David Busch's Flash Photography Compact Field Guide (David Busch's Digital Photography Guides)
Category: Books,Arts & Photography,Photography & Video
David Busch's Flash Photography Compact Field Guide (David Busch's Digital Photography Guides) Details
About the Author With more than a million books in print, David D. Busch is the world's #1 selling digital camera guide author, and the originator of popular digital photography series like David Busch's Pro Secrets and David Busch's Quick Snap Guides. He has written more than a dozen hugely successful guidebooks for Canon and Canon digital SLR models, as well as many popular books devoted to dSLRs, including Mastering Digital SLR Photography, Second Edition, and Digital SLR Pro Secrets. As a roving photojournalist for more than twenty years, he illustrated his books, magazine articles, and newspaper reports with award-winning images. He's operated his own commercial studio, suffocated in formal dress while shooting weddings-for-hire, and shot sports for a daily newspaper and upstate New York college. His photos and articles have appeared in Popular Photography & Imaging, The Rangefinder, The Professional Photographer, and hundreds of other publications. He has also reviewed dozens of digital cameras for CNet and Computer Shopper, and his advice has been featured in National Public Radio's "All Tech Considered." When About.com named its top five books on Beginning Digital Photography, debuting at the #1 and #2 slots were Busch's Digital Photography All-In-One Desk Reference for Dummies and Mastering Digital Photography. During the past year, he's had as many as five of his books listed in the Top 20 of Amazon.com's Digital Photography Bestseller list--simultaneously! Busch's 120-plus other books published since 1983 include bestsellers like David Busch's Quick Snap Guide to Digital SLR Lenses. Visit his website at http://www.dslrguides.com. Read more
Reviews
It happens all the time, and I'm sure that I am not alone. You can be out on the street or in a public place with your camera, and it's almost a guarantee that someone will come up to you with questions about using a camera... and flash is one of those frequent topics. I bought this here, in fact, to carry in my camera bag for just those occasions.As far as covering the basics go, David Busch's Flash Photography Compact Field Guide is a hard one to beat. It's an easy-to-follow guide that's a good one for any novice with a compact camera or new DSLR user who has found the camera or add-on flash manual to be woefully inadequate, as most of them are.Here's my basic take on this Compact Field Guide...Likes:+ Excellent basic book; a true fast track into flash with a digital camera+ Very generic info; useful for users with any brand or model camera+ Good, concise coverage of flash usage; very up to date information+ Spiral bound with a good cover design; easy to fold back when following topics+ Loaded with color images directly linked to the topics in the pages+ Excellent multi-level index in the back of the bookDislikes:- NoneAbout the Guide:The authors clearly know their subject here. David Busch is a well-known and respected author of photo books with more than 20 years experience as a roving photojournalist. The last of his books that I bought here, David Busch's Nikon Coolpix P7100 Guide to Digital Photography, has proven to be a personal essential. Ed Verosky is a professional photographer based in New York City, a frequent blogger who really know his craft.Taking a look at the table of contents of this 128-page compact guide and you'll see that it's logically organized, and if you have a basic, fundamental knowledge of the controls on your camera, even with a digital compact, you won't get lost.Chapters:1: Quick Setup Guide2: Flash Features, Controls, and Modes3: Flash Gear and Accessories4: Indoor Flash Photography5: Outdoor Flash Photography6: Shooting TipsThis book gets off to a very fast start right from the first chapter, and right there in the beginning are some good rules of thumb covering one of the most-overlooked items that new users seem to forget: batteries; what types are used, how many you need... and why. Also covered are the basics of through the lens (TTL)flash metering (i-TTL on Nikon, E-TTL on Canon) and why it works for you. The second chapter really gets into it with the hardware and features of flash units in general, and the third chapter walks you through the basics of direct flash and bounce flash.The indoor and outdoor flash photography may cause you to want to grab your camera to try some of the creative techniques. But it's the final chapter, with its excellent shooting tips, that make the cost of this book a bargain. It also has an excellent index, and being spiral bound makes it easy to fold back when following specific topics or techniques.Remember, this is not a specific guide for Nikon, Canon, Sony or any other DSLR brand; it's generic in its approach, and covers far more than you'll get from any basic instruction manual that comes with your camera or flash unit.What it is, and what it isn't:This is a Flash Photography Compact Field Guide. It's an excellent starting point for anyone just getting into flash photography; it's that simple. It's not a massive brand-specific tome for a studio or field photographer. A quick search here on Amazon will help you find plenty of those if that's what you're seeking.By the way, if you like the way that the author puts things together, I have David Busch's Close-Up and Macro Photography Compact Field Guide, and it's an excellent basic guide on that topic. And I'm personally looking forward to the new David Busch's Portrait/Candid/Street Photography Compact Field Guide, as that's right up my alley, so to speak.Summary:Looking objectively at David Busch's Flash Photography Compact Field Guide, this is one of those up-to-date books that's truly an asset to those getting into flash photography. It's a great starting point for anyone considering doing this, and considering the bargain price, the Shooting Tips in Chapter 6 are alone worth the price of admission. This excellent title takes the confusion out of those topics that can be confusing and bewildering to the beginner, and is never condescending to the reader. For these reasons, I'll give this a 5-star recommendation as a great place to start with flash.8/19/2012
