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15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
This was my orange sherbet., April 29, 2004
By A Customer
This review is from: Digital Photography: An Introduction (Paperback)
Choosing an introductory level technical guide is something like ordering ice cream in a foreign language: all the flavors might be good, but you probably won't feel satisfied if you wanted orange sherbet and wind up with rocky road. I bought this volume in spite of two negative Amazon.com reviews. Fortunately I brought a wireless Internet connection to my neighborhood bookstore so I was able to do some real browsing. The layout and printing are first rate. I like heavy paper, full color on every page, and a design that serves the content. This was the best by far in those areas among the smaller digital photography volumes I saw. Tom Ang has a wonderful photographer's eye. This is a guide for people who used to burn through 35mm film as a hobby. It won't teach you how to shoot your niece's birthday party or explain every optimization trick in Photoshop. You already know the basics - if this is your book - and you'd rather leave the imaging software tome back at home on the desk. What you really want is enough information to adjust some settings and composition, glance at the preview screen, and get a sense for what you'll do afterward. I may not be the typical reader. Although I've never taken a photography course in my life and couldn't feel my way out of a darkroom, I've also been published in about half a dozen magazines. This volume is beautiful enough to make me want to run for my camera and sturdy enough to carry along for some thumbing. What attracted me most is tricky to pinpoint. Tom Ang understands how digital cameras "see" and how imaging programs "think," yet those technologies never overwhelm his priorities. It's all about getting the shot.
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11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Waste of Money..... I want my wasted time back., June 13, 2004
By A Customer
This review is from: Digital Photography: An Introduction (Paperback)
This books drags on, explains little and for someone like myself that is just starting in Photography and wants an understanding in common Photographic terms is useless. The following terms are not explained in Mr. Ang's Glossary at all, and too much space is given to Computer for Dummies dialog. Following terms are not at least touched upon or even explained:
Effective Resolution
Aperture
F Stop
Metering
Depth of field
Digital Optics
Exposure Control What Mr. Ang Spends most of his time doing is reprinting what has been written a thousand times over in Photoshop Books and Computer for Dummies circa 1987.
The Cameras that he compares, six models, three of the best and three of the absolute worst, are in so horrible detail, three paragraphs, that I would expect this kind of effort from a Junior High Student. Of course one will get great looking photos operating a Nikon D100 but the why is not even explained in detail, what we get instead is: How to have your eyes set from optimal monitor viewing!
I would swear that most of this material was Plagiarized for "how to set up your Computer manual" and "Photoshop for Dummies". The only saving grace to the whole book is the "Quick Fix" sections but this material I have also seen many times over in PC Week and MacWorld. If you know nothing about computers and Don't need certain Photographic terms explained and studied, and would also like to just get another tip book get the Photoshop Bible, that would be better than this outdated, ill informed over bloated drivel.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Exactly What I Needed to Decide to Go Digital, February 17, 2007
I've never really liked taking pictures. I like looking at them, but not taking them. A whole bunch of people told me that by going digital I wouldn't dislike taking pictures so much. He then handed me this book, along with the admonishment that a lot of things like the number of megapixels change before the ink has time to dry on any book. ==I read the book and became convinced that the problems I had had before of not knowing if I had the picture, the endless changing of lenses, all the junk you had to carry with you has been replaced by a camera with a big memory card, and a 10X optical zoom that will also take movies.
I see some comments about this book that it is too simple, not enough material, not enough detail, etc. Could be. But it was exactly what I needed to tell me what I was getting into by going digital.
Most of my pictures are being taken to put on the web. Just the few pages he has on JPEG, GIF, etc. are again exactly what I needed. It told me what I needed to know without going into a bunch of extra detail.
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