Book Review – Understanding Shutter Speed
Since I had some time off due to the snow here, I took the time to read several books. One book that I had been wanting to read for some time is Understanding Shutter Speed by Bryan Peterson.
Since reading Understanding Exposure
The book is an ‘advanced beginner’ book in that it already assumes that you know about shutter speed, aperture, ISO, and how they are related. Much of the material in this book will not be new to experienced photographers but I did find a number of good pieces of information in this book.
By far the most useful information is where he goes through individual shutter speeds and explains when each should be used. For instance
1/250 – if the motion is coming towards you
1/500 – if the motion is moving perpendicular to you
1/1000 – very fast sports motion
1/2000 – birds in flight
1/30 – a good panning speed
And the list goes on. There is quite a bit of material that is rather rote if you are already aware of exposure. For instance, he continually discusses how he goes by the shutter speed and then changes the aperture to get the correct exposure. For most photographers this is rather obvious.
Bryan also has small nuggets of helpful information on how to photograph certain effects. For instance his tips on photographing lightning and using rear curtain sync and a sparkler to create interesting effects were very helpful.
There was a bit of information I expected to see and was disappointed to not see though. In particular, panning tips would be appreciated. I have just started to play with panning and was looking for any suggestions possible. He does talk a bit about the shutter speed, but does not cover the techniques for holding and moving the camera.
There is also one point where I disagree with him. Bryan talks about the RAW format and how it can be used as an anti-ND filter. While it is true that one can change the exposure of a shot in the RAW file and I agree that one should always shoot in RAW, I disagree with taking a shot that is deliberately underexposed by up to two stops in order to fix it later in RAW. The problem is that the shadows contain much less dynamic range than the highlights. I have done this before with RAW files and the result is much more noise than if I would have just increased the ISO in the first place.
The other large complaint I have about the book is it is a bit too much of photos and too little of writing. While the photos are helpful, you can read through the book quite quickly because there isn’t that much text. Even the text that is there often repeats many of the same points, with the end result that the major points of the entire book would probably take just a few pages.
Still, I recommend reading this book for both beginner and intermediate photographers. I received this book as a gift, but after reading it I don’t think I will reference it that often that I would have wanted to buy it myself. Therefore, I recommend you take a look at it in your local library.
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Tags: book, photography, review, shutter speed, shutterspeed, understanding shutter speed