Guide to Digital Cameras [Paperback]

Michael Murie (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0790611759 | ISBN-13: 978-0790611754 | Publication Date: August 1, 1999 | Edition: 1

The Complete Guide to Digital Cameras will appeal to anyone who has recently purchased or is considering an investment in a digital camera. Sections include: introduction to digital cameras, tips on use, available options, how to transfer images from camera to computer, image manuipulation along with model comparisons and index of currently available cameras. Together the book and CD-ROM will answer questions you have about digital cameras, enable you to make intelligent buying decisions, and help you use your camera to its full potential. No camera purchase is complete without this informative guide.

Product Details

• Paperback: 506 pages
• Publisher: Prompt (DPI - 8/01); 1 edition (August 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0790611759
• ISBN-13: 978-0790611754
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #7,751,357 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

58 of 66 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I'm the author and I'm biased, March 12, 2000

By 

Michael Murie (Boston, MA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Guide to Digital Cameras (Paperback)

I tried posting an author comment months ago, but for some reason it never appeared...then I tried a review, but I included a URL and they say they don't like that, so here's my last attempt at posting this information

The following is from the introduction to the book:

"This book grew out of my personal interest and enthusiasm for digital cameras. For the past ten years I've been a multimedia developer; making interactive projects of all kinds. Most of these have a tremendous appetite for images and other media, and I'm always in a hurry to get the things assembled as quickly as possible. Being able to take photographs of objects, subjects, materials and scenery and get them in to the computer immediately makes the process that much easier, so using a digital camera just makes a whole lot of sense.
Digital cameras have come a long way in the last ten years. Now, for less than $1,000 you can buy a camera that takes photographs good enough to print at 8 x 10 sizes. Resolution and image quality has improved dramatically, and the functionality of the cameras is improving too. If you've been thinking of buying a digital camera, now is as good a time as any.
This book covers the digital camera world, from how cameras work and how to make a buying decision, through using the camera and downloading images to a computer. Since a digital camera really only makes sense if you have a computer a lot of the book is devoted to dealing with images once you get them into your computer. From explaining resolution and color models, through how to edit images and the myriad of software applications available to manage, edit and massage your images. The chapter on printing covers the many issues involved in turning an image into hard copy form.
Since this is the age of the Internet, the book also covers the basics of Internet imaging; how to create a web page, how to upload images to a web server, and working with some of the popular auction web sites. The chapter on webcams covers setting up web cams and digital conferencing."

That's the end of the quote from the introduction, but here's the chapters:

INTRODUCTION
1 Stumbling Through Digital Imaging
2 How To Buy A Digital Camera
3 How A Digital Camera Works
4 Working With A Digital Camera
5 Connecting To A Computer
6 Adjusting Resolution On Your Computer
7 The Digital Darkroom: Image Editing
8 Color
9 Printing
10 Accessories
11 Other Uses
12 Interviews
13 File Formats
14 Saving and Archiving
15 Immersive Imaging and 360-Degree Panoramas
16 Introduction To Web Graphics And HTML
17 Useful Software Applications
18 WEBCAMS
19 Animation
20 DIGITA Operating Environment
21 Copyright
22 High-End Cameras
23 Troubleshooting
24 Camera Specifications
25 Future

Hope this was of use to you.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A very useful resource, May 8, 2002

By 

Random Access "The World's Foremost Authority" (Fairview Park, OH USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Guide to Digital Cameras (Paperback)

Despite the author's posting of three 5-star reviews of his own work, this is the best overall resource volume for beginning digital photographers that I've seen. Unable to find anything particularly useful about scanners at the library I picked up this book because it had a chapter on Adjusting Resolution on Your Computer that answered all my questions about why it's appropriate to print at much higher resolutions than the resolution of your original image.

I've been using a digital camera for several months and have just acquired a scanner that came with a copy of Adobe Photoshop Elements. This is an application with a great deal of depth and I found myself wondering what the documentation was talking about regarding color correction, gamma, resampling, palettes, and many other technical terms. This book, besides giving a great deal of information about cameras, also gave me an understanding of all these things.

I would have given it five stars except for two things.

The illustrations are all black & white, making them meaningless in many cases where the subject was color. Even worse, there would be two B&W photos side-by-side purporting to show differences where the differences were totally invisible. A CD-ROM accompanying the book has color copies of all the illustrations, but this is not a convenient way to read a book.

The book was published in 1999 and the information in it is current only through some time in 1998. As fast as things move in the world of digital cameras this makes most of the specs for cameras way out of date. Today's high-end consumer cameras are far beyond those detailed here. The book could do with an update to the chapters concerned with specific models and their specs as well as features now available that you couldn't get five years ago.

3 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I'm the author, so I'm biased, March 12, 2000

By 

Michael Murie (Boston, MA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Guide to Digital Cameras (Paperback)

I tried posting an author comment months ago, but for some reason it never appeared, so I'm going to try this method of adding an author comment instead... So the following is from the introduction to the book:

"This book grew out of my personal interest and enthusiasm for digital cameras. For the past ten years I've been a multimedia developer; making interactive projects of all kinds. Most of these have a tremendous appetite for images and other media, and I'm always in a hurry to get the things assembled as quickly as possible. Being able to take photographs of objects, subjects, materials and scenery and get them in to the computer immediately makes the process that much easier, so using a digital camera just makes a whole lot of sense.
Digital cameras have come a long way in the last ten years. Now, for less than $1,000 you can buy a camera that takes photographs good enough to print at 8 x 10 sizes. Resolution and image quality has improved dramatically, and the functionality of the cameras is improving too. If you've been thinking of buying a digital camera, now is as good a time as any.
This book covers the digital camera world, from how cameras work and how to make a buying decision, through using the camera and downloading images to a computer. Since a digital camera really only makes sense if you have a computer a lot of the book is devoted to dealing with images once you get them into your computer. From explaining resolution and color models, through how to edit images and the myriad of software applications available to manage, edit and massage your images. The chapter on printing covers the many issues involved in turning an image into hard copy form.
Since this is the age of the Internet, the book also covers the basics of Internet imaging; how to create a web page, how to upload images to a web server, and working with some of the popular auction web sites. The chapter on webcams covers setting up web cams and digital conferencing."

That's the end of the quote from the introduction because I don't want to go over the 1000 word limit for this.