equipment

Zuckerman, a master photographer, takes an unassuming, non-technical case-study approach to show readers how to achieve the perfect photographic exposure. The brilliant and superb colour photographs used as illustration or case study are captured with his favorite medium-format SLR camera, a Mamiya RZ 67-II (you can check this out in his interview at http://www.mamiya.com/assets/zuckerman/RZ67).

Having explained how and when a built-in TTL (through-the-Lens) reflected light meter (by definition) in an SLR camera may fail, Zuckerman jumps straight to the important concept of a "middle tone" (mid-tone or medium gray or 18% gray) upon which such TTL light meters, and for that matter, all light meters, is based in obtaining a "normal" exposure, as opposed to a "correct" or "perfect" exposure. This is immediately followed by a judicious survey of the classic situations in which one finds difficulty in obtaining a correct exposure. If at all, there is a single rule-of-thumb, Zuckerman makes it clear that if you choose to meter exposure based on a "mid-tone" of a colour, everything else will fall into place. That is the Holy Grail one should seek as far as exposure is concerned! Getting to this even when there is little or no mid-tone is the topic of chapter 3.

In a nutshell, when you get an exposure reading from your camera's built-in light meter, often, depending on the lighting situation, you are only getting a "normal" exposure (based on the idea that the camera is exposing your subject at this middle-gray) instead of getting a correct exposure, which is what you want as a photographer!. Hence, when you try to obtain an automatic exposure for tricky situations like black subject on a dark background (examples are a plenty in Zuckerman's book), the built-in exposure meter will fail as it tries to interpret a normal exposure of this by assuming a middle-gray. Consequently, you get an over-exposure in such situation and get a gray instead of black subject. Those situations that present metering problem are covered as individual topics in their respective chapters in this book (high contrast, backlight, indoor architecture, low light of extreme situations when correct exposure is more an art than a science etc).

While it is intuitive to illustrate the concept of "middle gray" as being a series of gray ranging from black to white, doing this within the context of colour photography presents even a challenge to the author. The author did, however, made a good attempt by illustrating the location of a "mid-tone colour" in many of his colour illustrations (in chapter 3 and others). One is still left with the question of what exactly constitute a mid-tone of a series of colour of a photographic subject. It would have been great if only Zuckerman could show his chosen "mid-tone colour" for each and everyone of his great colour photographs in this book!
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As a Pro, the author relies heavily on off-camera light meters (notably the Sekonic L-508) that incorporate both an incident as well as a reflected light meter (presumably, no TTL-meter is built into the Mamiya RZ67 II) in capturing almost all of the photos used in the book. Beside stating the importance and the use of incident light meter and a high-end reflected light meter (one-degree spot reading), Zuckerman does provide way in which one can perform the same precision light reading using a standard 35mm SLR on a spot-reading mode. As the spot reading angle is a function of the focal length of the lens being used, Zuckerman shows that with a telephoto lens focused on a chosen mid-tone of a subject, one can achieve the reading that rivals a precision reflected meter!

The author does not advocate the practice of bracketing an exposure or over- or under-exposure by a stop or two! Hence, there is no discussion of "zone system" exposure in this book. Interested readers are well advised to check out other titles on this topic, including Les Meehan's "Creative Exposure Control" (Collin and Brown, 2001) and Bahman Farzad's "The Confused Photographer's Guide to Correct Photographic Exposure and the Simplified Zone System" (3rd edition, 2001)

While correct or perfect exposure is important, photographic composition is an equally important skill to acquire on your path to great photography. Readers are advised to check out titles on this topic, one of which, "Photos with IMPACT" (David & Charles, 2003) by Tom Mavik is well worth your effort!

Overall, this book is both informative and accessible to photographers in general and novice in particular. It is filled with pages and pages of the author's enthusiasm for his subject of nature photography. This simple approach of recognize a photo-exposure situation and search for its mid-tone may not be shared by all photography enthusiasts. But the bottom line is: If you can capture great photos with such an approach, why not? You can always learn the technical details of this later!

I am still finding out some new stuff there when reading it now even I have read it from cover to cover for a couple of times. The chapter about finding a middle tune area and the appendix about sun f/16 rules( well, I bet you know it very well, but the author does have his own words) are very helpful.

People, if you have any doubts about exposure with your camera, please read this book. I always had doubts, have read other books that are excellent for exposure, but you know what this is the FINEST book I have read that really does tell you how to find exposure on those difficult exposure. It is so easy to read and you grasp Zuckerman's teaching so fast. WOW
I use to have doubts on my exposure in photography, I bought the book, have read it 3 times in one week, now it is a reference book to check if required. To date have not checked. It is not a big book, but crammed with what YOU need to get perfect exposures. Good Luck, you will land up with a smile on your face