Understanding exposure review
Some reviews have suggested that this book is only for the very basic beginner. I think it’s not true. I have been counseled and shadowed by a few professionals who've been in the industry a number of years. After spending some time with the pros, I was always certain that the only way to get the best photos was to have a lot of money and to be able to purchase the best, most up-to-date gadgets, special lights, expensive strobes, and super expensive/fancy lenses. And let's not forget the assistants that you'll also have to hire to hold some of the gadgets. And yet, most of their photos looked so “fake” and truly a product of all the photographic "stuff" rather than the camera. I kept thinking that maybe I was just not getting it. I was almost convinced that obviously, all the creative photos are just good quality, basic photos which have been processed, and re-processed in one or more editing software programs such as Photoshop (another one of the "must have" gadgets). NO!! Bryan Peterson explains how to really use the camera to get that creative shot. After all, capturing a photo, is really nothing more than capturing and manipulating light. He makes it simple enough for the beginner to understand, and yet, without being complicated, can teach (or remind) the pros of the overlooked simplicity of how to use only the camera, considering ISO, aperture and shutter speed to work in harmony to get a 'one of a kind' photo.
Although I haven’t read the whole book yet I can say that this will help me a lot in my thesis studies. I consider myself as a beginner in photography although others say different; I don’t mind revising the fundamentals of photography so I found this book very interesting and effective for what I need, as it is targeted for beginners. The author is very brief and dumbs down what he is trying to teach to relate to those of us who know some general things about cameras or the intricate of how cameras work. He uses things like "The Sky Brothers" or "Mr. Green Jeans," which will feel like kid stuff for a pro or semi-pro person, but for me the beginner a welcomed help. After reading this book I feel like I can go out and take photos on manual and not be intimidated about getting the wrong exposure.
The digital photography book small review
This is the most practical and useful book on digital photography that you will find on the shelves. The book is filled with tips and tricks of the trade that the professional photographers use every day to get wonderful looking pictures using nothing but a digital camera similar to the one you have. Why their photographs look better than yours? Well is not always the camera, most of the credit is to know how to take advantage of the camera you have: selecting the right settings for different situations, choosing the right location, etc.
Adobe Photoshop CS5 for Photographers: A professional image editor's guide to the creative use of Photoshop for the Macintosh and PC [Paperback] review
I found this book very interesting and helpful. I recently upgraded from PS cs3 to PS cs5 and was bit overwhelmed with all the new tools and options now available to me. Martin Evening's CS5 book is fabulous! It does assume some prior PS knowledge, I was lucky that I happened to know how to use PS a lot because I’ve been using it now for quite some years. It’s very informative and full of practical tips for someone relatively familiar with PS. I will definitely find this book as reference whenever using CS5 for my thesis.
