Rating:
(40 reviews)
Author: Visit Amazon's Bryan Peterson Page
ISBN : 0817437967
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Format: PDF, EPUB
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About the Author
Bryan Peterson is a well-known
photographer, writer, and teacher.
In addition to his many books for Amphoto, he writes a column that appears in
Popular Photography and contributes to prominent magazines.
His workshops and online photo
course at BetterPhoto.com are invariably sold out. He divides his time between Seattle, WA, and Lyon, France.
Books with free ebook downloads available Free Download Understanding Digital Photography: Techniques for Getting Great Pictures
- Paperback: 160 pages
- Publisher: Amphoto Books (October 1, 2005)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0817437967
- ISBN-13: 978-0817437961
- Product Dimensions: 9 x 3 x 8 inches
- Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Free Download Understanding Digital Photography: Techniques for Getting Great Pictures
Reading "Understanding Digital Photography" by Bryon Peterson is a bit like being at a family get-together, and being given a lot of good advice by friendly Uncle Phil over a couple of beers. Then you later discover that friendly Uncle Phil didn't know what he was talking about! It does mar what was otherwise a good experience.
What makes me think of a family get-together is the folksy, jocular tone and the amusing comparisons between technical subjects and familiar things. Here are a few of Bryan Peterson's more colorful attempts at making digital photography understandable:
- The pixels on the sensor work together like a family, like socialism, and it's too bad Stalin and Mao Tse-tung couldn't see this (pg 16).
- JPEGs are like amnesia or like AM radio or like prepared meat loaf (pg 18, 20).
- TIFFs are like elephants (pg 19).
- ISO is like caffeine, and high ISO is like bloodshot eyes (pg 22).
- Long exposure times cause the pixel family to fall apart and have a nervous breakdown (pg 78).
- Checking the background is important, although typically not done regarding the person you're going to marry (pg 96).
- Over-sharpening a picture makes it glow, which could be used to guide Santa Claus and Rudolph (pg 129).
This style of writing may appeal to some people, but it's definitely not my cup of tea.
The book is richly illustrated with a lot of photographs taken by Bryan Peterson. These pictures do a good job of presenting the various techniques being discussed, and they are all good pictures from a purely technical point of view.
However, my aesthetic opinion of most of the pictures is fairly low, i.e.
I used to have some faith in Bryan Peterson's work when I first started learning photography in earnest, but this book is full of errors...Either he has failed to take the time to fully understand digital cameras and their sensors or he never knew in the first place and/or was given bad information...
A few of the errors as I see them...
1...He is using a Nikon with a 1.5x sensor...This sensor is diffraction limited at f/14 and above...Which means the detail and resolution suffer greatly above those apertures...Bryan continues to take these landscape shots at f/22 and up just like he did with film, not realizing he is losing detail and resolution...At least he could mention diffraction differences bewteen full frame 35mm and a 1.5x sensor, but he doesn't as I can only guess he is unaware...No other supposed professional I have ever seen takes a 1.5x-1.6x sensor above f/14-16...Let alone f/22 as he does on at least 15 shots in this book...
2...He also fails to realize that a 1.5x sensor exhibits a different depth of field than a film or full frame DSLR at the same aperture...(IE)A 1.5x sensor with a f/2.8 aperture has the depth of field of a f/4 aperture on a film or full frame DSLR...The focal length multiplicaton factor applies to the focal length as well as the depth of field...He flatly states this not to be true...
3...He highly recommends not using the histogram as a digital camera cannot expose enough stops anyway...Any true professional realizes the histogram is one of the primary advantages of instant digital feedback...Again, he is stuck in the film rut without much of a clue about true digtal photography and it's advantages...
4...He recommends using compressed air to blow off the sensor for cleaning...