Quick Snap Guide to Digital Photography: An Instant Start-Up Manual for New Digital Camera Owners [Paperback]

David D. Busch (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 31, 2006 | ISBN-10: 159863335X | ISBN-13: 978-1598633351 | Edition: 1

With the increasing availability of affordable digital cameras, serious photographers are literally snapping them up. This non-product-specific book doesn't show exactly how to make settings with a digital camera: it tells readers why they might want to make them. Quick Snap Guide to Digital Photography serves as an ideal introductory guide to get any new digital camera user up and running quickly. Covering just the essentials, it provides easy-to-follow instructions for all of the basics specific to digital photography. New skills are taught on two-page spreads and feature clear and concise directions and many full-color illustrations and images. Appropriate for any brand of digital camera, this book will have news users up and shooting in no time.

Product Details

• Paperback: 215 pages
• Publisher: Course Technology PTR; 1 edition (August 31, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 159863335X
• ISBN-13: 978-1598633351
• Product Dimensions: 7.4 x 9.1 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,158,103 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #11 in Books > Computers & Technology > Digital Photography & Video > Beginning Guides

More About the Author

With nearly 1.5 million books in print, David D. Busch is the world's #1 selling author of camera-specific guidebooks, and the originator of popular series like David Busch's Pro Secrets, David Busch's Compact Field Guides, David Busch's Guides to Digital SLR Photography, and David Busch's Quick Snap Guides.

Most of his hugely successful books for Nikon, Canon, Sony, Pentax, Olympus, and Panasonic digital cameras are the top-selling guidebooks for their respective camera models. His advice has been featured on NPR's "All Tech Considered."

Busch's dozens of other books devoted to digital photography include David Busch's Digital Infrared Pro Secrets and Mastering Digital SLR Photography. As a roving photojournalist for more than 20 years, he has illustrated his books, magazine articles, and newspaper reports with award-winning images. Busch has operated his own commercial studio, suffocated in formal dress while shooting weddings-for-hire, and shot sports for a daily newspaper and upstate New York college. His photographs and articles have been published in magazines as diverse as PhotoGraphic, Popular Photography & Imaging, The Rangefinder, The Professional Photographer, and hundreds of other publications. He's also reviewed digital cameras for CNet Networks and Computer Shopper.

As a writer, photographer, and contributing editor for ten magazines, he has more than 130 books and 2500 articles to his credit. A PR consultant for Eastman Kodak Company's photography divisions for nearly 20 years, Busch has published photography articles under his by-line in Popular Photography & Imaging, PhotoGraphic, The Rangefinder, The Professional Photographer and other photo magazines. His photos have appeared on the covers of magazines, and in both print and television advertising.

The graduate of Kent State University operated his own photo studio and was a principal in CCS/PR, Inc., one of the largest public relations firms based in San Diego, working on press conferences, press kits, media tours, and sponsored photo trade magazine articles. In addition to Kodak, CCS photography clients included Hewlett-Packard. He sold his interest in CCS in 1992 to become a full-time author, photographer, and reporter.

Since then, Busch has become one of the leading photojournalist/authors in the United States. He has had as many as five books appear simultaneously in the Amazon.com Top 25 Digital Photography Books, and when Michael Carr of About.com named the top five digital photography books for beginners, the #1 and #2 choices were his Digital Photography All-in-One Desk Reference for Dummies and Mastering Digital Photography. Several of his digital imaging books have sold in excess of 50,000 copies.

Busch was a featured guest speaking on digital photography on Toronto's Breakfast Television show in 2005, was the keynote speaker at the Dayton Computerfest, and has been a call-in guest for 22 different radio shows nationally and in major markets, including WTOP-AM (Washington), KYW-AM (Philadelphia), USA Network (Daybreak USA), WPHM-AM (Detroit), KMJE-FM (Sacramento), CJAD-AM (Montreal), WBIX-AM (Boston), ABC Radio Network (Jonathan & Mary Show).

His work has been translated into Arabic, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, Portuguese, Bulgarian, German, Italian, French, and other languages. his web site is http://www.dbusch.com.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Prosumer reference new and prospective owners!, September 25, 2007

By 

Cathy (Pennsylvania, USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Quick Snap Guide to Digital Photography: An Instant Start-Up Manual for New Digital Camera Owners (Paperback)

I would describe myself as a committed amature or a prosumer photographer. In the next few months, I will be upgrading to a digital SLR in the 6-10 MP range. But which one? I consider myself knowlegeable about photography, but the array of features of dSLR cameras was overwhelming. Which are going to be important to me, given my typical needs?

This reference was just what I needed! Using a generic composite illustration created (through the magic of Photoshop) from three or four different popular dSLR cameras, this book walked me through common features located on the camera body, as well as typical menu options. It explained what each feature does, in what situations you'd typically use/need that feature, and the advantages and disadvantages of "tweaking" that particular adjustment. Then, it moved on to different popular flash options, including different kinds of flashes, common settings, and how each works with the camera.

Finally, this book discussed various types of lenses, advantages and disadvantages of each, which are typically most (and least) expensive, and situations in which it does and doesn't make sense to purchase that lens. It also discusses ways in which a dSLR can work with lenses and flashes you might already own - even manual ones from film days.

This is not a book on how to compose a photograph, but rather, on the mechanics of actually setting the camera to capture your shot. It doesn't dumb things down, but it doesn't get into anything too mechanically or scientifically technical. (I don't want to BUILD a camera - just USE it!) It explains options in language that should be easily understandable to anyone who is a sophisticated enough photographer to want a dSLR in the first place.

I still don't know what model dSLR I want to buy, but, with this reference, I am now equipped to comparison shop. BUY THIS BOOK!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Very Helpful for a Newbie Like Me, March 18, 2008

By 

Dr Ted Edwards "The Allergy Expert" (Seattle, WA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Quick Snap Guide to Digital Photography: An Instant Start-Up Manual for New Digital Camera Owners (Paperback)

I recently came back for a marvelous trip to Mexico City with lots of wonderful pictures from my simple Kodak point and shoot.

A loooong time ago I kind of understood some of the concepts needed to use manual settings. To be honest I don't remember much of that and every one who has seen the photos I took didn't seem to know that a $135 camera took them.

That said, I found myself bugged by the fact that this camera ate batteries - I was going through a pair everday. I found that if I took the batteries out of the camera when I wasn't shooting they lasted longer. This makes me suspect that the camera itself had a problem So I decided that I wanted to acquire something a little better.

That was the reason I got this book. I wanted something that would tell me what these new fangeled cameras were about as well as teach me some of the basics of using a camera and getting the most out of it.

Now let me be clear - this book is for someone who really isn't familiar with, or doesn't remember much about using a camera. The subtitle says it all: An Instant Start-Up Manual for NEW Digital Camera Owners. It helped me choose a really nice, versatile camera - the Panasonic FX18 and it gave me some ideas on how to use it. I gotta tell you the manual that came with my camera is for Sh--!

That said, this book is an informational guide and potentially a reference book. It's likely that it will end up sitting on your shelf so you might be better off checking it out of the library once or twice.