Digital Landscape Photography, by John and Barbara Gerlach ?????
This must be one of the best landscape photography books that I’ve read in a while. Written in a very non-sophisticated style, John and Barbara offer page after page of highly practical advice on how to obtain better landscape photos. John uses the Canon system and Barbara the Nikon system, together giving a broad spectrum of tips for whichever system you use. Chapters range from discussions of camera systems, best choice of lenses, and other equipment issues, to composing the photo, seeking optimal lighting, setting the proper exposure, obtaining the best sharpness in the photo, to post-processing issues like producing HDR and panorama shots. They are not shy to mention which special equipment they might use, most of which is inexpensive and readily available in the USA. To supplement their discussions, multiple examples of their photography are offered, demonstrating how their techniques successfully produce splendid landscape photos. This is a book that will be re-studied from time to time, and not set to collect dust in some obscure portion of my bookshelves.
The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 Book, by Martin Evening ????
The book offers a comprehensive summary of all the functions of Lightroom 3, written by a professional photographer. The book is profuse with illustrations, making the book quite easy to follow along. Although I have been using Lightroom as my main storage/processing program for photographs for several years now, this book opened up many more possibilities for the way I could use Lightroom. Much of the functionality would apply more to a professional photographer, such of means of group processing large batches of photographs. Even still, Lightroom remains my preferred photograph program, and it was nice to learn how I could make it better serve my photographic needs.
Digital Landscape Photography, by Michael Frye ?????
The subtitle offers a good summary of this text “In the footsteps of Ansel Adams and the great masters”. Frye apparently studied under Ansel Adams, and has brought Adams Zone system into the digital arena. This book is a delight to read for a number of reasons. 1. His photography is stupendous. 2. He has a superb balance between art and technique. Frye has top mastery of not only the art of visualizing light and composing a photograph, but also in taking it to Photoshop/Lightroom to make it a presentation print. 3. I appreciate examples where he shows his “not so good” photographs next to his final photo, to see what he was good for in order to make a prize-winning print. My only minor complaint is that I wish he would have included camera settings on the photographs that he took. This book is a “must-read” for any aspiring nature photographer. I hope that Frye will write further books on this same topic.
Landscapes—The Digital SLR Expert, by Mackie, Neill, Noton, Wiggett, Worobiec ????
This book is a compilation of advice from five accomplished photographers addressing the issue of nature photography. It is a practical book, and, except for the chapter on black and white photography, was focused on advice for obtaining the shot. Thus, advice about composition, lighting, timing, camera settings, lens usage, and special siruations were at the forefront. Multiple examples of photographic images were given, and it was helpful to know what settings and lenses were being used to obtain the photos. The B&W chapter offered much easy to follow photoshop advice on converting your photos into B&W or duotone specimens. This book was a fun and inspirational read.
Canon Speedlite System Digital Field Guide, by Brian McLernon ???
I needed to explore how to better use my flash with my Canon camera, and so I purchased this guide. McLernon adeptly covers the functions and settings for the flash and shows how to program the flash system for the utilization multiple simultaneous flashes illuminating the scene, including discussions of what equipment and supplies would be helpful to best utilize a flash system in a creative manner. McLernon discusses well the various lighting scenarios for various portrait and still life scenes. He is much briefer on technical topics, such as the use of flash sytems with macro lenses in technical photography. Looking over McLernon’s photos in this book and on his website, there is much to commend for this usage of innovative flash setups. There were several problems that I noted with the book. 1. McLernon should have given better illustrations of floor setup of the flashes. From a schematic view, where was he placing the flashes, how was he pointing them, how were the flashes configured to obtain the effect that was being illustrated? He describes various portrait lighting modes, such as the Paramount and Rembrandt, but does not tell the reader exactly where flashes are placed to obtain those effects. Thus, the descriptions were near useless. 2. McLernon spends much time discussing basic photography rules and compositional techniques. But, I didn’t purchase the book to learn basic photography rules. As an example, he discusses sports photography, and includes photos that did not use a flash. Perhaps he could have utilized flash/non-flash comparisons of various scenes to demonstrate how flash photography adds a different dimension to the photo, but that is never done. Thus, the book deviates from the objective of simply teaching flash photography. It is still a useful book for understanding the Canon flash system, but bloated with off-topic discussions and lacking in useful information to guide the amateur flash user in the art of flash photography.
