Start with a Digital Camera Book

A lavishly illustrated demonstration of what you can do with a digital camera, Start with a Digital Camera mimics a traditional photography text. It teaches how to choose a subject, arrange lighting, compose frames, work with models and capture fast action. The author, a graphic designer, also discusses various styles of photography (landscapes, still lifes, portraits and so on) available for exploration. But rather than discuss film, chemical development and darkroom techniques, Odam digs into the special quirks and capabilities of digital photography. He explains--with the help of many beautiful colour illustrations--how to manipulate electronic photographs on a personal computer. Rather than focus on the mechanics of image editing, the book explains digital manipulation terms and techniques in a mostly generic way. For example, he provides a page full of variants of the same image, each under- or overexposed to a different degree. He treats colour correction and other techniques similarly. However, he acknowledges the power and popularity of Adobe PhotoShop by explaining specifically how to achieve certain effects--such as those brought about with filters--in that program. The examples of clipping and combining photographs involve PhotoShop, too. The result of his work: A superior guide for anyone wishing to get into photography by the digital route. --David Wall, Amazon.comRead More