The Textbook of Digital Photography (2^nd edition)

This comprehensive, almost encyclopedic, illustrated and animated text on all aspects of digital photography is used in hundreds of schools. As shown in the contents below it introduces you to the entire panorama of digital photography, from buying a camera to hanging your photos in a gallery or posting them on a Web site. There has never been a more exciting time to be learning about photography, or a more interesting book to learn from! This text is available as a traditional 294 page large-format (8.5 by 11) spiral bound book printed in black and white with 16 pages of color, and as a full-color, fully searchable PDF eBook you can order on a CD. The eBook version is a powerful teaching and learning tool because embedded in its pages are 90 clickable links that integrate animations, movies, audio, other documents, and links to Web sites that bring to life the core concepts of digital photography.

• Digital cameras and digital images (Chapter 1)
• Digital workflow (Chapter 2)
• Camera controls and creative photography (Chapters 3-6)
• Flash and studio lighting (Chapter 7-8)
• Sharing and displaying digital images (Chapter 9-10)
• Exploring beyond the standard still image (Chapter 11)

• I've looked over all the books available, and have found yours to be most impressive.
• I have read several chapters ... and I am very impressed, the scope of it is amazing and very thorough and well-written.
• Your materials are wonderful!

• Photography by Upton & Upton (now London, Upton, Kobre, and Brill) was drawn from the Life Library of Photography and has dominated the introductory college course in photography since its publication. A beautifully done but very expensive book.
• Photojournalism by Ken Kobre has been the leading college textbook in photojournalism for a number of years now.
• The Darkroom Handbook, my first book, immediately became a standard in the field and remains in print after 30 years.

Preface

Just as digital images make it easy to integrate photos into many of the other things we do, digital technology makes it easy to add cameras to other devices. One of the current trends is to embed cameras into cell phones and other mobile devices. With just a push of a few buttons, you can snap a picture and immediately e-mail it or post it on a Web site. It won't be long before there are digital cameras everywhere, all the time. What impact this will have on our photography remains to be seen, but if history is any indicator, people will soon be discovering practical, creative, and even artistic ways to use these new tools.

Although it's both the immediacy and flexibility of digital photography that has made it so popular, there is one aspect that is rarely mentioned. This is the new freedom it gives you to explore creative photography. In the 1870s when William Henry Jackson carried 20 x 24 glass plate negatives around the West on a mule, you can bet he hesitated before he took a photograph. He had to set up a darkroom, coat a glass plate, expose the image, develop the negative and then take down and repack all of the gear. We may not be carrying window-sized glass plates, but you and I also hesitate before taking a picture. We're always doing a mental calculation "is it worth it?" Subconsciously we're running down a checklist of costs, times, effort, and so on. During that "decisive moment," the image is often lost or we fail to try new things. We lose the opportunity for creative growth and choose to stay with the familiar that has delivered for us in the past. Surprisingly, Jackson had one big advantage we've lost over the last century. If an image didn't turn out, or if he was out of glass plates, he could just scrape the emulsion off a previously exposed negative, recoat the plate, and try again. Digital photography not only eliminates that nagging "is it worth it?" question, it also returns us to that era of endlessly reusable film (and we don't need a mule to carry it). Hand the camera to the kids, take weird and unusual angles, shoot without looking through the viewfinder, and ignore all previously held conceptions about how to take photographs. You may be surprised at the photos you get if you exploit this new era of uninhibited shooting.

"When 35mm was in full flower in this country-in the miniature's golden Thirties-photographers in the new medium became "experts" overnight, full of tall talk about small grain and big enlargements. They had to, in self defence, for in those early days of the miniature it seemed important to be technically hep, at least in conversation. Never mind the pictures! In spite of much hokum, much good came to the surface, survived the babel and exerted an influence that has since benefitted all photography."

Contents

Using this Text in the Classroom

• Timeliness. Since large quantities of inventory aren't required, materials can be revised and updated as needed instead of on a fixed schedule every 2 or 3 years. In a rapidly evolving field such as digital photography these frequent revisions are often required to keep materials up to date.
• Distribute and print. Textbook publishers work on a print and distribute basis. This means they take enormous risks, tie up millions of dollars of capital, and bear marketing, sales, warehouse, shipping, and billing costs. All of these costs are passed on to students or their parents. The emerging model, used by this eText, is called distribute and print. Using this model, materials are distributed around the world electronically and then printed where needed.
• Print on demand. Instead of printing large quantities, the print on demand model is to print materials only when needed-in this case students and instructors only print the pages or chapters that are being studied at the moment. No one has to carry a backpack full of books, and if materials get lost or damaged, you just print another copy.
• Linked learning resources. The eText edition of this text acts as a central hub connecting you to other learning resources on the Internet. Throughout the eTextT you can click buttons to access resources stored on the PhotoCourse.com Web site. To access these resources you need an Internet connection.
  • Animation buttons link to over 80 animations. If you are using the print edition of this text you can access the animations at www.photocourse.com/itext/pdf/pdf.pdf.
  • Extension buttons link you to PDF files or Excel worksheets that expand on the topic in which you find them.