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woodpecker
Mar 12, 2007, 7:26 PM
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Wanting to get serious about photos (instead of just point and shoot).
Any suggestions on a good book to start me out so I can at least understand wtf everything is/means.
thanks in advance,
Billy
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summerprophet
Mar 12, 2007, 7:40 PM
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National Geographic had an excellent field guide to photography.
Photography books are generally way overpriced. go to a used book store and pick up a few for a few bucks.
Leaf through them and make sure that the majority of the material is natural lighting. (ie. Not a book on studio photography).
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melekzek
Mar 12, 2007, 8:44 PM
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guangzhou
Mar 13, 2007, 10:22 AM
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Depends on what you want to focus on. I recomend anything by Scott Kelley
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uptick
Mar 14, 2007, 7:54 PM
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I know nothing about photography.
I used to know absolutely nothing (figuring out 459 ways of how not to take a picture) about photography.
Much of my advancement has been attributed to these two books:
http://www.amazon.com/o/ASIN/0817463003/ref=s9_asin_image_3/102-9925242-1966500
http://www.amazon.com/o/ASIN/0817441816/ref=s9_asin_image_2/102-9925242-1966500
Local library will also have stuff. At least there you can choose the format you like best but many will be telling you the same thing.
(This post was edited by uptick on Mar 15, 2007, 7:54 PM)
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wlderdude
Mar 16, 2007, 8:05 PM
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I have been reading everything I can about photography lately. Of the many dozens of books I have read or tried to read, there is only one I would reccomend. I checked it out from a library and read it pretty much cover to cover in a few days.
Digital Wedding Photography: Capturing Beautiful Memories, by Glen Johnson.
It was simple, to the point, accurate and not boaring to read. It of course is writen for wedding photography, but it has just about everything you would need to photograph most things, people and events. Oh, and the images are stunning (a must in any decent book on photography).
Enjoy.
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ryanpfleger
Mar 16, 2007, 8:59 PM
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If you're not after any specific information, I wouldn't buy anything. Instead just visit the local library. You'll be able to glean the basics from nearly any how-to book they have on the subject of photography. John Shaw's books are pretty common and not bad on the subject of nature/outdoor photography. Once you have the basics down you can start thinking about what topics interest you the most. Honestly though, my opinion is that the best way to learn (once you have the basics down) is to just look at photography you like, and figure out (or ask) what the situation was, and how the photog captured it.
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mattyj
Mar 16, 2007, 9:30 PM
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I think Ansel Adams' The Camera and The Negative are two of the best books out there. If you can't find them at a library, Aamzon has them each for 16.50. Some of the best $33 you'll ever spend to improve your photography.
For a beginner, they might seem out of date and too focused on view cameras and B&W, but the basic ideas around exposure and lenses haven't changed at all. Kind of a textbook-like read, but packed with good information. Far less fluff than a lot of other books out there.
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katmack1
Mar 16, 2007, 10:22 PM
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I read the other recommendations and all are good, if you plan to shoot film. If you plan to get a digital camera with user controls (ie. the camera doesn't automatically do everything for you, if you don't want it to) I would strongly recommend you get a book strictly for digital photographers. Finding the correct exposure with a digital camera is totally different than with a film camera. Finding the correct exposure with film is much easier. In fact, digital exposure can be so problematic, I recently bought a book called "Exposure and Lighting for Digital Photographers Only" by Michael Meadhra and Charlotte Lowrie. It's important to learn about digital photography in general, but dealing with exposure problems successfully is such an important part of digital photography, it is important to make sure any book you get addresses this issue in detail. I hope this helps.
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wmfork
Mar 16, 2007, 11:04 PM
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From a technical stand point, this is one of the best:
Basic Photographic Materials and Processes
isbn: 0240804058
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mattyj
Mar 16, 2007, 11:23 PM
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I disagree completely. Digital behaves very much like slide film, except perhaps that highlights blow out easier. If your only film experience was shooting low-contrast, high-dynamic-range color print film, then yes it's a lot harder to get good exposure with digital. If you've shot with slide film, the transition is pretty easy.
At the end of the day, you're passing light through a lens and exposing a surface to it for a fixed amount of time. For both digital sensors and film, you can graph their output (a number for digital, density for film) as a function of the energy coming in (mostly visible light). Different films will have different curves, and digital sensors have curves that are pretty similar to color slide film. IMO, understanding how photography works is more important at the beginning than understanding specific tools.
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melekzek
Mar 17, 2007, 12:17 AM
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mattyj wrote: I disagree completely.
I agree, most of the books titled "digital photography !!!!111" are crap. Get the classics. If you want to learn the knobs on your camera just RTFM.
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katmack1
Mar 17, 2007, 3:34 PM
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It doesn't sound like we disagree that much. I think we disagree on how much the difference in exposure latitude between film and digital impacts the image, and how important this difference is. Our difference in opinion probably comes from shooting different subject matter. I am new to photographing in the climbing world and shooting landscapes, and quite frankly I haven't really done it that much yet. That has not been my thing. I come from the perspective of a wedding photographer, who shoots white dresses and black suits, sometimes against a bright sky. It is critical for me to keep as much detail on both ends of the spectrum as possible. What makes it even more challenging is when the people have very dark skin, and I am trying to keep detail in their faces while trying not to blow highlights in the wedding dress. It's possible, and sometimes it's almost impossible, depending on the lighting. In either case, it's best to be dead on with your exposure. So, perhaps blowing a highlight or two on a snow capped mountain or letting the detail on some trees in the foreground of an image go dark is an acceptable sacrifice to make with a transition to shooting digital (which makes me very happy to know), but in a wedding portrait, even a slight loss in detail can be devastating to the image. So for me, learning how to adjust my metering techniques when I switched to digital was imperative. It sounds like the window between a great exposure and a problematic one is much smaller for me than it is in the world of landscapes and outdoor sports. So, I look forward to shooting outside. It sounds like I won't have to be as vigilant photographing climbers outside as I need to be photographing a bride and groom outside, unless of course climbing in a wedding dress on brightly exposed routes becomes the new thing.
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wes_allen
Mar 18, 2007, 2:40 AM
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I had also picked up this book a couple weeks ago, I find it to be very good, though maybe not the best "getting started" type book. It does a good job of covering a wide range of topics. Worth reading for sure.
wlderdude wrote: I have been reading everything I can about photography lately. Of the many dozens of books I have read or tried to read, there is only one I would reccomend. I checked it out from a library and read it pretty much cover to cover in a few days. Digital Wedding Photography: Capturing Beautiful Memories, by Glen Johnson. It was simple, to the point, accurate and not boaring to read. It of course is writen for wedding photography, but it has just about everything you would need to photograph most things, people and events. Oh, and the images are stunning (a must in any decent book on photography). Enjoy. |
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