Any good books I should read?

I'm trying to get pretty serious with photography, both underwater, and on land.

Are there any must read books out there that I should be looking at?

I was looking around Amazon.com, but it's hard to tell which books would really suit me.

I'm far from a pro, but I sure as hell don't need a Digital Photographers for dummies book either.

I'm more interested in Lenses, Filters, Composition, and the techincal details of selecting an apeture to use, ISO settings, etc...

Oh and a post production Photoshop CS book might be nice as well. I've always been a fan of PaintShop Pro, but I want to go ahead and graduate to Photoshop, since that is what most people use.

This is one of the books I'm considering:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detai...=glance&s=books

I am just getting started with a DSLR with two seasons shooting a digicam U/W myself so I am not much farther ahead than you. I recently read this and so did my dive buddy who is aspiring to be a great photographer when she grows up too. We both found pearls of wisdom in this light and quick read. The book is written from a film stand point but all principles apply to digital. Without question, it is a good place to start.

From there, digest all posts relating to composition and technique here at wetpixel. There are members that have been shooting u/w since Christ was a corporal and they are always posting good info.

Best regards,

Mike

After you digest Jim Church's book, check out Brian Skerry and Howard Hall's book entitled, "Successful Underwater Photography". This is another good source of more fundamental aspects of our hobby. It also will help spend the time between trips on material to make you more successful the next time.

Good Luck!

Mike[/u]

I like this one by Martin Edge.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detai...=glance&s=books

I also have Jim Church's book, but didn't think I got much out of it.

I am a coffee table book fan. They are not technically informative uw photo books, but they inspire me to look at subject matter in a different way. Doubilet, Newbert, and Wu all have books which may lack or even be dull reading material but show off often common species in a whole new light, so to speak. After a point, I believe, there's only so much theory to study and then it takes an artistic (trained or natural) eye to raise one picture above the crowd.

Another excellent book, albeit a bit older, "The Manual of Underwater Photography" by Green and De Couet.

It is out of print but you might be able to find a copy at Helix (Chicaco) or maybe also from Amazon.

This is one of the most comprehensive books out there. No chapter on digital though (copyright 1989). But the fundamentals and laws of physics are still the same.

Michel[/u]

I guess that I would recommend something totally different. Two books that I think are essential are Light, Science and Magic, The Art of Photographic Lighting. This is a great book and it will help you enormously in understanding how to arrange lighting in all sorts of situations. It is not an underwater book but from my perspective, learning about topside photography and having an extensive understanding of how things work without worrying about the underwater part is imperative. The second book that I think everyone needs to have on their shelves is Photographic Materials and Processes from RIT. Great background. This is the book that teaches students to be photographers.

Bill

Iv'e recently read a heap of uw photo books, read everything on line I could find on uw photo and taken all the usual "classes". I have been doing uw photo with p&s for two years prior to going dslr, however, did not need to have basics of shutter speed, aperture and composition explained as have been "land" photograper for lifetime, except for the parts where the concepts are different in UW photo (like strobe gn, refraction and such). Sooo... I could say that I have been doing a "market" study of the uw learning resources out there sort of... and in my opinion, the best resources were the ones that did not stray off the path of the basics:

- Sucessful underwater photography: Howard Hall and Brian Skerry. This book expains all you need to know to get started in the water and keep going for years. No fluff and filler here. It' straight to the point, very clear, covers everything of importance and is loaded with amazing images that illustrates the concepts as well as provides lots of inspiration.This is all the stuff you will HAVE to know at first. Does not bog down on techie stuff that really is NOT important in creating "wow" photos.

- theunderwaterphotographer.com: Marty Snydermans online UW photo class. Similar as above, discusses what is really important, and illustrates it with clear examples.

- This forum (wetpixel.com). This is good for asking "gear" questions and if you want to pickle yourself in the juice of tech nitty gritty. I read just about every post ever posted on dslr and most others as well. Excellent resource when you need to get questions answered on "how does this gadget work". However you need to get the photography basics somewhere else.

- For inpiration and coming up with ideas and concepts, Good quality magazines such as Fathoms, DYK, even "non uw specific"ags with good quality photography like NatGeo. Websites of other uw photographers, there are loads...

- Also, for me Luc Bessons movie "Atlantis" was a great inspiration booster in the "create moods" department.

There is nothing better out there than "John Shaw's Nature Photography Field Guide". Incredibly good book on taking nature photography - all the principles are outlined simply and in a form you can easily understand.

Yes it is a topside focused book - however I am still shocked at the number of people who are not capable of taking a decent image of thier dog or cat, but still believe they can take masterpieces underwater.

Between this book and Jim Church's Field Guide to Composition you should have plenty of material to cover before you ever need to pick up another photo book.

Oh, and subscribe to Outdoor Photographer and Photo Technique magazines.

M

I'm going to second Marriard on John Shaw's Nature Photography Field Guide. Excellent book. He covers the stuff in Church's composition book, only better, and although it is a topside book, it is an excellent resource on the art and technique of photography. Some of it is a bit dated, but the photographs are gorgeous!

Make that a third vote for John Shaw's book, as a general nature photography book.

I recently read "Wonders of The Reef", a book about how to take underwater photos by a fellow named Stephen Frink. It's pretty helpful on a lot of issues (although Mt Frink should be shooting more digital!).

I own a few photoshop books and enjoy browsing the big bookshops' photoshop section every now and then for new titles. Kelby's Photoshop Book for Digital Photographers was my last purchase - it's amusing and quite helpful, although targeted more at portrait photogs.

I have a nice Norbert Wu coffee table book, which I picked up in a remainder bin many years ago. It's interesting to hear his name mentioned above and I've just checked out his website between sentences so it's good to see that he's still alive and diving!

Apart from Wetpixel, which is a good place to waste one's life chatting about underwater stuff, I've been known to frequent photo.net and robgalbraith.com, both of which have forums that are useful at times.

I recently read "Wonders of The Reef"' date=' a book about how to take underwater photos by a fellow named Stephen Frink. It's pretty helpful on a lot of issues (although Mt Frink should be shooting more digital!).[/i']

 

 

Thanks for the kind comments by Whitey, and the suggestion that I shoot more digital. Actually Wonders of the Reef was published in 1996, so it was an analog world then. Now I do shoot a lot of digital of course, more than film in fact.

 

As for books I've enjoyed, have a look at "Pool Light" by Howard Schatz. Howard just bought a Canon EOS1Ds housing from me to shoot a Sports Illustrated feature later this month. No doubt his incredible eye and technical prowess will translate well to digital.

The UK UW photography grapevine informs me that Martin Edge is just finishing his second book on digital UW photography. Presumably for a autumn release.

Worth looking out for in the future. Martin is a very good teacher, especially at helping people get results without getting confused by technology and jargon.

Alex