Books for Beginners - what would you recommend?
 

As some of you know. I'm quite active in my local camera club, and I'm often asked for recommendations for beginners to improve both thier photographic skills as well as their post processing skills.

As far as improving photographic skills, I think we are talking about: -

• technical stuff like
  • relationships between shutter speed & aperture
  • depth of field
  • shutter speed & moverment
  • shutter speed & camera shake etc
• perspective and choice of lens
• composition
• use of colour
• how to photography different types of event
  • action shots
  • family
  • sporting events
  • landscapes
  • portraits
  • abstract
  • travel
  • still life etc

So what books would you recommend to a beginner who wants to take better pictures?

There are already a number of forum recommendations for Photoshop Books (for Photoshop read PS7, CS, CS2, Elements as appropriate as there are vesions of most of them) which I'll list below (with prices from www.amazon.co.uk) and add some of my own: -

• Photoshop for Dummies by Peter Bauer ~£11
• Adobe Photoshop for Photographers: A Professional Image Editor's Guide by Martin Evening ~£20
• The Photoshop Book for Digital Photographers by Scott Kelby ~£19
• Real World Camera Raw with Adobe Photoshop by Bruce Fraser ~19
• PhotoShop in Easy Steps by Robert Shufflebotham ~7

Any other Photoshop recommendations or recommendation for books dealing with other image editing programmes?

I have found 2 books realy usefull myself:
Complete photography manual - Ailsa Mcwhinnie
The new encyclopedia of photography - Edwards.

the first half of Clives post is ,I think the most relevant.The books I have purchased seem to be more intent on giving editing info etc ,whereas,if one takes an image using the correct shutter speeds and apertures etc for the subject in hand,then very little editing should be needed.
I would love to find a book which really would explain the basic techniques and settings.

I would recommend books by John Shaw. They are getting a bit outdated as far as the equipment is concerned, given that they were written in the pre-digital age, but the basics of exposure, aperture, composition, and so on are as well described as anywhere. Leif

As a begginer myself I can highly reccommend 'The Art Of Photographing Nature' by Martha Hill and Art Wolfe. As the title suggests, this non-technical book deals with the art of producing great wildlife photos and discusses such things as isolating the subject, composition, colour, dof, reading the light.... The book uses side by side comparison of similar photographs to discuss why one photo is superior to the other. This book is a pleasure to read and is packed full of Art Wolfes' beautiful photographs.

Two books, both by Bryan Peterson -

Understanding Exposure

Learning to See Creatively

Thanks all for the recommendions :D - please keep them comming as I'm sure that they will be of value to Forum members as well as our club members.

Apart form those listed any other Photoshop/Elements recommends, or for other image editing programmes?

not a book, but (a) free ;) (b) pitched right for anyone who knows a bit about both photgraphy and post-processing but wants to go next stage deeper
http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials.htm
by an obviously switched on photographer and also including difference in light perception by camera and human and, although assuming photoshop, I still find easy to follow for other progs or Elements 4 + plug-in; nice use of befores/afters using mouse positionioning. Have saved some of the key pages for when away from connection.:)

Can't argue with the price.:)
Also remember the search engines of Google or Yahoo are the first stop for any specific problem or question. Looking at bankrupting book stores and the way our local library disposes off very nice books and magazines s.a. entire National Geography series due to digital availability, makes my nightmare more valid that one of these days, books will all be an antique pieces in hands of collectors only...

I did think before putting a specific URL. My experience is that you can thrash about between total geekery and what one already knows (among other things Duncan's very good start-up primers on this forum).

These tutorials are well structured and, as I said deal with light perception, camera optics and digital matters in an integrated manner.

The compensation is that one is now able to assemble one's own specialist library quite economically for a particular piece of research using ABE and also dispose of the bookcase overflows - in UK to nearest Amnesty collection point. Farenheit 451 not imminent yet.

For those who may be interested - when I have been overseas, I always visit the major art galleries for my books (gallery catalogues of hanging imagesamong others) and/or other sources of help.

Old Masters - among others - have been around for hundreds of years and their principles that apply to painting - re compositions - apply to a cam compposition as well.

You are so fortunate to have those sources available on how to do a composition. I just bought a catalogue of the haning images and sculpture in the Gallery in Dublin this past June and have found it a very useful addition.

Also, for those interested, a site that I use for study purposes is
www.abcgallery.com
By clicking on the letter at the top of the page, (the first letter of the artist's last name) I can then open any thumbnail of any image and study any part I want to learn how to put an image together with the cam.

Another link I found useful on art composition is
http://www.essentialvermeer.com/catalogue/milkmaid.htm
By moving the mouse over the image that is open, it gives an idea what the artist did to put his composition together and why he did it. By going to the previous or next image link in the box on the left, you can do any image in his collection this way.

These are just suggestions only.

For Elements I like Scott Kelby ''the photoshop elements 5 book for digital photographers.'' The book for 5 is not out yet but is on its way.

I find Photoshop Elements 3 The Missing Manual" by Barbara Brundage to be very useful, even thouh I stopped using Elements 3 a long while ago. The basic information is equally applicable to most versions of Photoshop.

Duncan

I have two that I find full of excellent info.... The First is John Shaw's Closeups In Nature. It is for Macro and Closeup photograpphy primarily, but covers very important general technique, and camera settings for DOF, Exposure, Shutter Speed and the relationship they all have with one another in determining, how, when, and why......
The other is Mikkel Aaland's book for Post Processing Titled: Photoshop CS2 RAW. It covers everything (or most of it) in a very logical and reasonably easy way to understand the basics and how to use the bells and whistles which are usually needed to take a good photo and make it phenominal.... I am still studying ;) ;).....Alex

Two mags that I wouldnt be without are, practical photography and digital photo. They are sister mags (whatever that means) and are out monthly. The advice both for digital and film is second to none. Another boon is that on some markets you can pick up last months mag for a quid. Bargain.
Dean.

A book that is for painters - but has a large amount of things to look for when using a cam - is
AN INTRODUCTION TO ART TECHNIQUES

Authors - RAY SMITH, MICHAEL WRIGHT, JAMES HORTON
It is put out by - DK ART SCHOOL IN ASSOCIATION WITH THE ROYAL ACCADEMYOF ARTS
ISBN 0-7894-5151-4

This book covers everything, teexture, tone, colour matching, besides equipment. I especially like the areas on texture, tone, perspective composition as they are the same for cam use as for paintig.

Norm D

For portrature I can Highly recommend Digital Portrait Photography and Lighting by Catherine Jamieson & Sean McCormick. It is mainly all about technique & Lighting and is easy to follow. It also has some basic editing tips.

Fiona

I've found that for general photography 'tips' books and technique, Michael Freeman is a very good author.....
as for photoshop...I rely from tips off the mother-in-law! (believe it or not)

I received a copy of "The Art of Photographing Nature" By Hill and Wolfe. Wonderful book. Thanks for the recommendation.

Understanding Exposure by Bryan Peterson. The only book I own on Photography. Everything explained clearly and concisely, no need for any other books.

This link is not a book but a tutorial about light and I found it very illuminating and helpful as far as my photography went.

http://www.itchy-animation.co.uk/tutorials/light01.htm

That link, Andy, has many of the points brought out in the art book I mentioned earlier - JOY OF PAINTING. It looks very helpful for those who do not have good art books available to them.

The book that 1st got me into wildlife photography is called,
" The Complete Manual Of Nature Photography by Guglielmo Izzi and Francesco Mezzatesta" 1981 not a digital camera in sight but packed with great info/techniques that are still valuable today! but nowadays people can afford to experiment thanks to the digital age? do yourself a favour and pick up a copy off Ebay/Amazon etc 250 pages of magic
Cheers
Brian

For broad Nature photography, any book by Heather Angel is well worth a look at. If you want advice about Photoshop, then look at the books by Scott Kelby.

To date my favorite book is Ross Hoddinott's 'Digital Exposure Handbook' which covers:
1 The basics of exposure.
2 Exposure in practice.
3 Ambient light.
4 Flash light.
5. Filters.
6 Exposure in the digital darkroom.
Also his books on Filters & Macro Photography are good.
http://www.rosshoddinott.co.uk
http://www.pipress.com

For those who like websites with good information, her is one that I think is very good
http://www.crhfoto.co.uk/index.htm

Great link Andy. There is a lot of information on here. Looks like I've got some reading to do.

I have always found 'The Photographer's Eye - Composition and Design for Better Digital Photos' by Michael Freeman a real help. It's great on the things that make a strong photo but can't normally be summed up in a quick lesson. It got me thinking about the principles of effective photos and helped me to take less 'almost' shots! I definitely recommend it!

As well as several of the internet sources metioned above I've always thought browsing the local library to be an excellent start.
Many beginers books are very basic, and once you've read/understood them (which can be as little as a few hours or even minutes if you exclude studying the copious pictures) they have nothing much to come back to.
More specialist/advanced books, have information that you'll still want to refer to years later so are worth buying for yourself.

Looking towards suggesting ideas for this christmas, is there anything that has come up recently that adds to the info already in this thread?

Thanks
Archie

I agree; he is one of the best writers on landscape and natural history that we have seen in many years.
GHK

I would +1 with a !! this one. There are two versions, this one and the Graphical Guide. They approach the same compositional material from different perspectives, I have and recommend both.

Couldn't agree more :) Amazing book!