Recommended Reading

[Canon-Fodder!]

Thought it might be a good idea to keep a "library" of recommended reading in a single thread...

Here's a couple that I refer to regularly to get things going;

Understanding Exposure : Bryan Peterson
- The "exposure" bible

Learning to See Creatively : Bryan Peterson
- Tips & Tricks

100 Ways to take better Landscape Photographs : Guy Edwardes
- Different ideas to think about!

Amazon links provided...

[FeimouP]

Re: Recommended Reading

I too have Understanding Exposure as well - excellent book. I also have the following which I often look at:

How to Photograph Absolutely Everything: Tom Ang
Digital Photography Masterclass: Tom Ang

[Ozzie]

Re: Recommended Reading

I'll second Digital Photography Masterclass: Tom Ang

The Book People are selling it for £6.99 at the moment , a bargain.

[MartinR]

Re: Recommended Reading

Another two:
The Photographer's Eye by Michael Freeman
and
Martin Evenings's book on Lightroom 2

Martin

[Canon-Fodder!]

Re: Recommended Reading

Thought it might be a good idea to keep a "library" of recommended reading in a single thread...

Here's a couple that I refer to regularly to get things going;

Understanding Exposure : Bryan Peterson
- The "exposure" bible

Learning to See Creatively : Bryan Peterson
- Tips & Tricks

100 Ways to take better Landscape Photographs : Guy Edwardes
- Different ideas to think about!

Amazon links provided...

On the strength of his Landscape book, I also bought Guy Edwards latest;

100 Ways to take better Nature & Wildlife Photographs
- Highly recommended for both tips & tricks and ideas for creativity...

[Millie]

Re: Recommended Reading

Bryan Peterson seems like a lively, enthusiastic sort of a guy, with a good head of hair.

He has many tutorial videos on U tube, search "Bryan Peterson photography" on U tube to see what I mean.

You can admire the hair while you learn

Millie

[briansquibb]

Re: Recommended Reading

Many thanks for posting these links.

It is a long time since I did any formal research into photography - I still have my original book on shooting in monochrome

So I have ordered the first three books

Brian

Founder member of bookaholics anonymous


PS Millie - I was not swayed by his hair ....

[Millie]

Re: Recommended Reading

Understanding exposure covers the basics Basic Brian - you could be wasting your money if you already know the basics after all your years of experience.
Is it too late to cancel ?

Millie

[briansquibb]

Re: Recommended Reading

Thanks for you concern - I would like to go re-read it all - I expect to have picked up some bad habits and short cuts over the years.

Yesterday I was playing with flash compensation, dark objects against a white background, white objects against a dark background, red object against a blue background etc all for the sake of being able to improve. If I just get one scrap of worthwhile imformation from the book then it is worth having.

I took a dark brown china horse against a white background with a +1-2/3 compensation in order to get the correct colours - and excellent hour's training

I am currently watching the series 'War' on Yesterday as it has some fantastic war photos. - very interesting to see action photos with such good composition.

[Millie]

Re: Recommended Reading

I took a dark brown china horse against a white background with a +1-2/3 compensation in order to get the correct colours - and excellent hour's training

Flash exposure comp or exposure comp ?
For colour acuracy with, still life on white BG, I like to set a custom WB, although you can do it retrospectively.

Millie

[briansquibb]

Re: Recommended Reading

Flash exposure comp or exposure comp ?
For colour acuracy with, still life on white BG, I like to set a custom WB, although you can do it retrospectively.

Millie

Flash comp - 0 flash comp gave a black horse

WB not too good with a brown object flash comp is the correct way as it gets the best picture from the camera. I think this will work well when taking flash with faces in the picture (as I am going to do next week for a school play) - will probably start with a -1 flash comp

Books have arrived - fabulously produced with really good pictures that illustrates his points.

Thanks for the heads up.

[Millie]

Re: Recommended Reading

WB not too good with a brown object .

Oh dear !

Do some googling on WB Brian.

Millie

[Archivist]

Re: Recommended Reading

I received a Joe Cornish book for Christmas the landscapes are stunning and the background story to them is interesting.

Reading(if thats the correct term for a photography book) at the moment Photobox its a collection of photograph's taken by some of the icons in photography.. Bresson, Adams to name drop two. Cover all types of photography from nudes to architecture.........very inspiring.

[briansquibb]

Re: Recommended Reading

Oh dear !

Do some googling on WB Brian.

Millie

Trust me - doing it with flash comp is the best way and the most accurate for colours. Apart from which you dont have to mess with post processing - which is difficult without a reference white

Firstly the colour balance may not be wrong - it is the amount of light getting to the dark object which is the issue.The camera and flash takes into account the available light and will reduce the flash output accordingly when there is a predominately white backgound. So to get the right light on a dark object it is necessary to increase the flash strength.

To lighten up the dark object after the event will increase the noise of that dark object, doing it by flash compensation avoids that issue, but introduces a possible burning out of the background which can be avoided by reducing normal exposure compensation - however if the dark object is the focus I feel that it is most important to get that correct in the camera.

This also applies to fill in flash with the sun/light behind people

[Millie]

Re: Recommended Reading

Trust me - doing it with flash comp is the best way and the most accurate for colours. Apart from which you dont have to mess

with post processing - which is difficult without a reference white

Firstly the colour balance may not be wrong - it is the amount of light getting to the dark object which is the issue.The camera and flash takes into account the available light and will reduce the flash output accordingly when there is a predominately white backgound. So to get the right light on a dark object it is necessary to increase the flash strength.

To lighten up the dark object after the event will increase the noise of that dark object, doing it by flash compensation avoids that issue, but introduces a possible burning out of the background which can be avoided by reducing normal exposure compensation - however if the dark object is the focus I feel that it is most important to get that correct in the camera.

This also applies to fill in flash with the sun/light behind people

I don’t want to get into a long drawn out debate in the book section Brian. Maybe you could start another topic if you’re interested.
Based on what you’ve written, imho there are two issues here basic exposure and colour temperature.

Or the basic exposure side of things, you could do a lot worse than refer to your new book “understanding exposure “.
The link below is a good article on colour temp / wb

http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/white-balance.htm

Hope this helps,
Millie