BetterPhoto Basics: The Absolute Beginner's Guide to Taking Photos Like a Pro

Summary You will most likely find this book useful if: - You are 100% beginner - You want to learn how to improve your photos, regardless of the camera type or manufacturer (including P&S, DSLR, and even mobile-phone camera) - You need well written and easy to follow reference - you need some ideas and photography assignment that you can do for self-training You will most likely find this book less interesting if: - you are anything above beginner photographer - you want to learn in-depth about light and exposure - you are willing to spend time and effort to collect this information from online resources, provided that you know what (and where) to look. I received this book from Amazon couple of months back. It was, along with two other books, my first readings material in photography. I found this one much more useful than the other two titles. First, This book is for total beginners just like myself, and it assumes no prior knowledge or experience in photography. So if you know something about how to take photos, you probably won't like this one. The main focus of this book is to teach you the basic guidelines about photo composition. It provides more than 40 tips on how to make your photos look better (e.g. rule of thirds, lead space, simple backgrounds, focusing on one subject at a time...etc). Following those tips, you, and your audience if have any, will immediately notice improvement on your photos. The way those tips are presented is very logical and easy to follow. Although the writer doesn't mention this explicitly, you will notice at some point that the you can't follow all those rules at the same time and you have to select the ones that fit the situation. The book also introduces the reader to different types of photography and what they exactly refer to. Another good thing is that, unlike other books, it gives you two version of each example, the one that follows the guidelines, and the other one that doesn't so that you can compare and understand the impact you are making. Almost all examples in the book are for simple stuff that you can do your self (e.g. your kids by the pool, a nice building on your way home, a field trip in vacation...etc). You can clearly tell that the focus of the book is to teach you photography, rather than showing authors work. This is backed up by the author style in writing. He'll start by telling what he did at the beginning, just as if he is a beginner himself, but when he followed a certain guideline, he achieved better result. The only downside I found, is that you will grow up very quickly on the material. If you start to get this feeling, it of course means that the book did its job perfectly. However, it could have been better if the author included more advanced and challenging material for the readers who are ready to move to the next step. Overall, this is a great book for beginners and I highly recommend it

I'm very pleased with the way this book is written and organized. Most photography books go through long, involved explanations of a lot of technical photography terminology before they get to actual photography. This book keeps it simple. For example, last week I wanted to take some pics of the daffodils blooming in my yard, the pond, etc. It was quite foggy in the morning, so I looked up "fog" in the book and was directed to a page with suggestions for taking pics in foggy conditions. I was able to set up my camera in a few seconds to catch some nice pics before the fog burned off. The book is written in a nice conversational style. It is organized into chapters that cover the whole process of photography, from what to shoot, to camera modes, composition, flashes, camera settings, focusing, and a chapter of photo assignments that covers nature, portraits, animals, and art. From there, the book goes on to disuss lighting, aperture, shutter speed and focal length, advanced techniques, and, digital editting. It covers a lot of ground and the way it is organized makes it easy to either read it from cover-to-cover or pick out one topic and only read what you need to know at the moment. I think this is a good book for those of us who have no training in photography to be able to take good photos. I'm not interested in f-stops and aperture, I just want to take nice photos of things and people. It enables me to use my DSLR much more effectively. I use the book's suggested camera settings and photo set-ups and ideas, take the pics and then I'm able to analyze what I like or don't like about the photos. For example, if it suggests using a certain filter and settings, I will take a certain number of photos with the suggested settings and some without and compare the results. Usually, this leads to my researching more of the technical aspects of photography and this makes it much more interesting than trying to sift out the information for which I'm looking. Overall, this book was well worth the price and I would recommend it.

I've been working on teaching myself how to take pictures. Mainly taking them with different settings and seeing what they look like when I get home. Learning and reapplying on the next pictures. Most of this book is good at explaining the basics. Good tips on taking pictures. It's not a photo editing book. It's not supposed to be. I don't think I'm going to be a pro overnight but I do think I'll be taking some better pictures in the future. Overall nice color photos. Good explanations. You can see the settings used for the photos at the end for more learning. It's also inexpensive compared to the DSLR you probably have. I count this as a good investment for learning.

LOVE this book! Have never read a more simple, basic beginners photography guide. Lent it to my mom, who also loved it. Some of the concepts are pretty basic, but its great to be reminded to employ them in your everyday photo taking. I did our Christmas photos this year at the dinner, and got great shots of everyone thanks to some of this books tips!

This book teaches the reader how and why the photos taken can be better.

If you're a total newbie like me and you're willing to improve your composition and exposure this is a great book to start. Regardless of your camera, you'll find useful tips inside.

I was recommended this book by my photography club. It is very helpful and has all the information one needs to take good photographs.

A well illustrated, nicely written book that has helped a beginner like me understand the basic principles of photography. The sample photos helped drive home most concepts with ease