The Camera Phone Book: How to Shoot Like a Pro, Print, Store, Display, Send Images, Make a Short Film

I believe this book is perfect for anyone exploring the emerging trend of cameraphone photography. If you are skeptical of this trend, I believe this book will be even more relevant for you. Imagine any photography 101 book you've purchased in the past and now imagine it was written for users of camera phones. The authors do a great job of covering many aspects of the topic from "equipment" specs to shooting tips, and provide online references that will further validate that "mobile photography / cameraphone photography" is emerging and hear to stay.

I would imagine that there are more camera phones than any other. Based on the photos posted on Flickr (and other photo sharing sites), there are a few of us that could use some advice on how to take better pictures using our camera phones, especially me. The Camera Phone Book: How to Shoot Like a Pro, Print, Store, Display, Send Images, Make a Short Film by Aimee Baldridge, with photographs by Robert Clark, is a small book loaded with information on nearly every aspect of your camera phone. All of the photos in the book were taken by Robert Clark, using his camera phone, which helps to show you that you can take good pictures. Maybe not of the caliber of Clark's, but you will have the tools. Contents: Chapter 1: Choosing a Camera Phone Chapter 2: Taking Pictures Chapter 3: After the Snap Chapter 4: The Camera Phone Community Chapter 5: Troubleshooting Baldridge packs a lot of information in 158 pages. As this is thin book, it is a perfect addition to your computer bag as a reference. I never thought about my camera phone, but Chapter 1 will show you that it is not a minor feature, especially if you are going to use it as your primary camera. How to frame and think about your photos is a major part of Chapter 2. Don't just point and shoot; lighting, background, and framing play a large role in a good picture. Chapter 3 will provide you with the tools for printing and storing your photos as well as improving them. Online communities, blogs, and mobile photo sites are the leading topics of Chapter 4. Some of the sites are well known, but others are specifically geared to users of camera phones. Finally, if you have issues with your camera phone, Baldridge provides plenty of tips and hints to resolving your issues in Chapter 5. Each chapter is loaded with web links; you will probably spend a lot of time surfing the listed sites. Including the photos of Robert Clark, all taken with a camera phone, shows the reader the possibilities and reinforces the text. I get lucky with my camera phone (and my digital camera). Using this book, I should take away some of the luck and replace it with a little skill. At least I will have a better understanding of how to take a good picture. That, for me, makes this a worthwhile book. But it also opens the door to photo editing tools and online sources for additional information as well as sites dedicated to camera phone art. Small as it is, this book covers a lot of ground and does so quite well; from choosing your camera phone to participating in online communities, this book has nearly all aspects of your camera phone covered. But if you want to take away one thing away from this book, Baldridge's "Ten Rules of Thumb" for taking better pictures is worth the price. This is an excellent guide to your camera phone and one that will help you get more out of it.

Dont be deceived by the size of this book. It is information packed and written in a concise brief manner that makes it an easy afternoon read. Almost everything you ever need to know about how to fully exploit your camera phone is in this book. It contains lots of URLs to websites that will enhance your photo taking. This is by far the best book I have read. Reading the book is fast. But researching the websites and trying out the new things will take a life time.

Originally saw this book in Wired . It showed me how to get the most out of my camera phone, and got me to look into a higher res camera phone. If I could, I'd give it 4.5 stars, It fails to get 5 stars because it's a bit on the short side.