Learn how light can breathe new life into your photos Do you take too many snapshots and not enough “wow” shots? If so, you may be spending more time thinking about your subjects than thinking about the light. In The BetterPhoto Guide to Light, veteran photography instructors Jim Miotke and Kerry Drager help amateur shooters of all levels master this basic ingredient of compelling photography. You’ll learn how to identify the best light, fix common lighting problems, and, most important, take stunning photos with whatever light you have. Full of image examples, hands-on assignments, and proven techniques, this book will show you how to expand your vision and take your photography to the next level.

A practical reference for amateur photography enthusiasts explains lighting fundamentals and how to understand and utilize natural, flash and reflector lighting for stronger and more compelling photographs in a variety of settings. By the author of The BetterPhoto Guide to Digital Photography. Original.

Whether you have a simple point & shoot or a DSLR camera, learning the basics of digital photography can be confusing. With The BetterPhoto Guide to Digital Photography, those mysterious icons, strange jargon, and dizzying array of imaging software and hardware quickly become tools to create great pictures. Illustrated with full-color photos for guidance, this easy, practical, lesson-based workbook gives you a step-by-step tutorial in getting bright, crisp, beautiful pictures from your digital camera every time. "Assignments" at the end of each chapter give you the opportunity to go out and test your new skills in real life. Learn about exposure, file formats and quality settings, low-light photography, digital filters and white balance, composition and lens choice, manipulating images, printing, and much more, all in a handy, bring-along format. Everyone who wants to create great photos needs The BetterPhoto Guide to Digital Photography!

Master composition and design to take your photos from okay to wow You already own the most important photography tool—your creative eye. With this book, you’ll learn how classic design and composition principles can be applied to a wide range of photographic situations to create images with impact. Jim Miotke and Kerry Drager, both veteran photographers and experienced instructors, share time-tested design guidelines, composition techniques, even tips on when to break the rules, that will transform the way you make photographs.

Exposure. It’s essential to producing high-quality photographs, but mastering exposure is difficult. At last there’s a BetterPhoto guide to exposure, packed with BetterPhoto’s signature assignments, diagrams, tips, and illustrations. It’s like a full-scale photography course between the covers of the book–all taught the BetterPhoto way, just like photographers learn at the top photography-instruction site on the web. There’s plenty of information here on both digital and film photography, discussing how different file formats affect exposure, how to adjust digital files, color correction, combining digital exposures, and much more. The author’s stunning full-color photographs make this hardworking guide as inspiring as it is instructive.

From the tiniest ladybug to a towering glacier, from a horse running in a field to a leaf falling slowly from a tree, nature subjects offer some of the greatest challenges and the greatest rewards to photographers. In the BetterPhoto tradition, here’s a complete photo course in a book. Hands-on lessons cover every aspect of digital nature photography, from buying the right camera for close-ups, landscapes, and movement, to understanding how the camera works, to taking great pictures. Author Jim Miotke uses straightforward text and inspiring yet informative photos to show the best ways to approach nature photography. Everything a beginner or intermediate photographer needs to know is here, including a buyer’s guide, full information on camera features, file formats and settings, exposure, low-light photography, filters and white balance, composition and lens choice, creative ideas, manipulating, and printing, along with a glossary and list of useful websites. The Better Photo Guide to Digital Nature Photography helps photographers everywhere get great photos in the great outdoors.

Start taking pictures that are just as cute as they are! Part of the popular BetterPhoto series, this book shows photographers how to get great shots of children of all ages, under any conditions, and with any subject. Learn how to use light, composition, and exposure to help improve photographs, how to capture a moving target and how to develop rapport with even the shyest or most rambunctious child.