If you are looking for an excellent gift for a photographer, or for yourself, Digital Photography Exposure for Dummies is one of the highest rated photography books on Amazon.com, and one of the most comprehensive at 384 pages. It is highly recommended by both beginners and professional photographers.
You can order Digital Photography Exposure for Dummies using this link at Amazon.com
In short, this is three photography books all rolled up into one.
1) A beginner’s guide to exposure.
2) A guide to advanced exposure techniques (no need to go out and buy a separate, advanced book as your skills improve).
3) A guide to portraits, landscapes, wildlife, flowers, sports and action, close-up photography, plus low light and night photography.
You will also learn how to “read” and work with the different qualities of light for more dramatic images, choose white balance settings for better image quality, use a flash on and off the camera, and use the histogram to insure your camera is getting the right kind of image data. You will also learn the common ways photographers make mistakes, and how to avoid them.
I am regularly asked what the secret is to stunning color (and a lot of people suspect computer software is the magic key). Here’s one secret: The only way your camera can give you the best color is if you choose the best exposure. If you aren’t close to the ideal exposure in the camera, the colors will shift in different directions and no amount of work with Photoshop can put back the stunning color quality your camera could have given you. Most people aren’t getting the best color quality their camera is capable of producing and exposure is one of the key reasons. In auto exposure mode your camera is designed to give you “average” exposures of “average” scenes. But auto exposure won’t give you the best exposure for every scene. You have to take over the exposure process if you want your camera to work its special kind of magic.
To learn how this book can change your photography, go here.
If you want to know why exposure is so important to creating high quality images, start here and here.