Fundamentals of Photography: The Essential Handbook for Both Digital and Film Cameras

I purchased this book as a gift originally. I was so impressed by it that I purchased one for myself though. It is written in very plain english and the pictures / diagrams make it very easy to understand. A must have for any starting photographer.

Tom Ang is clearly a great photographer. And when writing about the art of photography, this comes through in text that is clear and informative. He knows what he is talking about, and communicates it well. However, when it comes to the science behind the photographs - whether it is the thin-lens theory, the inverse-square law, or any of the other many bits of physics that Ang name-checks in his book, his writing becomes confused. It is obvious that Ang is trying to explain things that he does not himself understand at more than a superficial level. As a PhD physicist, I found myself scratching my head while trying to work out what he thought he was trying to explain - if these sections of the book were an undergraduate essay on optics they would barely scrape a pass mark. The book is also plagued by poor figure editing. Labels on diagrams are incorrect (there are two distances marked s1 on the thin-lens diagram, for instance), captions do not seem to refer to the figures they are attached to, and figures are swapped (particularly in the section on Photoshop where a number of screen shots are incorrectly labelled). If you're after a book on the art of photography, this is a great read. I have really enjoyed it. But it is flawed, and if you want to understand the physics of photography you should really go elsewhere.

Let me start off by saying that though I am very interested, I am not a hugely experienced photographer. This book seems to have everything in it without being too lengthy or bulky. It answers every question I could have about photography in a logical, practical way while nicely explaining digital alongside analog photography(camera with film). The information given ranges from the obvious framing and focussing to which camera is best for what! It is also packed with example photographs which are extremely helpful and it shows both what to do and what not to do! I would extremely recommend this book to anyone mildly interested in photography as well as those more advanced since this book perfectly incorporates both!

Several years ago, I was enamored with black and white photography and, for an amateur, owned a plethora of very good 35mm equipment. Unfortunately, in a series of events with the cyber harlot I was living with at the time that should have aired on some shock value TV talk shows, it was absconded and ended up in the hands of a short-lived lover which ate walrus blubber in the far north. Fortuitously, a wondrous friend of mine rekindled my interest in film photography again. This book is what I deem "The Holy Grail of Photography." It is authored by an award-winning photographer, and it covers the gamut of information, from the fundamentals to the advanced. It is inclusive and pertains to both the film and digital realms, covering the topic of light to the mechanics of cameras and the handling and use of lenses and shooting. This book covers an astounding and varied amount of material and is easily comprehensible and applicable--not to mention fascinating. Each topic is also color-coded at the top of the page, so the separation of subject matter can easily be discerned, and, after time, memorized for easy access and referenced with the color-coding without referring to the index. This is a thoughtful feature. I actually believe Tom Ang utilized some state-of-the-art equipment that was capable of extracting a perfect data dump directly from his brain to the written word. His love for his craft is very evident. If you happen to be neophyte to photography and have caught the fever, or are a grizzled old pro, you will benefit from Tom Ang's incredible amount of photographic knowledge. I believe I will make a trip up north this year and shoot some Canadians--with a camera of course! Reviewed by Lee Crawford