good beginner books?

[tara_savage]

<p>Hey everyone... I just got a Nikon D2X and am anxious to learn everything possible about photography!! I went to Borders today and flipped through at least 15 photography books (after spending HOURS on GOOGLE and other various search engines) and just could not decide which book I thought would be the most beneficial for me. If anyone can recommend a few books that explain photography (from A to Z ) that would be GREATLY appreciated!!! Thank you so much and happy new year!!!</p>

[bob_sunley]

<p>Go to the library and take a few out, costs less than the bookstore. There is the Encyclopedia of Photography, Greystone Press MCMLXIII, it covers a lot in it's twenty volumes. Seems to be missing anything on digital imaging tho. :)</p>

<p> BTW, "good beginners books" and "learn everything about photography" are mutually exclusive terms. :)<br>

Welcome to the hobby, you'll be buying, borrowing and reading books forever now.</p>

 

[jpo3136b]

<p>I think Lex or the staff at photo net is in the process of compiling such a list. Okay, let's narrow the field a little bit. I don't have a camera as advanced as yours, but I looked up your model. This camera that you are using; it is an extremely advanced camera for a beginner. Be sure to hang on to that camera for about ten years. Next, those are a lot of features and ideas for you to tackle as a beginner. </p>

<p>I don't know where you are in your progress. I'm assuming you are "New", fresh out of the box, and have little or no experience with DSLR systems or the more advanced ends of photography. My advice is kind of geared along those lines. I hope that's okay; I don't actually know who you are.</p>

<p>So, to help your study, I'd recommend that you divide up the problem into some reasonable study areas. Spend some weeks on each area, with the goal of getting to know your camera over the next year. Photography can actually be learned in much less time; however, when I was taught as a kid, I was using a largely manual system with some pretty good feedback for a film camera. That was around 1983. Your camera has more advanced functions. Really, this camera is so advanced that you should realize that some of the things that are done inside this camera are editing functions which could be done in a darkroom. Point is, pace yourself. </p>

<p>I'd recommend something like this:</p>

<p>1. Camera Owner's Manual, Phase One: Basic camera operation. The simple stuff and some moderately advanced ideas. How to turn the camera on, how to save and download a file, some of the presets and "Program" style functions. Main goal: be able to take pictures, mechanically, so that you can get some immediate enjoyment and use out of your advanced DSLR. </p>

<p>2. Composition Improvement, Phase Two. I'd recommend a book like (it's outdated, might be in the library) aaron Sussman's "The Amateur Photographer's Handbook." Really, any photography text will do. There are almost always obligatory chapters on the rules of composition and some basic comparison photographs for over/underexposure. Such a book would also go over the ideas of exposure compensation in a basic way. Main goal: go from "snapshots" to photos with a stronger design quality.</p>

<p>3. Basic Postprocess, Phase Three. Pick some kind of post-processing program, and master that thing to the final checkbox buried in the deepest menu. Read the help files. Read them again. Some of these functions and graphs, like histograms, are actually related to more advanced concepts of photography, so this would also cultivate a more advanced approach to the technical aspects. Red eye functions, cropping, and any simple retouch tools could be mastered. Also, develop a file system in your computer that makes sense. Make some pictures like, "All blue", "Sepia", "HDR", "Really saturated nature" and "Really saturated urban photo." Rudimentary conversions to black and white. Get those hackwork tricks that people use out of your system. If it's something that's done to a picture just because there's a function in the computer program, go ahead and make a few pics with that function. I once had a Writing professor that began poetry classes by making students write the sappiest, worst love poem they could think of. That's the kind of idea I'm getting at.</p>

<p>4. Middle Exposure Improvement. Books: The three classics by Ansel Adams. You will be confused as you read them the first time. They require reading and re-reading about six times. After that, you may find, as many do, that they are solid references. As a film photographer, I find myself looking at these books almost daily. The titles are: "The Camera," "The Negative," and "The Print." The second book, "The Negative," has one of the most advanced and effective ideas about photographic exposure built into it. It's called the Zone system; what this is about is choosing an exposure that lets the photographer add light or subtract light from the picture to yield a gray that he chooses, in advance, arbitrarily, in his subject or any spot on the picture. Flip through these on the first pass. "The Camera" will explain easily many of the classic designs in camera structure and how they affect the making of the image. Your DSLR, optically, is very, very close to the SLR film cameras. So, those parts are also applicable to you. </p>

<p>5. Public library. You found 15 books? I am sorry to hear that there are so few references on that nearby shelf! That's okay; it was a bookstore. You need access to a library. Art books and photography books can be expensive publications. While I own a good half dozen or so that I use frequently, when I was learning, it was book by book, pretty much everything on the shelf at the public library, one by one. If I had purchased those, in today's dollars, it probably would have cost me thousands. </p>

<p>I also recommend a book I did not have as I was learning as a youngster. It is called "Light: Science and Magic." It is by a writer named Fuqua and someone else. It is the single best book on lighting I have ever seen. Many of the books you find on photography will be so equipment-specific, they'll read like a sales brochure. This book on lighting is not one of those. This is a book about principles of lighting and how to control them. That concept, managing light and shadow, is exceptionally important in photography.</p>

<p>Also, if you do not have any education in the history of art, there are many catalog or encyclopedia-type books on all kinds of visual arts. Have a look at these. Inside the portraits of Rembrandt, you will see excellent group compositions. Have a look at how women were positioned in paintings and in sculptures. For pushing model positioning to an extreme, look at Rodin. Notice in sculpture, you can walk all the way around the piece, and it should be interesting on all sides. You will not be able to do this with a photograph. But, a view of a sculpture will tell you a lot about model positioning and lighting. </p>

<p>Do the basic drapery studies from Nicolaides' book; drawing folds of fabric with pencil and paper. This will teach you to see triangles in highlights and shadows. Many, many, three dimensional curves can be represented in two dimensions as triangular forms whose sides are bowed in or bowed out (instead of forming a perfect linear triangle). This concept of highlight, shadow, midtone and curvature (ye old rim of a coffeemug is the cliche example) is The example, the driving force, behind showing curves with depth in your work.</p>

<p>Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, by Betty Edwards. This is actually a book about drawing, but of the two books Edwards has written, they always start with two or three easy to read chapters about Left and Right Brain thinking. The Right Brain thinking is important to the concepts behind instrumentation (and, film lovers know, Chemistry). Understanding the difference between The Instrument and The Machine will be important for you in the digital age because someone has welded a computer into this process. Computers are machines. The camera, and it's traditional film parts and related items, is an instrument.</p>

<p>Lastly, "A Giacometti Portrait" by James Lord. This is the only book I've seen, outside of some pop psychology drivel, that really addresses the concept of creative cycles. James Lord, an American Author, sat for a portrait from Alberto Giacometti, a famous French painter. This book is about those sessions. In it, Lord took a photo every so often to record the painting's progress. The text of the book is about the relationship between Lord and his painter, and the painter and people in the painter's life. It shows the ups and downs. If you really do this, you will find, see and feel, those ups and downs in your work.</p>

<p>These steps will get you going, and get you out of the "mechanical", beginner phase. Once you get that stuff down, it's time to get to the meat of the matter. Actually making pictures. Part of this will be covered in "The Camera", in a section called "Visualization." It's about taking an idea and making a picture. Once you start doing that, instead of just reacting to the world and taking snaps (as many of us do) as your only "artistic" option; once you can make a picture, instead of just take one, then, you are on your way. Good luck.</p>

<p>Well, I see again, I have written too much. I'll close. Read a lot, but pace yourself. With the advanced technologies at hand, I imagine every beginner must be incredibly overwhelmed. Proceed with confidence. J.</p>

[chris_werner]

<p>Tara,</p>

<p>I would suggest 2 things - first the 3 book Ansel Adams series (I think it's The Camera, The Negative, and The Print). While it's obviously pre-digital, it's very well written and a great fundamental photography concepts primer.</p>

<p>After that, I would suggest that you think about what interests you most and select some books based on that first, and go from there. As you are finding, there's a plethora of options, to and beyond the point of confusion. While you're reading, you need to be shooting if you're going to maximize the benefit.</p>

<p>If you don't force some focus into the equation, you might get frustrated feeling you're bouncing around, plus you might get the feeling of being overwhelmed by the breadth and depth of what's out there. So at some level, you just need to pick a place to start without worrying about if there is a better place to start. Said another way, pick a topic, go at it hard, and when you feel you've developed some command of it, move to the next one.</p>

<p>Eat the mammoth one bite at a time. :-)</p>

[jpo3136b]

<p>Nicolaides' book, above, is called "The Natural Way to Draw." This was a frequently used textbook for art and illustration classes for many years. The entire book is a full year's study program for drawing from a live model. The chapter I was referring to is a simple exercise near the beginning, I think Lesson Four (?) in which the student merely drapes a white cloth against a white wall and lights it from different angles. Then, the drapery is drawn. That's it. That's the exercise. J.</p>

 

[christianaires]

<p>The great thing about photography... is you dont really have to stay in and read to learn.<br>

Go out and experiment.</p>

<p>But if you really want some books.. Here's two i searched on amazon.<br>

I have read a book of his. Was pretty well explained.<br>

http://www.amazon.com/Digital-Photography-Book-Scott-Kelby/dp/032147404X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1231309961&sr=1-1</p>

<p>http://www.amazon.com/Digital-Photography-Book-2/dp/0321524764/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1231309961&sr=1-3</p>

<p>Once you are passed that.<br>

http://www.strobist.blogspot.com/<br>

For some creative lighting.</p>

<p>Enjoy your new camera and hobby.</p>

[lex_jenkins]

<blockquote>I think Lex or the staff at photo net is in the process of compiling such a list.</blockquote>

<p>Not books, not yet anyway. But we have compiled a bunch of links to websites with illustrated tutorials, accessible via this notice at the top of the home page for the Beginner Forum:</p>

<blockquote>

<p>You can find great links to <strong>illustrated tutorials <a href="00RljT"><em>here</em> </a> </strong></p>

</blockquote>

[vishwanath_chandrahas]

<p>Hi Tara,<br>

you may consider one of the 2 options below.<br>

1. The Manual of photography by Ralph EJacobson, Sidney F Ray and Geoffrey G Attridge, 8th edition. this book deals deeply with all the concepts. Full of mathematics and calculations. If your basic Physics knowledge is good, this book can be excelent for you otherwise this book is definitely not for you.<br>

2.Photography: Art and Technique by Alfred A Baker, 2nd edition. this is good for any one likes to learn photogrpahy.<br>

You may find these in your library<br>

Good luck<br>

vish</p>

[dana_jill]

<p>You have to buy Understanding Exposure. You'll need to read it a few times to fully absorb everything but it's incredibly helpful, and I guarantee you will learn alot from it.</p>

[sionnac]

<p>Henry Horenstein's Black and White Photography, 3rd ed <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Black-White-Photography-Third-Revised/dp/0316373052/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1231341916&sr=8-1">(see here)</a> - I think he also still has Beyond Basic Photography in print as well. Love these.</p>

[suetye_photography]

<p>Hi Tara, i have a book called Photography - 7th Edition by Barbara London, John Upton, Ken Kobre and Betsy Brill and it's an excellent book. It is specifically for digital photography. Not sure if your camera is a digi or not. Anyhow it's easy to learn from and straight forward. It's quiet expensive i believe but i got mine second hand from Amazon. Good Luck.</p>

[gordon_lukesh1]

<p>Add Ansel Adams "Examples" to the list that Chris posted. It has detailed discussions on all that he did to make his photos.</p>

[paddler4]

<p>A nice starting point is Scott Kelby's The Digital Photography Book (the first in the series). Easy going, and lots of useful things to try. It won't give you technical detail, but it will get you trying things with your camera right away, which is really important. You can move on to more technical stuff as you progress.</p>

[geertje]

 

<p>Wow... thanks to all of you!<br>

I have such a big wish list now, that I might decide it's my birthday EVERY day this year!<br>

Now all I have to do is find a way to convince my family and friends ;) Luckily I still have 3 weeks of "all fun and no work" left of my sabbatical to start exploring those links.<br>

Again, thanks..!</p>

 

[cisco_bastias]

<p>I highly recommend Understanding Exposure by Brian F Peterson. Puts everything in a way the average beginer can understand. </p>

[george_shihanian]

<p>You may need to learn about photography, and also specifically about digital photography, and about your particular camera. As mentioned above, study your camera's manual, and books by Brian Peterson are good, as well as the author John Hedgecoe. (<em>Complete Guide to Photograpy</em>, I think). <em>Digital Photography For Dummies</em> is also better than you'd think. Do an Amazon and an eBay search. I found a very very good book on ebay a few years ago after I bought my Olympus E-10 digital that was specific to that model and was a big help to me getting all that i could out of that camera, and it explained things that were merely mentioned in the camera's manual.<br>

Also check out Nikon's website. I signed up for email newsletters from Olympus after I bought the E-410, and while there's always going to be links to the manufacturer's site where they want to sell you stuff, there's quite a few good "How To" articles on one's specific camera model.</p>