My good friend Chris Grey has done it again. His Studio Lighting Techniques For Photography: Tricks of the Trade for Professional Digital Photographers is nothing short of spectacular. My favorite quote from the book found on page 5 sets the tone for the book: “Failure is a wonderful reference.” Don’t be afraid to play and learn. That’s what it is all about! The book is not designed as a basic introduction to lighting–he already wrote that one, but it does begin with a quick overview of some critically important concepts to get you going. In fact, the beauty of this book is, in fact, that it is not an introductory volume, so he is able to very effectively spend time on parts of your lighting that are usually given short attention in books with a more global approach. Chris spends good deal of time discussing auxiliary lights such as hair and background lights. He also spends a good amount of time discussing depth of light concepts and why they are so important (Chris is the one who got me to finally understand that idea!)

Chris’ sheer mastery of light shines through, but what I found fascinating is that he remains a voracious student of light! Most of the chapters are discussions of things he discovered by playing, failing, playing some more, succeeding and repeating the process again and again. We are privy to the results of a Master at Play! This is an important idea: At no point does he say that his creations are “the end all.” Rather, he repeatedly urges you to take his ideas and modify them to create you own interpretations.

One area that Chris does consistently emphasize, however, is the absolute need for exposure control. He shows you, step by step, how to check the calibration of your light meter against your camera. That’s right…light meter! There is no using your LCD screen  to check exposure here! He also details what (I agree) is the proper way to meter a set for dead on accuracy (and then, characteristically, he shows you when to break those same rules!). Chris effectively states that you can forgo shooting RAW in favor of jpegs by using these techniques. The whole RAW vs jpeg debate is an ongoing discussion and with all due respect, I fall on the other side of the fence from my trusted colleague. Chris’ comments that RAW conversion can be time consuming is accurate in many situations. However, the conversion will be as simple as clicking a button or running a batch conversion while you sleep IF you follow the techniques described. The choice, given the system that Chris describes, is truly up to you.

There are way too many pearls in this book to describe in detail, but one of them is his chart showing the side by side comparison between the metered f-stop value and the corresponding aperture value on the camera. That alone is worth the price of admission!

Get this book…get some ideas…then go play with them and make them your own. As my buddy might say “this is fun…enjoy the ride!”

 

Reviewed by Steve Dantzig {/rokaccess}