Digital Photography Field Guide

I wish it was possible to give this book 10 stars! After reading and being mainly confused by books written mainly for professional photographers - even the "Dummies" digital books go into too much technical stuff - this book is a breath of fresh air. It is so helpful and written in such understandable terms that it should be packaged with every digital camera. The authors really know how to instruct a person in taking great pictures even if they have never picked up a digital camera before. When explaining how to take a picture in each situation, the icons you need to use are clearly illustrated in the margins. The photos show examples of a picture taken poorly and then with the correct settings - this is extremely helpful. The section on how to use a flash is worth the price of the book alone. Next to my cameras themselves, this book is the most important part of my digital equipment.

In its 120 some pages, the DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY FIELD GUIDE proves itself to be equal parts guide to navigating the controls of a digital camera and a basic course in general photography. Cynthia L. Baron and Daniel Peck start where the camera pamphlet leaves off in explaining the functions a digital camera is capable of utilizing to capture a well produced photograph under just about any conditions. And they do this using examples of basic photographic composition that can never go out of style. This book contains all the information that is needed to take great photographs while using your digital camera to its full potential. And offers all this in a format that can easily be used as a field reference. If I had room for one book only in my camera bag, the DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY FIELD GUIDE would be my choice.

In the never-ending quest to learn to take semi-decent pictures, I read through the Digital Photography Field Guide by Cynthia L. Baron and Daniel Peck (Peachpit Press). This is a small, easy to read and understand book on getting the most out of your digital camera. The chapters: Before You Shoot: Buying Guide; Digital Camera Basics; Photographing People; Capturing Motion; Indoor Places; Outdoor Places; After You Shoot; Digital Camera Troubleshooting; Index For what this book is and for the intended audience, it's pretty good. The book starts out by explaining how a digital camera works and what the basic features are that you'll want to have. From there, it covers a number of shooting situations you'll experience in the real world, and what camera features you can use to best handle the scene. For instance, trying to shoot good sporting pictures is difficult. The latency between when you click the shutter and when the picture records means that you'll most likely end up getting the split second AFTER the perfect shot. Not good. But the authors show you how to anticipate the action to compensate for latency. The other option is to set for continuous shooting so that a single click will produce a series of shots that will bracket the moment and increase your chances of the perfect picture. The serious photographer will already know most of this information, so they probably won't get much value out of the book. But if you're a novice and aspire to understand your camera and the art of photography better, this is a good starting point.