Thanks to those of you who recommended Bryan Peterson’s books here. I have found both Understanding Exposure and Learning to see Creatively quite interesting and extremely helpful.
I am particularly interested in learning to photograph people in candid situations. I’d like to learn how to set up the shot so that the background properly directs the eye around the photo.
It seems there are many situations in which either one cannot attain enough out of focus blur to make the background less of an “issue,” or one does not want to substantially blur the background because it is actually an essential part of the photo.
Secondly, I’m interested in a book on color balancing, color enhancement, attaining proper exposure etc. in post production processing. I would like to learn basic theory and other information that applies to digital processing and printing of photographs in general.
(I have PS CS4 with Camera Raw, Spyder 3, and may buy Lightroom 3 when the full version comes out. I’ve found lynda.com to be pretty helpful so far, so learning any particular software is not what I would want a book for.)
Lastly, a book on optics as it applies to photography. I find myself easily lost in the “why” of optical principles. For example, “why exactly is the out of focus blur equivalent to opening up by two stops every time the focal length of the lens is doubled and thus the aperture is doubled?” Or “why is it said that there is about a 1 1/3 stop difference in out of focus blur at image level between 36mm and 22.3 mm crop sensor bodies, when it appears to take only a 1 1/3 stop difference to attain the same absolute aperture to compensate for the longer focal length needed to attain the same FoV on a full sensor body, but then the magnification factor is still greater on the crop?” (Again, I’m not asking for answers here, just a recommendation for a book).
Thanks for your time,
Chris
I am particularly interested in learning to photograph people in candid situations. I’d like to learn how to set up the shot so that the background properly directs the eye around the photo.
It seems there are many situations in which either one cannot attain enough out of focus blur to make the background less of an “issue,” or one does not want to substantially blur the background because it is actually an essential part of the photo.
Secondly, I’m interested in a book on color balancing, color enhancement, attaining proper exposure etc. in post production processing. I would like to learn basic theory and other information that applies to digital processing and printing of photographs in general.
(I have PS CS4 with Camera Raw, Spyder 3, and may buy Lightroom 3 when the full version comes out. I’ve found lynda.com to be pretty helpful so far, so learning any particular software is not what I would want a book for.)
Lastly, a book on optics as it applies to photography. I find myself easily lost in the “why” of optical principles. For example, “why exactly is the out of focus blur equivalent to opening up by two stops every time the focal length of the lens is doubled and thus the aperture is doubled?” Or “why is it said that there is about a 1 1/3 stop difference in out of focus blur at image level between 36mm and 22.3 mm crop sensor bodies, when it appears to take only a 1 1/3 stop difference to attain the same absolute aperture to compensate for the longer focal length needed to attain the same FoV on a full sensor body, but then the magnification factor is still greater on the crop?” (Again, I’m not asking for answers here, just a recommendation for a book).
Thanks for your time,
Chris
