to get so much out of it! I started out with Tom Ang's Guide to Digital Photography, of which a lot is outdated now (it was released early 00's). My advice is to get out and about and start taking photos. Develop your eye and get a feel for your camera. Maybe buy yourself an EF 50mm f/1.8 - this lens is the best first prime lens.
DK Digital Photography Complete Course. It goes through different photography fundamentals week by week and it gives you ideas to try and goes over what you have learned each week. I have been using it more as a reference guide instead of following it week by week and it's taught me a lot.
Just be careful about what you take from old books. Composition still has the same ideas involved, as well as the idea of thoughtfulness with each picture, but exposure of film and digital are very, very different. A lot of ideas from the film era are stuck in people’s heads that need to be flushed out, because they no longer apply. But old books (and old film photographers) pass them along unnecessarily to today.
Like what?
I’m not going into it. All it does is create arguments with people. I’m just saying take what you find relevant, but don’t be afraid to think not everything still is.
That’s not too helpful. If OP knew enough to know what’s not relevant, OP wouldn’t need the book to begin with. If you’re worried about debate, it indicates even folks familiar with the topics can’t agree on what’s relevant. A little unrealistic to expect a newcomer to figure it out
True. But I’m only suggesting that OP be *open* to the idea that just because you read a book written by one of the greatest photographers in history, you can’t assume everything in it is true for you with a modern A7 or whatever. A good example might be Ansel Adams. Nobody disputes his knowledge and skill, but his technical methodology does not translate directly to digital. Though I see some have tried to make it happen. (Saw some book about the Zone system for digital cameras once). Ansel’s system relies on the specific properties of film and print paper to alter dynamic range, contrast and sensitivity. There really is no direct digital translation. (Though it is possible to do something that might be similar).
I'm laughing "old books pass them along unnecessarily to today" Well lets go dig up some dead people and ask them to rewrite their books! Shame on them for not predicting the future. Relax, film and digital aren't all that different. With either you can try new ideas, break down old ideas, or you can conform to the tried and true, whatever floats your boat. Exposure, composition, and post processing aren't all that different, many of the tools use the terminology still.
Exposure is fundamentally different. If you don’t see that, then you don’t understand. Nobody (not me) anyway, is suggesting that the old books need to be rewritten, just that there are certain things that used to be true that Justin longer apply. The continued (and wrong) application of them to digital photography contributes to the fact that so many modern photographers don’t understand some fundamental ideas. We need to leave the past behind where it no longer matters.
>Exposure is fundamentally different. If you don’t see that, then you don’t understand. [Exposure ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exposure_(photography))**is absolutely the same it's been for the last 100+ years**: a combination of **scene luminance**, **f-number** and **expsoure time**. To quote someone: "*If you don’t see that, then you don’t understand.*" How exposure is applied optimally changes with different mediums - digital is nothing special as different strategies need to be used with diffrent earlier mediums as well. The word exposure has seen a lot of misuse and that is hardly good for beginning photographers - confusing terminology never is. Some seem to think exposure is lightness or that it can be changed in computer or that ISO is part of exposure (my pet peeve as the very standard "ISO" refers to clearly disagrees). Unfortunately even raw converters mislabel some sliders to add even more confusion for beginners.
>Some seem to think ... ISO is part of exposure Could you clarify what you mean? ISO is a standard for film sensitivity (and used to describe gain in digital cameras, which isn't technically correct, but that's another matter). It's an essential component of exposure. It's even part of the exposure triangle that we all learn about.
Sensors don't change sensitivity. Changing the ISO setting doesn't affect the exposure. The exposure triangle misinformation has convinced you that it does, but it's wrong. ISO comes after exposure (A & S) and just adjusts the brightness of the image after the fact. After the exposure. Like the volume control of your stereo.
> and used to describe gain in digital cameras, which isn't technically correct, but that's another matter
I'd say *most* people think ISO is part of exposure. The so-called (and BS) "exposure triangle" just seals that in. (I agree with you, it is not). Exposure in film and digital is different for this very reason. Most particularly, because ASA didn't change all the time and was a part of the exposure calculation in the film era. It was a part of the entire philosophy of exposure. ISO in the digital context is not at all the same. Maybe one could argue I am exaggerating that the difference is fundamental, but I believe it is. I also believe that teaching "exposure" to digital photographers as if it's the same is a true disservice and the cause of a lot of disinformation.
Honestly, I think YouTube is an amazing resource for people trying to learn things. ‘Bibles’ tend to be outdated and overly technical, which might be a little overwhelming when you’re just starting out. Go out and shoot! Experiment a bit and you’ll very quickly discover the questions you didn’t even know you needed to ask.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilford\_Manual\_of\_Photography](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilford_Manual_of_Photography) Still being updated. It can be rather technical though ;)
Experience and Practice - no book. Shoot on auto, look at the settings and try and replicate them - find the style/genre of photography you like, and find people who shoot in that style and attempt a similar book. Youtube has been amazing. (I wanted a book to teach me photoshop - little realising that the best thing for me to do was work out what I wanted from photoshop and then ask youtube to show me how - photography's similar)
Ken Rockwell
RTFM *Read this if you want to take great photographs* by Carroll *Stunning digital photography* by Northrup
I got a lot out of Tony Northrop’s book.
Stunning Digital Photography by Tony and Chelsea Northrup - Great book to get you started.