I bought a new camera on Sunday and have been obsessing over it ever since. Actually, I was obsessing over it even before Sunday with doing research on what I should buy. I ended up with a Canon Rebel XTi. Unfortunately I was dumb and chose the free super saver (extra super duper slow) shipping. According to UPS.com it’s been in Illinois all day! Get your act together people! I guess the extra $15 would have been worth it.
In the mean time, I’ve been voraciously reading everything I can find on photography.
DPReview.com has some great forums. After going through everything I dove into some books my father-in-law gave me a few years back. They turned out to be really good books.
Complete Digital Photography (Third Edition)
Author: Ben Long
Covers everything from the technical aspects of how a digital camera works (we’re talking down to the specifics of how the sensor reads it’s 0s and 1s) to enhancing your shots with editing software. I found it really approachable. A good book to get started with.
Learning to See Creatively
Author: Bryan Peterson
One thing the Complete Digital Photography book lacked was more information on is using your camera creatively. This book went into more detail on more of the design elements of photography… universal things like color, line, texture, the rule of thirds. It was a good refresher, but not having a camera in-hand while reading it was a bit frustrating. And it didn’t get to what I was really looking for, which was how to manipulate the exposure on a manual camera for creative effect.
The next book I picked up did just that…
Understanding Exposure Author: Bryan Peterson
This book was somewhat of an extension to the Seeing Creatively book. Or at least they go hand-in-hand. If I had to choose one or the other, I’d go with this one though. It goes into many of the same kind of design elements as the first book, but clearly lays out all of the exposure tips and tricks. Again, very approachable. Somewhat frustrating because I didn’t have my camera to practice with, but I see myself going back to this one as soon as the Rebel gets here.
The Photographer’s Eye Author: Michael Freeman
This book goes way more in-depth on composing shots than the Seeing Creatively book. Things like “dynamic tension” and “intent” are covered. I’m just starting it, and have a feeling that it’s just going to be frustrating to read without my camera in hand. I can’t wait to start shooting away!
