Product Description

A guide to landscape photography. This book is both a `how to' guide and a showcase of the photographer's best work. Other work by the author includes "The Nature Photographer's Complete Guide to Professional Field Techniques" and "John Shaw's Focus on Nature".

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #370350 in Books
• Published on: 1994-04-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 144 pages

Customer Reviews

For beginners, but then ...
The book reasonably covers most of the ground relevant to landscape photography, is acceptably written and nicely illustrated. On the other hand, it can be tediously long and insubstantial before getting down to what you primarily came to it for, i.e. a thorough, clear, step-by-step discussion of the relevant techniques. Unlike this, their actual treatment is usually loose and shallow, often incomplete even for a basic-level text (e.g. fancy discussing exposure of high-contrast scenes on slide film based on midtone estimates without a single word about bracketing?), while the total absence of summaries, check-lists and other like tools greatly detracts from its possible pedagogic and future reference value. Plenty of nice pictures, yes, some great (that is, if you like Fuji Velvia's garish colours, which plague the book), and no doubt one can pick some ideas from them. But in a would-be photography manual what you expect from the pictures is, rather than beauty, an effective illustration of the approach and technique alternatives, which is limited in the book, and be provided with full details of at least the more significant shots, whereas here all you are given is lens and film, not even the exposure settings. Conclusion: more an inspiring picture book (three stars for this) than an effective learning tool.

All the same, useful if you do not know about basic exposure, what hyperfocal focusing is, what a polarizing filter does, when to use a tripod, the basic characteristics of various focal lengths, the basic effects of different lighting, basic ..., etc. But then what you actually need is a general photography handbook (see Michael Langford's, for instance), which will do better to one's vision and technique overall, including for landscape, through a more structured, systematic and complete coverage of these and other topics. If you are beyond that level, do save your money and look somewhere else.

Excellent explanations of technical aspects of photography
I discovered this book on a landscape photography course - everyone was really impressed by it. Very easy to follow, clear explanations of all the basics, good examples, lots of photos. Straightforward style. A must for anyone getting into photography or struggling to get to grips with the technical aspects.

Beginners, Look no further
John Shaw will explain the mysteries of photography to you: f-stops, shutter speeds, exposure compensation, film speed, lenses, filters, composition, light, and color all come together in this wonderful book from an expert to a beginner. John Shaw differs from Galen Rowell, in that Shaw takes pictures of the mundane, while Rowell's photographs are those of the majestic and the magical. The world has places for both.