Photography: Complete Guide To Taking Stunning, Beautiful Pictures Paperback – January 31, 2015

I received this book at no cost in exchange for my honest review. Last year, I was given a really nice camera. I love taking pictures and always have. However, I had never owned such a wonderful camera before, and I have been struggling with improving. This book provides lots of good information in a clear and concise manner. The author provides many examples of both mediocre and well-composed photographs. She explains the pixel factor in a way I had never thought of before. I did play with my camera while reading this book, and did notice that I was able to achieve even better pictures by utilizing the techniques suggested. I found it helpful in a lot of ways, and am looking forward to expanding my abilities in the future.

It is like reading a starter photography class. It explains the basic elements of composition for taking photos. It goes over techniques used to improve the quality of the photo.There are sections on nature, landscape, portrait, flowers, plants and children. There is a section on what to consider when buying a digital camera. The techniques covered can be used for any type of photo taking device. The book does say to read your camera manual and if you are using a more advanced camera, you need to pay attention to that. The book explains why some photos didn't come out the way you though they might and how to correct for next time. I would have liked to seen side by side comparisons for visual learning. But on the whole. This would be a good starter for learning the basic techniques. I did receive this book for free for my unbiased review.

THE COLOR BOOK COVER IS MIS-LEADING. THE BOOK IS 6" X 9" AND ALL THE PHOTOGRAPHY IS BLACK AND WHITE.YOU CAN FIND THE SAME PRIMER INFORMATION, TECHNICAL PHOTOGRAPH DATA ON A PICTURE (ISO, SHUTTER SPEED, APERTURE,ETC.) AND BETTER COLOR EXAMPLES IN OTHER PUBLICATIONS. THE BOOK IS VERY GOOD PRIMER AND MAKES GOOD READING FOR A NEWCOMER TO PHOTOGRAPHY.

I try to not make negative reviews, but this book literally stopped me at the end of chapter two with a complete disgust and feeling of being robbed blindly by a novice who has no clue about photography. If you are a novice, completely new to photography, and this is your FIRST book, you'll probably give it four or five starts. BUT, once you read at least one other book by a qualified author, or rather anyone who actually know anything about the absolute basics of photography, you'll likely return to drop your review to one or two stars.I purchased this for my 16 yr old daughter who brought it to me complaining after the first two chapters. After reading the first two chapters only myself to figure out why she was complaining (disclaimer, this review is only based on those first two chapters), I can understand why even a 16 year old with the most basic skills was laughing at the glaring lack of value and the errors. Example, my daughter didn't understand why the author stated the following:"The most professional of photographers out there seldom uses flash as they want to capture the natural lighting, but flash can be great help for beginners." Ignoring the poor grammar, I believe that was pretty much an insult, or at least a complete lack of understanding of photography, especially to real professionals. You might not want to inform portrait or model photographers that they are not professional and/or just beginners!LCD Screen - "you need it to look every bit as good when you are out on location." "...users of digital photography rely too much upon the external buttons and do very little adjustment using the menus on this screen." Has this author even looked at an LCD screen outside, much less at specific types of events such as concerts, high speed sports, fast moving animals, etc.? It's 2.5" to 3" on average, NOT a 21" monitor! And as for buttons, trust me, when it comes to many, many, many fields of photography, blindly using those buttons, not to mention custom programming them, is not only something you have to rely on all too much, it often means the difference between getting 'the' shot and failing completely!My personal favourite - 'Aperture' - Her statement, "The narrowest is f/16 while the widest is the f/1.4." This is where my daughter was really confused. 'She' pointed out that all but one of her lenses were f/22, and that the only one that wasn't was her Nikkor 18-55mm that went to f/38!!! I suppose we shouldn't tell the author about the f/1.0 or f/60 lenses either...or my 50mm f/1.2 Ai-S."Wide-angle"...[lenses are]..."almost the same with the Ultra-wide angle, but obviously not quite as wide". Seriously??? Yep, almost the same, but obviously not. But no focal lengths whatsoever, just not the same! I wonder what the real difference is between a wide and ultra-wide is?I can go further, but the above should be enough. If you are a complete beginner, never held a DSLR before, never turned one on, consider asking a child to teach you about photography before purchasing this book.

Not bad for a beginner's manual. Terse explanation of technical principles and descriptions of anything beyond the very basic aspects of photography. However the explanations of composition were generally good, though more than one photo to illustrate each would have been better.I will suggest this one to novice hobbyists who want a better understanding of photography to take their skills up a notch.

I have just started learning photography and am really impressed with the amount of information in this book. Taking you from beginner to expert, this book is with you every step of the way. Photography: Complete guide starts my explaining each part of the camera and it's importance in a well explained but easy to read way. The rule of odds has been a great help to me and has really helped my composition. This book goes into fantastic detail about the different types of shots and how to improve them and i have really seen the improvement in my nature photos. Thank you nicole woods for the great book :)

Photography: Complete Guide to Taking Stunning,Beautiful Digital PicturesThis book is great if you are a complete beginner but for me it dumb things down to much. This book to me was just the basics and if you are after that it would be perfect. I have been taking pictures for a while as a hobby with a DSLR and even take pictures once and a while for money. I have not been to school or anything like that. I purchased at a discount for my honest unbiased review per the FTC.

This is not only an excellent guide to understanding your digital camera and getting the most out of it, but also an excellent basic guide to photography. The reader will learn some of the basic differences and benefits of having a digital camera and how to make the most out of its features. Never having had a great deal of experience with photography in general, I was pleased to get my hands on something that not only helped me to understand what all of those different setting on my digital camera do, but to help me take better picture in general.