5 comments about Nikon COOLPIX Digital Field Guide.

1. Great introduction to the Nikon Coolpix cameras and to digital photography in general. There are useful tips and it highlights some really useful features. As a complete novice, I learned what the various modes were for as well as introducing me to basic things like depth of field, exposure composition, etc.
   
   Also important: I also learned what the camera can't do.



2. Very basic, that's all that can be said. And it chose to cover a whole range of models, so at least half of the book won't pertain to YOUR camera. The general photography info is delivered in a hasty manner with too few examples. It would be hard to actually learn a lot from this book. A little, yes. Some tips, some clear writing. But it's not the "missing book" you wish came with your camera, whatever model you might have.



3. The Nikon Coolpix Digital Field Guide is a wonderful supplement to the less than perfect "manual" that came with the Coolpix camera. The book covers the Coolpix L,S, and P series. At first I found this to be confusing and just wanted to "get on" with information for my camera. After recognizing the book set-up, I found it very helpful because if I didn't get it the first time, I could "peek" at the other series and reaffirm the information. Also,the book only uses two chapters where it specifically talks about your particular Coolpix camera series.
   
   I started off with the "point and shoot" auto/default setting for everyday photos. The Coolpix offers So Much More and when you're ready for optional settings, menus, and modes, this book teaches it to you
   in an easy to read and learn format. If you're a "visual learner" like myself, you'll love the life size and BIGGER than life size camera diagrams, menus, and settings which accompany the written part. The author uses "cross referencing", "tips", "notes", and "caution" tags to emphasize a point made in the sub-section just read.
   
   After the introduction to the camera, menus, and modes, the book goes on to explain "how", to create great photos simply using the "point and shoot" OR "optional settings" function. The author also explains general photography and composition basics. My favorite part is the "Technique" chapter of 65 pages where the author shows a photo (17 different categories), then explains how he took the photo. He then gives you a "Practice Picture" and "On Your Own" challenge with all the needed settings to have your photo turn out just as great!
   
   The book concludes with additional accessories and equipment you may want at a later time. The book also devotes a chapter to editing using your Nikon Picture Perfect which came with your Coolpix. You'll love the glossary at the end because it offers simple definitions of common terms used throughout the book.
   
   This is a must-have book if you have a Coolpix camera!
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   



4. The Nikon Coolpix Digital Field Guide is a wonderful companion for any Nikon Coolpix camera owner. In just a few minutes of reading I learned about settings on my camera that I didn't even know existed. I liked the fact that in Chapter 1 the author compared various Coolpix cameras and I am sure others would think this could be annoying since you already own one. However I on the other hand found it nice to know what else was available. This book is so in depth the author even takes you through each screen and menu while explaining what they all do. This chapter alone proved to be more useful to me than the entire manual that came with the camera. Call me crazy, but being a photographer I prefer visual learning over long paragraphs of text.
   
   No book about photography should be without a guide on composition and this book is no exception, the author explains the various rules you as the photographer should follow and adapt to. To me chapter 6 goes right along with the composition steps to include overall best practices of photography. Of course now that you have shot all these great photos it is safe to say you want them on your computer, well if that is the case than chapter 7 has all the information you need. The book ends off with a glossary of common photography terms that you will hear in various shooting locations.
   
   Overall I have found this book to be very beneficial for not only Nikon Coolpix owners, but any photographers. You can take the concepts thoroughly explained within this book and adapt them to your own shooting habits, which in the end will make you a better photographer. I highly recommend this book and already have to my friends.



5. I've had my Nikon Coolpix for about six months now, and until I picked up this book I never felt comfortable using anything but the default settings. My coolpix is considered a point-and-shoot, but I didn't find it to be nearly that simple. This book not only showed me HOW to use the different settings, but it helped me understand WHEN I should use them too. This book covers both the equipment side of photography with your coolpix, and photography basics like composition, and lighting. I highly recommend this book - I feel more confident using my camera and my pictures have been better now that I have started using the different modes appropriately.

No comments about The Videomaker Guide to Video Production, Fourth Edition.

1 comments about Barn: Evolution and Adaption of a Vernacular Icon.

1. Excellent book, if the other book, Barns: Living in Converted and Reinvented Spaces is the ying, then this book is the yang. A good inspirational design book if you're interested in reusing an old barn for modern day use and staying within the original design. The text is interesting and informative with the accompanying photos following along with the text. The pictures are overall excellent, sharp, clear, in detail and professionally done, with very very few exceptions. Some buildings are shown with structural drawings that help visualize the internal timber frame or stone structure with the accompanying photogaphs. The authors seems to be a die hard traditionalist, very critical and at times mildly insulting to designers that chose to remodel the old barns in the modern way and deviating from what the original builders did. But at times understanding that the modern style is a better fate than total destruction of a old old structure.

5 comments about Lachapelle Land.

1. I highly recommend NetworkNewBooks. My purchase arrived in three business days and in mint condition...thanks a lot!



2. After having bought David Lachapelle's "Heaven to Hell" in the Taschen bookshop in Berlin last november, I was flabbergasted by its content. Coming home I immediately surf to Amazon.com to order the other two books of this trilogy: "Lachapelle Land" and "Hotel Lachapelle". To me his work is the utmost synergism of fantasy, photography and art! For me, without doubt the most impressive and striking artbooks I bought in 2006!!
   
   Wubbe Koning, Heiligerlee, The Netherlands



3. How about photographing what your mind sees? That's the journey Lachapelle takes us in every picture. Lachapelle, along with a couple of other great photographers, is what I would call an acquired taste and a bi-polar one it is. Either you love it or you hate it...
   
   Anyone interested in serious photography should have, at least as a reference, any of Lachapelle's books.
   
   As for this one, all I have to say is that I enjoyed the journey. And what a journey it was...



4. I bought this book after being a fan of Lachapelle for a few years- and i've already got Hotel LaChapelle.This book doesn't really compare that well to Hotel Lachapelle, but its a good book to have if u want to document his work pre 1996, and although it has some stunning photographs, i was more impressed by the (presumably bigger budget) photos in Hotel Lachapelle, so. in a nutshell; if you trying to decide between this and His second book, get the second one, but this isnt a bad book to have.



5. I purchased this book after viewing David Lachapelle's website, and while it is certainly a decent collection of photographs, the photos lack some of the style that Lachapelle's more recent work has. If you are a fan of the work found on his website, then I would suggest Hotel Lachapelle instead of this book.

5 comments about Sell & Re-Sell Your Photos.

1. So much has changed in the photography world since this was written and updated in 1997. Advice how how to submit slides and why not to buy a Mac (because hardly anyone has them) seems very odd these days. Also the formulas for creating "great stock pictures" have become outdated as well. I have no doubt this would have been a great and informative book in the 80's or 90's but because of the rapid changes in digital technology this book is kind of like reading a "How to Operate Your BetaMax" manual. Perhaps the newer versions would be money better spent.



2. The best "how-to" book I have ever read. Rohn does not miss a detail and hands out consistently useful advice.



3. I am new to photography and I want to make money. This book is filled with a wealth of information. I highly recommend it!



4. I was about to forray into stock photography when I borrowed this book. After a couple of hours I decided to preserve my sensibility and returned the book. The only reason why this book got a three star instead of a 1 is that it made me realise how stupid the whole idea of getting into stock was, perhaps more strongly than is actually warranted by the genre of stock photography. This book starts of with a boisterous principle with the authors name. Such simplified ideas are good but they should be served simply; not in the form of some corny equation. For me, it indicates the shallowness of the author which is again amply proved but the innumerable unimaginative photos which were critiqued and made to look like they were compositional masterpieces. Well if you did not really know that background, theme etc make a good photo then by all means dig it but if you have even an inch of respect for your creativity and sensibility then just run. Having said that, if you are really keen on selling photos this way no matter what, then this might be a good book for you especially with all the information on how to get tax benefits from your business of stock photography; I am pretty sure though that if you dig this book and can be with it till the end then tax and accounting should be your forte and you won't really need much of the information in the book.



5. I received this book 3 months ago, and it never leaves my side. As a budding would-be professional photographer,I learned more about the Photography business than I ever imagined. Just what I was looking for in the first place. eg: What photos sell,and what Photo buyers are looking for - Surprise! Surprise. How to get started professionally - a real eye-opener. Resources to search out etc. Excellent!
   My only criticism - I am left with all these questions that need answers and maybe that was the idea, so that me, the reader, will reach out for more information and spur me on to find more keys to moving forward. Please write another book Ronn Engh

2 comments about Chicago's Nelson Algren.

1. With an artful eye master photojournalist Art Shay gives a treasured glimpse of American culture and Chicago history. Not just outstanding images, but Shay provides a wonderful read as well.



2. Art Shay's latest work will certainly contribute to his status as an American Icon. Every time I look through the book I delight in finding something new. This book would make a great gift for Nelson Algren and Chicago fans alike.

1 comments about Lynching Photographs (Defining Moments in American Photography).

1. Yeah, well, how many books could there be about this topic? Morbidly fascinating. Nothing like having a well-rounded library, Dewey.

2 comments about Typologies of Industrial Buildings.

1. Reading the introduction to this remarkable book I came across the fact that Bern and Hilla Becher are continuing the German tradition of companies photographing their industrial premises. Alfred Krupp, about 1860, was the first to have his own photographer and a printing plant to produce promotional material. Other companies followed and printed ever more lavish photo books about their plants.
   
   The Bechers though have pursued, since 1957, a unique photographic objective in attempting to record as much of the industrial landscape as possible but in a way that is personal to them. Their head on, flat perspective and grey sky backgrounds just seem so right as you turn the pages. I think this is the only book to show so many of their photos: just over 1500. They are divided into 130 Plates with between six and thirty photos to a Plate though they are mostly fifteen throughout the book. The structure sequence is water towers, cooling towers, gas tanks, colliery winding towers, preparation plants, gravel plants, lime kilns, grain elevators, coal bunkers, blast furnaces, details (close-ups) and industrial facades. Winding towers has thirty Plates with over four hundred photos. The briefest of captions locate the place, country and the photo date.
   
   Armin Zweite writes a thirty page introduction (translated from German which makes it seem overly complex) but full of interesting insights about the Bechers work, style origins and their place in contemporary photography. The book is beautifully produced as one would expect from the German publishers Schirmer (MIT have the English language rights) with quality paper and printing in a 200 screen.
   
   Because Typologies contains so many works taken by these two remarkable photographers I think it is way above the usual art monograph.
   
   ***FOR AN INSIDE LOOK click 'customer images' under the cover.
   



2. Fabulous photos arranged in logical and pleasing order. Captions are limited to location only. I would have enjoyed a little more explanation of the function of the building types shown. However, as the blurb says "Bernd and Hilla Becher's photography can be considered conceptual art, typological study, and topological documentation."
   The text is limited to the Bechers' approach to their photographic art and is a little dense and esoteric for the average reader. Definitely for those who wish to understand the Bechers' place in the art world.
   I'll keep it for the wonderful pictures!

5 comments about Golf Courses of the World: 365 Days.

1. My fiance and I bought this book to serve as a guest book at our wedding, since we love golf we thought it would be a cool place to look back at our guests notes, while enjoying the pictures. I didn't even realize when we bought it that it serves as a calendar too, which makes the book even more fun. Now, I am going to have my guests sign in under their birthdays, so I have a catalog of all their b-days. The pictures are of good quality and I like the fluffy descriptions of the courses. We are going to try to play as many of the courses as possible!



2. I got this for a golf fanatic friend of ours and he loves it. Small size but lots of pages of wonderful golf courses. A great gift for any golf nut.



3. I bought this gift for my father-in-law for Christmas. It is an absolutely beautiful book and looks a lot more expensive that what I paid for it. It is well worth the price.



4. This book is gorgeous and the pictures of the courses are breathtakingly beautiful. When I gave this book to my boyfriend's parents I got to see his Dad smile for the first time! Great coffee table book :)



5. I purchased Golf of the World: 365 Days as prizes for our recent Ladies Open Day not only did they look fabulous on the trophy table they were the most sort after prizes on the day! The ladies who won them were delighted and have since contacted me telling me of the enjoyment they have given them (with photos to die for and destinations to dream about!) In all cases they are taking pride of place on their coffee tables with the added bonus of being able to visit a beautiful course whenever they wish at the mere flip of a page.
   Wendy
   Australia

1 comments about National Geographic Photography Field Guide: Travel (NG Photography Field Guides).

1. The Nat. Geo. Photography Field Guide is, unfortunately, too large to be a true field guide and too small to provide enough information to be worth the price. Many of the tips are easily found in other publications. The quality of print is great, but I question a field guide that is too large and heavy to take into the field. I think they missed a bet in not going to a larger format and providing more photos and more information. Trying to be all things to all people seldom works well.