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John Shaw's Landscape Photography

John Shaw's Landscape Photography

List Price: $24.95
Your Price: $17.46
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: An excellent guide -- from "how-to" basics to high art
Review: John Shaw's books are the best I have come across on the subject of "how-to-do" outdoor photography. Shaw is very purposeful in explaining the basics and supporing them with magnificent visual clues. What makes Shaw unique is his ability to intermingle the practical aspects of photography (exposure, equipment, composition) with the artistic vision. His style is entertaining, lucid and very easy to read and follow -- even for novice photographers. I highly recommend this book to amateurs and advanced amateurs who aspire for a higher quality outdoor photographs(to which group I belon as well)!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: full of good suggestions
Review: nice book. covers a lot of subjects. shows that one can do with a simple Nikon good pictures and that one has not absolutely to buy, carry and practice very large format cameras for satisfactory results. it covers my own experience, I do not regret to have this book.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Excellent book for amateur photographers!
Review: Shaw does a wonderful job of 'filling in the gaps' for aspiring amateur photographers like myself. Everything needed for landscape photography - equipment, technique, and vision - is skillfully presented: neither losing the beginner, nor boring the more advanced shutterbug. I highly recommend "Landscape Photography" to anyone interested in landscape/nature photography.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: For beginners, but then ...
Review: The book reasonably covers most of the ground relevant to landscape photography, is acceptably written, well presented and nicely illustrated. On the other hand, it can be tediously long and insubstantial before getting down to what you primarily came to it for, i.e. a clear, thorough, step-by-step discussion of the relevant techniques. Unlike this, the actual treatment is usually loose and shallow, often incomplete even for a basic-level text (e.g. fancy discussing exposure of high-contrast scenes on slide film without a single word about bracketing?), while the total absence of summaries, check lists, and other pedagogic aids greatly detracts from its possible learning and reference value. Plenty of nice pictures, yes, some great (that is, if you like Fuji Velvia's garish colours, which plague the book), and no doubt one can pick some ideas from them. But in a would-be photography manual what you expect from the pictures is, rather than beauty, an effective illustration of the approach and technique alternatives, which is limited in the book, and be provided with full details of at least the more significant shots, whereas here all you are given is lens and film, not even the exposure settings.

All the same, useful book if you do not know about basic exposure, what hyperfocal focusing is, what a polarizing filter does, when to use a tripod, the basic characteristics of various focal lengths, the basic effects of different lighting, basic ..., etc. But then what you actually need is a general photography handbook (see Michael Langford's, for instance), which will do better to your vision and technique overall, including for landscape, through a more structured, systematic and complete coverage of these and other topics.

Conclusion: more an inspiring picture book (three stars for this) than an effective learning tool.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: For beginners, but then ...
Review: The book reasonably covers most of the ground relevant to landscape photography, is acceptably written, well presented and nicely illustrated. On the other hand, Mr. Shaw spends pages for introductions that could be condensed in paragraphs, which can make the book more readable to some, or get on your nerves while you wait him to get down to what you bought the book for, i.e. the relevant techniques stripped down and discussed clearly and thoroughly. And when he finally seems to get there, more often than not he just skims the surface, this time in a few paragraphs where you would expect to see pages. So the book offers lots of words for little substance, it is often shallow and incomplete even for a basic-level text (e.g. fancy discussing exposure of high-contrast scenes on slide film without a single word about bracketing?), could be better structured, more to-the-point and systematic for a manual, and it certainly adds nothing new.

Plenty of nice pictures, yes, some great; that is, if you like Fuji Velvia's garish colours, which plague the book. You can pick some ideas from them, but in this kind of book you judge pictures for their illustrative value rather than their beauty: what you want to see is different alternatives compared for each technical issue discussed, which is often limited or lacking in the book, and be given full technical details of each shot, whereas here you are left even without the exposure settings.

All the same, useful book if you do not know about basic exposure, what hyperfocal focusing is, what a polarizing filter does, when to use a tripod, the basic characteristics of various focal lengths, the basic effects of different lighting, basic composition, basic ..., etc. But then what you need is a general photography handbook, such as Michael Langford's, which through a both more thorough and concise coverage of these and other topics is more likely to improve your technique overall, including for landscape photography. If you are beyond that level, do save your money and look somewhere else.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: A good overview of landscape photography
Review: There are a lot of other photography books out there with the same general content as this book -- an overview of photographic techniques, equipment and the creative process as they relate to landscape photography. Although it is not an outstanding book, it is better than average, primarily because of the clear, direct way in which John Shaw writes, and the practical advice which he provides.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A Conditional 5 Star Rating
Review: This book gets a conditional five stars for reasons I will soon explain.

If you are a novice or intermediate photographer, you want to shoot landscapes, and you want to get only one book, this is the one.

Shaw starts out with the basics of exposure theory and then discusses equipment, film and lenses. The emphasis throughout the discussion here and later is strictly in terms of landscape photography. He moves on to the effects of light, composition and a pot pourri of special problems and solutions.

Shaw is clear, direct and succinct. There is no room for confusion about the points he is making, and he makes all the essential points. No writer gives better instruction. His photographs have been selected not so much to dazzle you with their brilliance as to support his teaching points, although his pictures are beautiful.

So what makes my recommendation conditional?

Well, this book was published in 1994 and there have been several technological changes in photography since then. However, most of what Shaw says here still holds true for landscape photography. What's changed even more is that in 2000 Shaw's book "Nature Photography Field Guide" was published. This later book goes over much of the same material as the landscape book, while taking into account the latest technology. It even uses some of the exact same anecdotes to illustrate points.

The difference between the two books is that one looks at just landscape photography while the other looks at the more encompassing class of nature photography. The Field Guide contains a long chapter on close up photography which may not interest the landscape photographer, while the landscape book aims each chapter exclusively at landscape with slightly more detail.

Most of us aren't exclusively committed to landscape so the Field Guide seems like a better choice if you insist on only one book. But if you're like me, you'll get both books. If you're serious about landscapes the slant of the earlier book might just give you that slight edge to make a better landscape photograph.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: John shaws Landscape Photography
Review: This book give precise and thoughtfull insites on both the technical and creative methods used to produce superior landscapes. There are numerous excellent examples. He does not get bogged down with technical trivia. I would definitly buy this book, it is a bargain. Its only shortcoming is not having a section on digital cameras that are taking over much of the market. These cameras allows instant feedback on photo results including histograms that remove all the guesswork and waiting to get film developed.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Excellent Book but without Exposure readings
Review: This book is great. John Shaw has explained every bit of photography with emphasis on Landscape. The only thing missing in this book is Exposure readings - Shutter speed and Aperture with each photographs. Otherwise book is really informative. The photographs are really excellent.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: An Must Read for Any Serious Nature Photographer
Review: This book is the most extensive and thourough collection of techniques as well as some of the most beautiful images of nature I have ever seen. If you ever had any doubts or questions on how to properly work your camera, develop interesting images or even how to find the perfect images in nature than this book is for you.


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