Complete Idiot's Guide to Photography

by Roger Woodson

From using simple point and shoot camera to darkroom basics, this guide offers step-by-step advice for taking the best holiday shots, family photos and nature panoramas. Tips are provided on shopping for cameras and lenses, avoiding red eye and idiot-proof steps for developing your own pictures.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 002861092X
• ISBN13: 9780028610924
• Release Date: October 1996
• Publisher: Alpha Books
• Length: 266 Pages
• Weight: 1.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 7.4" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

Good for the very green

This book is okay for those just starting to explore the camera. It's an almost-too-easy guide that is well-suited to complete novices, as the title suggests. It's actually ideal for younger people and those who've just bought their very first camera and want to start with the basic building blocks. For the rest of us it seems to miss out on the essential premise behind photography guides - how to compose and shoot a half-decent picture. I recommend John Hedgecoe's 'The Photographer's Handbook' - a much more comprehensive guide for multi-level photography skills.

Perfect for the beginning hobbyist.

I purchased the book Photography for Dummies before this one and wish I hadn't. I already knew that I would be treating this as a serious hobby and would be purchasing an SLR camera over a regular point and shoot. I wish I'd studied the book more thoroughly before leaving the book store with it. That book was almost completely biased towards point and shoot...especially Kodak's new marketing hum drum APS system which I have no use for.But this book is different. It approaches photography from the hobbyists point of view. Not just the casual shutterbug who only cares about how little Suzie's birthday party pictures turn out. That's fine...but that's not what I wanted. Roger Woodson presents many aspects and techniques of photography and makes them easily digestible. Though the book doesn't go in depth into anything...it does cover topics such as film speed, aperture, zoom vs fixed focal lenses, tripods and even darkroom technique's for those who want to try DYI developing. This book is far and away a better guide than the dummie's book for those who want a good introduction to the hobby.

An Excellent Beginner's Guide

I received a camera as a gift and had no idea how to use many of its features. This book gave me an understanding of photography that the other guide books I had previously purchased did not come close to. Easy and fast reading made it all the more enjoyable. I continually use it as a reference.