Shooting Digital: Pro Tips for Taking Great Pictures with Your Digital Camera Book

A digital camera is functionally identical to a traditional film camera in all respects except image storage, right? Not at all, and in Shooting Digital Mikkel Aaland shows exactly why. He shows why digital cameras--the point-and-shoot variety as well as fancier models meant for professional photographers--are overall neither better nor worse than cameras of older design, and goes on to show you how to take advantage of their special traits. He shows how to compensate for their shortcomings, too, notably shutter lag (for which he documents a useful testing procedure) and colour fringing. Though there's some coverage of creating animated GIFs, this book generally sticks to the shooting stage and leaves editing to other volumes.Aaland never forgets that digital cameras should be more cameras than digital, and his book serves as an excellent photography text for hobbyists and aspiring professionals. The author's advice in this area is both technical (how to light a still life and how to best a strobe to eliminate shadows) and artistic (why kids should be encouraged to photograph other kids, and how you can use perspective to create weird effects). He's an accomplished photographer who obviously loves his work, and his enthusiasm for making art with a camera--and, for that matter, just playing with one--comes through brilliantly. --David WallTopics covered: photography--of objects, people, places, action, nature and other subjects--as accomplished with a modern digital camera. Emphasis falls on the relationship between camera and subject, as defined by focus, lighting, composition and motion. Further attention goes to image manipulation accomplished via camera settings (such as white balance, exposure and to post-shoot processing with image software). There's also nice coverage of the differences among various image file formats. --Robert Lawton, Amazon.comRead More