Mastering Digital Flash Photography: The Complete Reference Guide (A Lark Photography Book) | 
 enlarge | Author: Chris George
Publisher: Lark Books
Category: Book
List Price: $27.95
Buy New: $15.43
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Avg. Customer Rating:  3 reviews
Sales Rank: 145861
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 160
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.3
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 8.2 x 0.6
ISBN: 1600592090
Dewey Decimal Number: 778.72
EAN: 9781600592096
ASIN: 1600592090
Publication Date: July 1, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Electronic flash not only brings light to a photograph, it can be an important artistic tool—if you’ve acquired the knowledge to use it creatively. To master those skills, digital photographers need only turn to this complete reference. Packed with inspirational photos, it takes the mystery out of flash, covering every type of equipment and explaining such essentials as guide numbers, sync speeds, white balance, and more. Photographers will see how fill flash can decrease contrast and shadows in outdoor portrait photography, understand how to control the light using bounce and multiple flash techniques, and expertly employ high-speed and rear curtain synchronization to create impressive motion-blur images. Everything you need to know is here—including a section on studio flash and computer processing.
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| Customer Reviews:
 Rather an introduction... November 24, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
I have been awaiting this book, as there don't seem to be too many advanced flash books, which are not about studio lighting. Unfortunately, the title is misleading, it is rather an introductory book, introducing all the main concepts in flash (and studio) photograpy, but not going into the details and not giving detailed examples either.
I should mention the photos in the book. Many of them are simply bad. They do illustrate the point being explained, but it would have been so much better to see good photos as examples, together with the details of how they were made.
It may not be a bad book for introducing (or refreshing) flash concepts, but I definitely would not have purchased if there had been an opportunity to look into it...
 Limiting format September 15, 2008
2 out of 5 found this review helpful
I found this book very readable and full of useful information. However, the fixed format of two facing pages per topic is a problem. For some of the topics, such as Inverse Square Law, the author seemed to stretch to fill the alloted area (a nearly full page image on the second page was wasteful), while other technical topics could have used more space. All in all, the book is worth its price, but it left me wanting more on many topics.
Primer July 1, 2008
10 out of 11 found this review helpful
It seems strange that the best book around for a long time about flash photography was published in 1997, before the full scale invasion of digital cameras and super-smart flash units. That's the need that "Mastering Digital Flash Photography" is aimed at filling.
The first chapter deals with basic issues like the nature of the lighting systems available, and the second with the nature of light itself. The author then considers fill flash (the use of flash to supplement ambient light), low light flash and studio flash. The author finishes by discussing computer techniques that can be used to improve pictures captured with flash.
This book serves as an excellent introduction to the subject of flash photography, and will prove extremely useful to the individual with little or no experience with flash. (On the other hand, George does assume that the reader understands basic photography skills like exposure and digital post processing.) However, I sometimes felt that the author generalized a bit too much for an instruction manual and could have placed more emphasis on certain subjects. For example, he quite properly points out that a picture taken with fill flash is the combination of a picture at a slower speed with ambient light and a picture at higher speed with flash. I would have liked him to give more emphasis to the fact that this can sometimes create problems (as well as opportunities) by giving a moving subject blurred edges. I would also have liked to see more emphasis on the use of multiple portable flashes, given the facility for wireless control, like that of Nikon's CLS system, which modern flashes provide.
I also felt that drawing a sharp distinction between portable flash units and studio strobe lights was not necessary. Many of today's portable flash units can easily be used with umbrellas and softboxes specifically designed for them, in a manner similar to the larger, usually more powerful, studio lights, while many of the techniques for using multiple studio lights can also be applied to portable units, even outside of the studio. Yet these connections were not made.
When it came to digital post processing I was pleased to find the author made no attempt to deal with fundamentals. Instead he pointed out how the use of certain tools, with which an experienced Photoshop user would be familiar, could extend the capabilities of flash photography. Some beginning Photoshop users might wish that there was a little more detail on subjects like selective adjustments, but slightly experienced users will get just enough of an indication as to what is necessary.
Nature photographers also use flash, and have special problems and tools like flash extenders that were not dealt with here.
The use of flash is not something one learns from a single book. The more one uses flash, the more one thinks of other useful applications. This book will provide users with a good start. And it's not ten years old.
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