Product Description

This is the nearest we've come to a digital imaging bible on outdoor photography. Get snap happy with this comprehensive and motivating guide to digital photography. Packed with inspirational images features detailed coverage of the best cameras, equipment and software, as well as jargon-free tips on demystifying the technical elements of taking both digital and conventional photographs. It is suitable for all levels of experience from amateurs to aspiring David Bailey's. You'll get great results every time.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #100711 in Books
• Published on: 2006-08-03
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 408 pages

Synopsis
This is the nearest we've come to a digital imaging bible on outdoor photography. Get snap happy with this comprehensive and motivating guide to digital photography. Packed with inspirational images features detailed coverage of the best cameras, equipment and software, as well as jargon-free tips on demystifying the technical elements of taking both digital and conventional photographs. It is suitable for all levels of experience from amateurs to aspiring David Bailey's. You'll get great results every time.

About the Author
Tom Ang is Senior Lecturer in Photographic Practice at the University of Westminster, London. His own photography -- both digital and traditional -- has been widely exhibited and he has won the Thomas Cook Travel Book Award for his photographic coverage of the Marco Polo Expedition. Tom is also the author of DK's An Introduction to Digital Photography and KISS Guide to Digital Photography. Tom lives in London.

Customer Reviews

A wealth of experience made available to me
I can unreservedly recommend this book. It is an order of magnitude more relevant to me than any other similar book I've come across, even if the pages on the actual cameras is bound to date. I've been a photographer for nearly 50 years and a digital photographer since I could afford it - probably more than 10 years.
Tom Ang's experience is vast eyt down-to-earth and he's got a real gift for communicating clearly those things that matter to me - small, large and tiny considerations from the use of the camera; the computer software, the hardware and the aesthetic aspects of composition and so on.
This is a "golden age" of incredibly powerful yet really affordable digital technology that takes some knowledge to use. To me, this book is an essential companion, helping to put all the available technology to best use to capture and display the images that will communicate what I intend ... and discover along the way.

A book to dip into rather than read from cover to cover
A lot has already been said about this book. I find it a good book to look up a paticular subject in, read about it and then put it back on the shelf until the next problem comes along. There is nothing wrong with this and the section on layers sorted out some of the problems I had with getting them to work, for this alone the book was worth it. This guy knows his stuff and I have a few other books by him and like them also. All in all a valuable resiurse for when things go wrong or you can't get something to work in the editing stage.

Lots of pages, little useful information
I was quite dissapointed after reading this book. The first 70 or so pages discuss which digital camera to buy, which printer, scanner features etc. Of course, almost all of this information is obsolete by now. Even if it was updated though, I would argue that there are much better sources to help guide the consumer towards a purchase, or even explain the workings of a printer, than this book.

The reason I bought a book on photography was to learn how to better use my digital camera. I am fairly new to photography, and wanted to learn more about exposure settings, composure, using flash, topics like landscape or portrait photography etc. Ang does spend a few pages on this, but it was so superficial and gave dissapointingly little information I could use in practice. Now don't get me wrong, I did learn a thing or two, but one page on exposure was less than I was hoping for.

The second half of the book (actually a bit more) is mostly spent explaining how to use picture editing software. My issue is that he doesn't direct his attention towards one program, neither towards PC or Mac. Which in my oppinion makes the information provided hard to actually use. He might spend a page explaining what the dodge and burn tools are (in general), but I suspect that once you fire up your software of choice to actually convert that knowledge into practice, you will have no idea what to do and results will be poor. I wanted to use Photoshop so I also bought "The Photoshop CS2 Book for Digital Photographers" by Scott Kelby. Now THAT book was just brilliant in letting you know how to actually do something with your pictures. It was not at all too advanced, he just spends a few more pages for explaining screenshots and procedures in an easy to understand step-by-step fashion. There are other similar books for other software. If you want to start learning some editing skills I strongly suggest buying a more specialized book like that instead.

All in all the book had a bit of what I was looking for, but it was discussed over maybe 80 pages. The rest was decent enough to read, but did nothing to make me a better photographer or able to work the digital darkroom.