A few days ago I ordered and received "The Hot Shoe Diaries" by Joe McNally. So far it's been a good read and I've learned a couple of things about the way he shoots and lights. What's neat is that he's a Nikon shooter so right off the bat it's as though he's talking to me. I've also bookmarked a few Flickr photostreams, YouTube videos, and Strobist. You're right, lots out there.

I just hope my planned photo shoot doesn't fall though. I'm borrowing a friend's SB-900 to work with my SB-900 so I'm excited to say the least. It would be a great photography experience.

benalexe said:
Hi I just got a d5000 and I am looking for a beginner book or course on how to take good photos with my dslr. I don't want to just use the auto mode. Any suggestions??

Lots of good suggestions here, but if I may, I'd also say that there are some very good condensed online guides to give you good overviews of subjects and perhaps the best of any tutorial is the one that says "Shoot more photos". The more you shoot, the better you'll get... It'll take reading lots of books, time and many shots.

Remember, with a digital camera, if you don't like the result, just press the delete button. Try again and after a number of (effectively FREE - how much does a battery charge cost?) tries, you should be much closer to the result you want; the main message is read some books, go online and shoot lots.

Enjoy.

@Rx4

Try Master Lighting Guide for Portrait Photographers by Chrisopher Grey:

*LINK REMOVED*

@Cait

Just a heads up but I'd be careful mentioning KR in this forum... it's sort of a "hot topic" here ;-)

Online tutorials are actually fine specially if you're just starting and you're trying to gain the basic concepts and techniques. Most of the exceptionally good photographers though tend not to publish a lot of tutorials online and write books instead. Books also tend to be more detailed and more specific (although not all of them). It probably also depends on your personal style. If you like reading article online, then try http://www.bythom.com. He updates his homepage with a new photo every couple of days and will include a commentary on the settings and techniques he used. He also has a few nice articles about shooting technique on the left side.

Btw, your name reminds me of this character:

I wouldn't bother with a book to be honest, the Internet is your friend!!
Ken Rockwell (*LINK REMOVED*) does some pretty decent tutorials which start right at the beginning, and there's pages and pages, just ctrl+f to find what you're looking for - can't do that with a book!
A lot of photography blogs & sites will also offer tutorials, you just need to look carefully.
Best of luck,
Cait

The Nikon Creative Lighting System by Mike Hagen covers the technical side

For the creative side, I would look at You tube, there is an lot rubbish, but some of them are very good. Kelby Traing has a lot of excellent on line videos

Hello all,

I'm resuscitating this old thread to ask for your best recommendation on a book to buy. I work with a "mom" whose daughter wants to get in to modeling and mom is asking if I can shoot her first portfolio. I know, lucky me! I recently started looking into books that could possibly give me the best overall teachings on off-camera flash. I shoot a D7000 and I have a SB-900 speedlight. I've made a homemade snoot (haven't used it yet) and a homemade Gary Fong-like deflector that actually works better than the white card deflector on the SB900. I'm no expert but I've used them with decent results. I'm looking to get a shoot-through umbrella and stand soon.

I want to do a good job if this actually comes to fruition but my biggest challenge right now is off camera flash technique - especially with manual settings. I've looked into 3 books: "Off Camera Flash Techniques for Digital Photographers" by Neil van Niekerk, "The Hot Shoe Diaries" by Joe McNally, and Doug Box's " Flash Photography: On and Off Camera Techniques." I've also looked into the Nikon CLS DVD but I prefer a book that I can casually flip the pages through.

If you could recommend only one to buy, assuming you know of these books, which would you recommend. Thanks very much.

I have found that 'THE CAMERA' by Ansel Adams is a great book that photographers at any level should read and have as a reference.
It explains basic photography in simple terms that anyone can understand.
You can buy countless books and magazines to learn about photography, but this one book does it all.

Got the langford book. It is okay but maybe a little too textbook like.

Thank you everyone I just ordered the Langfords book.

AquaCow - Moment it Clicks is a good book, but in my opinion, his new book "The Hot Shoe Diaries" is better. Both books are more about theory than the nitty gritty of technique.

Monty - Isn't it strange that photographing people is such a different exercise than photographing anything else? Why do you have to talk to somebody to make them look good. Nobody asks a bird or a lion to smile in a picture, but for some reason, if you just shoot a person who is unaware they are being photographed, it vary rarely looks very good. Maybe people just look stupid by default LOL.

Benalexe - Check if your local community college has an intro to photography class. Better yet, try and make friends with a photographer. Its amazing how much you can learn from somebody else in one hour with them showing you how to do things on your own equipment. If you go the book route, you will probably want one book for exposure (which should also explain the interplay of shutter-speed, aperture, ISO etc), one book about composition (which is really hard to write about), and one book for lighting. You may find one or more of these topics in a single book, but they all need to be addressed in order to really get started. Also, read the entire strobist blog (as referenced in a post above) I think its one of the finest photography sites \ communities on the web.

I liked Scott Kelby's and Tom Ang's digital photography books, and Ansel Adams is a must though a bit advanced and theoretical, but then again I haven’t red all the books available.
And of course you must actually do it to master it.

Bryan Peterson's Understanding Exposure worked great for me. I'd say all of the aforementioned writers make for great learning sources. Just be sure to practice, practice, practice.

I've read some of Scott Kelby's books. They're pretty good.

I don't think that it should be recommended for very beginners. It really doesn't explain things down to the minor details. It is one of the many books on my night table (read about 1/3 before some other more pressing publications landed on the same table) and it is interesting to understand how a photographer thinks and sees things and maybe pick up a trick or two.

However it isn't my No.1 book, as I'm not that keen on shooting people due to my lacking "verbal diarrhoea". but who says that the techniques explained there can't be used in stillife photography :)

Anyone read McNally's Moment it Clicks book yet?

I'm curious if we can recommend that to new photogs, or if it's geared for slightly more experienced folks...
It's in my cart at Amazon, and I'm buying it anyways, but I really wanna be able to recommend it to other folks I know...

Thanks,

-- Dave

as for this what I came across no, but for beginners the field guide is really a great book; as for more advanced users try the second book I've recommended as it's really good advanced book about digital slr's - I really like Michael Freeman's books as he always gives a lot of tips and not only academic data

adamz, does the NGC have any advanced field guides too?

This ones are quite decent:
- The National Geographic Field Guide to Photography - generally the whole series
- Pro Photographer's D-SLR Handbook by Michael Freeman - really good book, will let You mature with your skills, has a lot of examples for using PS with pictures

and generally practice, practice and practice also try this LINK

In the order of complication:

Langford's Starting Photography, Sixth Edition
http://www.focalpress.com/Book.aspx?id=480&terms=michael+langford

Langford's Basic Photography, Eighth Edition
http://www.focalpress.com/Book.aspx?id=478&terms=michael+langford

Langford's Advanced Photography, Seventh Edition
http://www.focalpress.com/Book.aspx?id=2668&terms=michael+langford

I don't think that it will hurt if you read all three books. Though you could save the last one for when you have had some practice. When you have a solid base to work from, then you might look at different more dedicated books:
David Prakel: Composition
Brian Peterson: Learning to See Creatively illustrated edition
You'll find a lot of things and references to books on lighting from http://www.strobist.blogspot.com/
Then also perhaps something on digital post-processing for the software that you are using. One good program if you can spend a bit over $100, then I would suggest Adobe Photoshop Elements 7.

I think that this should satisfy your initial hunger.

Hi I just got a d5000 and I am looking for a beginner book or course on how to take good photos with my dslr. I don't want to just use the auto mode. Any suggestions??