Showing posts with label Photon Links. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Photon Links. Show all posts

Friday, November 7, 2008

Some Books for the Weekend

I thought I would mention a few books that I have read or been reading over the past month or two. These are all books that I would recommend to photography enthusiasts to learn more about photography in general or just certain aspects of it. I will also link to the books on Amazon. However, the link is only for convenience and to show you the book's cover for identification. I am not an Amazon affiliate thus I don't get a portion of the sales of books you follow through the site. Buy them from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, your local bookstore, borrow them from a friend or check them out from a library.

Ok, enough of the disclosures and on with the books after the jump.


Rick Sammon's Exploring the Light: Making the Very Best In-Camera Exposures by Rick Sammon and published by Norton. This book strives to teach you how to see the light on your subject, adjust your camera for the image you imagine, and use Photoshop to boost it "to the next level". It is a very easy book to read with good descriptions and excellent photographs. Mr. Sammon touches on all aspects of exposure in a digital environment including basic introduction to post processing techniques such as levels and curves, hue and saturation adjustments, color adjustments such as black & white, high dynamic range (HDR) images, and panoramic stitching. While he does discuss post processing to "finish" photographs, he doesn't approach it as a tool to "fix" photographs unless the light just wasn't with you when you were out shooting. Most of the book goes into explaining aperture, shutter speed, ISO, and how to use your camera's various modes to get the exposures you need for the very best images to "finish" in Photoshop.

Face to Face: Rick Sammon's Complete Guide to Photographing People by Rick Sammon, published by O'Reilly. Another book by Mr. Sammon written in his conversational style. It delves into how he goes about interacting with strangers on his trips to get them to pose for him, how he poses them, how he finds good backgrounds, what equipment he uses and how best to use said equipment. If you are a people photographer, or want to get better at photographing people, this book is an excellent primer.

The HDRI Handbook: High Dynamic Range Imaging for Photographers and CG Artists by Christian Bloch, published by rockynook. I mentioned this book a few days ago but didn't link to it. It is a very technical book about HDR imaging in everthing from photography to motion film to computer graphics/animation. The book doesn't bog the read down in the technical details so much as it explains those details in an easy to understand way. The book discusses the pros and cons of several HDR applications for photographers and even includes a CD with some open source applications to get you started with HDR photography. There is a companion website over at hdrlabs where you can find discussion groups about the included software as well as HDR in general.

The Photographer's Guide to Landscapes: A Complete Masterclass by John Freeman, published by Collins & Brown. This book is just what it says it is. If you enjoy landscape photography then this is an excellent book to add to your library. Excellent photographs illustrate Mr. Freeman's discussions of landscape photography techniques.

Light - Science and Magic: An Introduction to Photographic Lighting, Third Edition by Fil Hunter, Steven Biver, and Paul Fuqua, published by Focal Press. This is one of those quintessential books that anyone serious about photography should read. It is about nothing other than how light interacts with objects, how to photograph that light, and what sorts of solutions you might need for various lighting situations. While most of the book uses studio photography due to the ability to precisely control light, the concepts are applicable to any style of photography. In the end, photography is about light and this book explains how to capture it.

That's it for now.

Keep shooting.


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Friday, September 5, 2008

Some Links

Here are a few links that I are in my browsing habits. Hope you find them as helpful as I do.

Digital Photography Review is one of the quintessential websites for camera reviews. They have recently started reviewing lens as well. Their forums are very active and a good source of information and at times amusement.

1001 Noisy Cameras is a blog that tracks the happenings among the camera manufacturers on the web. It is an excellent place to go to find the latest rumors as well as links to leaks and compilations of sales statistics.

Rob Galbraith: Digital Photography Insights is a professional's observations on the industry and trends.

Photozone is a one stop place for lens reviews. If you are looking for a new lens, they have probably tested and reviewed it.

bythom is Thom Hogan's blog and website. He is a professional landscape photographer. His site also is packed full of information about Nikon photography products. If you are a Nikon shooter, checkout his site.

That's it for me for the day. Have a good weekend and keep shooting.

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Friday, June 27, 2008

Favorite Links

I realized that I needed a centralized place to list my favorite and recommended links. I didn't want to use a link sidebar as those tend to get really long and distracting. So, here is a running compilation of my favorite photography related links. I will link to in at the top of the sidebar and will be adding to it as I find sites to recommend.


Photon Links

1001 Noisy Cameras is a blog that tracks the happenings among the camera manufacturers on the web. It is an excellent place to go to find the latest rumors as well as links to leaks and compilations of sales statistics.
bythom is Thom Hogan's blog and website. He is a professional landscape photographer. His site also is packed full of information about Nikon photography products. If you are a Nikon shooter, checkout his site.
David Tejada: A commerical photographer's blog with stunning photographs and excellent behind the scenes videos.
digial Photography School blog: A great resource for people learning photography or brushing up on their skills. Check out the forums while you are there.
Digital Photography Review is one of the quintessential websites for camera reviews. They have recently started reviewing lens as well. Their forums are very active and a good source of information and at times amusement.
Digital ProTalk: A reknowned wedding photographer with lots of photography, business and Photoshop tips.
FlashFlavor: Another wedding photographer that uses small flashes extensively in his work. Trash the dress!
Joe McNally: Lighting Guru, National Geographic/Life/Time/Sports Illustrated photographer, writer. One of the good guys.
Lighting Essentials: A lighting resource for both studio and location portraiture. He works mainly with models ... lots of pretty models at that.
Moose Peterson : A wildlife and research photographer. Great landscapes and wildlife shots here.
Pro Photo Life: Jim Talkington's excellent blog that discusses the business of photography as well as the technical side of it.
Photozone is a one stop place for lens reviews. If you are looking for a new lens, they have probably tested and reviewed it.
Rob Galbraith: Digital Photography Insights is a professional's observations on the industry and trends.
The Strobist: The quitessential site for learning how to use small strobes quickly and effectively.

Pixel Links

Dave Cross: One of the Photoshop Guys.
Epic Edits Weblog: Brian Auer's photography and Photoshop blog.
Photoshop User TV: The link to see the Photoshop Guys' shows. Great tips on using Photoshop and some of the other Adobe products.
Scott Kelby's Photoshop Insider: One of the Photoshop guys and author of Photoshop and photography books.

Project Links

DIYPhotography.net: A good resource for do-it-yourself projects to try and save some cash on photographic equipment.
Lighting Mods: Another good place to search for DIY ideas.

Presentation Links

Flickr: The most popular photography sharing and social site.
Mpix.com: An excellent print lab. I love the Kodak metalic paper.
Pbase: A photograph hosting service which is a bit more upscale than Flickr.
SmugMug: A photograph hosting service which is a bit more upscale than Flickr.
Zenfolio: Another upscale photograph hosting service and the one that I use.








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Wednesday, June 25, 2008

AA Battery Test at PopPhoto.com

PopPhoto.com has a good article testing various AA batteries, both rechargable and single use. I have been needing to get some rechargables for around the house and my flash, so I found it to be quite a timely article.



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Monday, June 2, 2008

Some Links

I took a break from photography this past weekend. I guess I was a bit burned out from the Memorial Day weekend. So, today I'll leave you with a few links to other photography sites that I enjoy.



Pro Photo Life, written by Jim Talkington, is a fairly new blog. Jim is a professional commercial photographer in the Cincinatti, Ohio area. He covers a lot of different topics ranging from the business side of photography, equipment, and lighthing. He also has interviews with other professional photograpers as well as other photography releated topics. Every Monday he has a new video. He is currently working on an introduction to studio lighting video series. If you are interested in making photography a business, check out his site, and download his free PDF e-book about starting up a photography business.

Moose Peterson is an accomplished wildlife and nature photographer. Beautiful photographs grace his site. He gives workshops throughout the year and around the country/world.

David Tejada specializes in corporate annual report photography. He is based in Denver, Colorado and travels around the country making the mundane corporate world look interesting a glamorous. Periodically he will post behind the scenes videos of some of his shoots. It gives a good look at how an experienced photographer works on his assignments, plans the photographs, and interacts with ordinary working people to capture beautiful images.

FlashFlavor is the blog of Matt Adcock. Together with his wife, Sol Tamargo, Matt specializes in destination wedding photography. They photograph people getting married in some of the most beautiful locations in the world. The site is called FlashFlavor because they make extensive use of small, external flash units as part of their style. Checkout their "trash the dress" series where the bride "trashes" her wedding dress by frolicking in the Carribean surf or a subterranian bat cave.

Finally, no list of photography links would be complete without mentioning The Strobist blog. David Hobby has created what is possibly the best site dedicated to the use of small, portable flashes on the internet. If you have any desire to make better use of your flash unit, you owe it to yourself to read his site.

That's it for now. Keep shooting

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Friday, May 23, 2008

digital Photography School Blog

One site that I visit a lot is the digial Photography School blog started by Darren Rowse. It has a lot of great information for users of all sorts of digital cameras from compacts to DSLRs.

Also, don't forget to stop by their forums. Plenty of friendly people to answer questions and "meet" to discuss photograph stuff.


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Wednesday, May 21, 2008

David Ziser's Digital ProTalk

One of the many professional photographer's blogs that I read is Cincinnati, OH based David Ziser. He's a renowned wedding photographer and teacher. His blog, Digital ProTalk has a wealth of information about photography and post processing. I highly recommend visiting it if you have an interest in learning more about photography and Photoshop, or if you just enjoy beautiful photographs.

But, wait! There's more!



This past Monday, David made a post about his first foray into shooting with RAW files. He wondered why his two different viewers, Lightroom and IrfanView showed such drastically different versions of the same image. I left a comment explaining that one viewer was showing the embedded JPEG image an the other displaying the actual RAW image.

Well, yesterday David started a new "section" of his blog called The Confusion Solution. This new section is about the stuff that you don't find anywhere in the manuals. The first post was sparked by the comments he got about his RAW image display issue on Monday. Here is the neat part. In his post he quoted my comment from Monday! See it here! I was thrilled when I saw it. Thanks, Mr. Ziser! You made my day.

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