Customer Reviews

Informative but flawed - By: Brian Hamilton, 28 Sep 2008
This book does exactly what is says on the tin but there is a downside. It is written by an American author & each photographic example (of which there are many) is precursorsed by an annoying prologue that gives you the story behind each photograph. It is very schmaltzy, you find out he has two daughters, who his wife is, & numerous other things that although is nice it really has no placein a book of this type. It is very American, which can grate after a while. Contrast this with books written by the likes of Michael Freeman, highly informative & entertaining without being annoying at the same time

The good news is that if you can stomach the style there are some good tipsin here. The sections on fast shutter speed hold no surprises, there is very little that can be said on that subject. Peterson makes a good job of exploring slower shutter speed & demonstrates how different levels of blur can be achieved. He does thisin a jargon free manner that does inspire confidence to try out some of his techniques, he makes them sound easy & achievable. To his credit he does seem to have an ability to explain techniques & inspire yo to try them out.

There is a filler chapter regarding composition at the end which feels a bit tacked on. Also, I feel that he could have tackled really long exposures, he seems frightened to go beyond 15 seconds, I guess this is due to the limitations of digital at long exposures but there must be something he could explore at these extended shutter speed. Even something like using body caps for making digital pinhole cameras would have been welcome.

I feel this book is a solid groundingin the craft of shutter speed selection but there could have been a lot more said about the subject.