Rick Sammon's Exploring the Light: Making the Very Best In-Camera Exposures

by Rick Sammon

How to capture and control light to make the best digital photographs. Light is the essence of photography. Follow master photographer Rick Sammon at dawn in Kenya or nighttime in Miami as he demonstrates how to achieve the best composition with the available light, which camera settings are best suited to existing conditions, and how to obtain the best exposures in challenging situations. Sammon shows how to make photographs instead of just taking them, providing the tools necessary to take artistic command of the images you create. Drawing on intuitive analogies and technical tips, his in-depth lessons on light apply to every style and subject of photography. In this beginner-to-intermediate-level guide, Sammon also teaches how to "rescue" potentially imperfect exposures with the resources available to the digital SLR camera owner. Technical exposure information images where relevant. 428 color photographs

Genres: Photography

272 pages, Paperback

First published September 29, 2008

Reviews

[Ionut Trufin · Rating 3 out of 5]

It feels like any another photography book. When it was written it may have been more relevant. At this time, it does not say anything new, mainly because everything is already said in other books. It is a good beginner's book.

[Amanda Shields · Rating 4 out of 5]

I always have a hard time finding photography books that aren’t either for beginners or overly complicated with experiments. I am a very advanced photographer & I found this book to be the perfect blend. It had tons of great tips and tricks that did an excellent job explaining things I knew, but helped me to understand better & even some things I didn’t know! It does a great job of helping you look at light & adjust your settings accordingly. Knowing what your camera is seeing and is going to do in certain conditions was s big part of it too. Some tips were so helpful I actually highlighted them!
It is a bit dated, he’s using Adobe CS3 for some of the Photoshop examples, but thankfully, Adobe has done a good job at keeping most of the same tools and functions, so really the differences never really came into play. Some of the images looked a bit dated, especially the photos of people, but when you have a career spanning decades, you’re going to have older photos that are still good examples of whatever subject he’s talking about. It’s just something I noticed.
I like this book & read it far quicker than most other books. I really appreciated how it’s more teaching you how to see light and what to look for in every scene and in your images rather than a specific how-to book. It enables it to keep the information general, yet helpful and timeless.

[Lori · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great book for beginners and a good review for people who know a bit more. As someone who tries to teach others about taking better photos, I felt this would be a very helpful book. While not the most current, the information is basic enough that it still applies to cameras today.

[Anne Johnston Fera · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an excellent resource for the beginner to intermediate photographer who has a foundation but would like to improve. Rick offers digestible chunks of information. I found it well organized, easy to follow with lots of photo references to demonstrate his point.

[Josh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well-organized and full of examples.

[Renée Doiron · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a great book for beginners, beautiful photos and written in plain english. Unfortunately I don't think I learned anything new.