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By Derrick Story
First Edition
March 2008
Pages: 230
ISBN 10: 0-596-51766-1 |
ISBN 13: 9780596517663
Press Release
(Average of 3 Customer Reviews)
Ready to take photos that reflect your creative spirit, rather than just another set of snapshots? The Digital Photography Companion gives you creative tips and technical advice for taking top-notch digital photos in a wide range of conditions, and for a variety of occasions. You also get a complete rundown on camera features, tips for sharing and printing, and an overview of photo management applications.
Full Description
Are you ready to take photos that reflect your creative spirit, rather than just another set of snapshots? Then you want this book in your camera bag. Well-organized so you can look up topics quickly, The Digital Photography Companion gives you creative tips and technical advice for taking top-notch digital photos in a wide range of conditions, and for a variety of occasions. In other words, this book will help you make pictures that look better than everyone else's.
Professional photographer and teacher Derrick Story, whose online tips and podcasts at The Digital Story (www.thedigitalstory.com) have made him a popular photography blogger, gives you plenty of examples of how to capture great shots of people, places, landscapes, and more. He also provides a complete summary on camera features, tips for printing, sharing your images, and an overview of photo management applications.
Chapters include:
The Digital Photography Companion offers you friendly advice so you can try techniques that may never have occurred to you -- approaches that will bring you more of what you're looking for when you click the shutter: Great looking pictures!
Browse within this book
Professional photographer and teacher Derrick Story, whose online tips and podcasts at The Digital Story (www.thedigitalstory.com) have made him a popular photography blogger, gives you plenty of examples of how to capture great shots of people, places, landscapes, and more. He also provides a complete summary on camera features, tips for printing, sharing your images, and an overview of photo management applications.
Chapters include:
- What is It? -- Choose the right camera (DSLRs, compact cameras, or hybrids) and get a rundown on all of the typical features they offer, such as face detection, image stabilizers, diopter adjustment, focus assist light, RAM buffer, and more.
- How Does it Work? -- This A-Z guide of digital camera controls explains everything from Aperture Value (Av) Mode and Autoexposure to White Balance, the Zoom/Magnify Control, and everything in between.
- Shoot Like a Pro -- Advice for a variety of photographic adventures, such as capturing existing light portraits, creating powerful landscape images, and shooting fireworks, underwater portraits, infrared photos, and more, along with lighting and filter tricks.
- I've Taken Great Pictures, Now What? -- You get complete advice for sharing your photos, converting from color to balck & white and more, plus an overview of photo management applications, from Adobe Photoshop Lightroom to Apple iPhoto.
- Printing Made Easy -- Printing doesn't have to be a painful experience. Learn various options, including direct printing without a computer, ordering out, and selecting the right inkjet printer for home (and what to do with it once you get it there.).
The Digital Photography Companion offers you friendly advice so you can try techniques that may never have occurred to you -- approaches that will bring you more of what you're looking for when you click the shutter: Great looking pictures!
Cover | Table of Contents | Index | Sample Chapter
Featured customer reviews
Fine primer on digital photography, May 12 2008
Rating:
Submitted by
John Suda
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The “Basic Photography Companion” concept has become nearly its own genre in the photography book business. For the most part, it results in “formula” books covering the same basic ideas – how to buy introductory camera gear, how to use the gear, and how to produce decent- looking photos for oneself, family, and friends.
It is a popular genre and there is nothing wrong with a formula approach, especially if it is made fresh by updated content, quality production values, and capable exposition. Out of all the “companions” I’ve owned or read over the decades the ones written by Derrick Story and published by O’Reilly Media, rank among the best. Mr. Story’s latest is “The Digital Photography Companion” (2008), a slender book of 214 pages. Story is O’Reilly’s digital media expert and has authored a number of basic digital photography guides over the years, as well as other books in his area of expertise. With the rapidly developing technology in the photography world involving digital cameras, lenses, storage media, software editing and management programs, and Internet and wireless distribution methods, there is a niche and a need for a good genre-formula companion manual. A typical companion manual is a book small enough to fit easily into a camera bag and which provides guidance on camera and lens settings, filters, flash, and other technical hardware matters while also providing information and tips on standard photography concepts like depth of field, shutter speeds, exposures, and the like. The better ones also contain the reference material most desired by working photographers, like charts for exposure; color temperatures; flash, metering, and camera modes; and memory card capabilities.
The Digital Photography Companion makes order of the complexities of photography equipment purchasing and use while providing a goodly amount of practical tips for taking photos. Mr. Story has an easy-going casual writing style. He makes learning about digital hardware and software and photography concepts and techniques seem easy. The book is nicely produced and laden with full color illustrative comparison images, useful tables, charts, and color-coded sidebars of Tips, Definitions, Warnings, and Reminders. There are screenshots of software settings for digital editing and management applications like iPhoto, Photoshop Elements, Adobe’s Light Room, and Apple’s high-end program, Aperture, and others. The picture-making material is for beginners; there is discussion of basic photo techniques for a large variety of situations most commonly experienced by beginners--especially persistent learners – landscapes, weddings, kids, action, self-portraits, and astrophotography scenes. The goal is to help new photographers learn to make their pictures unique and interesting for even non-family and friends.
There are five chapters covering computer and photography terms, hands-on techniques and camera use items, picture making tips and ideas, viewing and managing results, and printing methods. Chapters 1 and 2 are organized by basic photography and technical concepts sorted in alphabetical order for quick reference, as necessary. Chapter 3 provides basic picture-taking tips. An appendix contains the Quick Reference Guide mentioned already for camera settings , together with a chart of metadata for all the illustrative photos contained in the book, including for each photo: camera model used, focal length, shutter speed, and location.
The digital revolution in the photography world makes the materials in chapters 4 and 5 especially useful, discussing the new digital distribution and software processing methods – e-mail, conversion to movies, dealing with RAW files, making slide shows, etc. – and the printing options – direct from camera, online printers, and dedicated photo printers.
Digital Photography Companion, May 01 2008
Rating:
Submitted by
Ed Laskowski
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Digital cameras are great, but they won’t do your thinking for you. To get beyond simple point-and-shoot, some knowledge is necessary. This new book by Derrick Story has just the right depth of information for the typical amateur. If you haven’t yet bought a camera, the opening chapter has some good advice on camera selection. Among others features, face detection and image stabilization are mentioned as the hot new features to look for.
The book can be read in two evenings. Mastering the techniques presented will take a good deal longer, as you gain experience with your camera. You get pointers on how to shoot portraits, landscapes, wedding pictures, architecture, panoramas, and even infrared images and video. There is a good overview of photo management software programs, including the widely-used Photoshop elements and Apple iPhoto. There are numerous tables throughout the book, which provide recommendations on camera settings, file formats, memory card capacities, and other useful information.
The last chapter is devoted to printing and distributing your pictures by email or web, with recommendations on choosing a printer. The book contains five chapters in 230 pages, with an appendix and index. It is designed to be a handy reference, and is small enough to fit nicely into a camera bag.
Digital Photography Techniques Made Easy, April 23 2008
Rating:
Submitted by
Dale Farris
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This super book is an excellent introduction to the world of digital photography, and will appeal to readers who have had some experience with their digital camera and are ready to embark on more sophisticated uses of their hardware. The book is succinct in its approach and the author makes sure to not overload the reader with extensive, detailed material. Instead, the focus is on the most common, most likely questions asked by digital photographers, especially amateurs who use their digital camera as a hobby or for fun. This title also nicely serves as an introductory companion to Ken Milburn's Digital Photography: Expert Techniques, also available from O'Reilly.
Media reviews
"Derrick Story has a unique gift for creating order out of chaos. Digital photography turns things upside down and even seasoned shooters need help. Whether you are a complete beginner or a photographer with experience, Derrick is the go-to guy. His new book The Digital Photography Companion fits perfectly into my camera bag and is going with me on all my assignments from now on."
-- Rick Smolan, Photographer, Creator of "Blue Planet Run" and "America at Home"
"By the time you've experimented with the techniques contained in this excellent book, you'll have journeyed well beyond your peers. But, more importantly, the pictures you take now will not only become personal treasures, they will also be admired by others."
-- John R. Vacca, Amazon.com
"Derrick Story has done an outstanding job of beginning at the beginning, taking you to the end without complicating the topic with a lot of jargon and simply presenting what you need to know. Think of it as your cousin Derrick showing you how to use your camera to take pictures."
-- T. Michael Testi, The Enlightened Image
