Digital Photography - Top 100 Simplified Tips and Tricks - 4th Edition product reviews

This is an excellent resource for any digital photographer below 'well-seasoned professional' level... as an experienced photographer myself, I still find myself slipping up and overlooking some basics when frustration or learning a new camera gets in the way of a smooth shoot. A book like this, on hand with me when I am not under pressure or mid-shoot - can be a life-saver.

Full of great tips to get the good results faster and easier, timely reminders of the basics that sometimes get forgotten as 'too obvious to mention', and some excellent visual explanations of the terms used in photography (such as how both aperture and distance-to-subject affect the depth of focus, and how the visual field changes at various focal lengths) make this an invaluable reference for beginners trying to get a grip on the arcane algebra that is photography.

I was amused to discover that the author simply could not restrain himself, and went on to 102 sections... with almost every page having at least 2 tips, 'did you know's or cautionary notes... making this far more info-packed than the title and back-cover-blurb would lead you to believe. It really is a TARDIS of a book.

Covering topics across every gamut of the field, including composition, exposures, photomerge, panoramas, filing your photos and building an effective catalogue, capturing movement in still images, sharpening, blurring and cropping for more effective images, and many more... this is certainly something any photographer should read at least once.

Overall, I would have to tout this as one of the best 'entry-level reference books' I have come across in this field in quite a while, and being the 4th edition it covers more modern technologies... for example there is extensive reference to functions and features of 'Adobe Photoshop Elements' and 'High Dynamic Range' (HDR) image processing techniques, which - though they have been in the range of professionals for a while now - are very new tools at the consumer level. If you aren't 100% sure if this is your thing, check out a copy from your local library... I am sure you will see within a very short time that you need to have your own copy for repeated study.