Photography for Beginners Box Set: 2 in 1 (Thomas Reed)

Photography for Beginners Box Set: 2 in 1
(Photography for Beginners Exposed; Photography Composition Uncovered)
Thomas Reed
Afflatus Publishing
Nonfiction, Photography
**+ (Bad/Okay)

DESCRIPTION: Maybe you have a digital camera, but can't seem to get good results - the pictures always look flat or out of focus, too dark or too light. Or maybe you're in the market for a new camera. The author, a working photographer, offers advice and tips, explaining simple photographic terms and discussing how to make the most out of any shot. This box set contains two books:
Photography for Beginners Exposed: Reed explains the difference between camera types, the pros and cons of different lenses, and the meanings of such mystifying yet essential terms as aperture, f-stop, and ISO settings.
Photography Composition Uncovered: Reed discusses the importance of choosing a subject and paying attention to the background, with more on focal length and other subjects.
A Kindle-exclusive title.

REVIEW: These two titles suffer mostly from oversimplification and a lack of tangible examples to illustrate his points. For photography books, there seem to be very few pictures... save when they're advertising other Afflatus titles. Reed also has some follow-through issues; he spends time talking about manual film cameras (by now, more of a specialty item than a common camera that a beginner photographer might consider purchasing), but doesn't talk about different film types, and his discussions of software (as essential to the process today as a darkroom used to be) are virtually nil - instead, he mentions physical filters, which won't attach to the average beginner camera without an adapter... sometimes, not even then. It makes me doubt that he's as photo-savvy as he claims to be, or wonder if he hasn't updated his skills to include modern tools and techniques. I also found the ads intrusive. If you have no other books on the subject and find it as a free download, as I did, it might be worth a look.

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