Camera Labs

I've searched this site on reviews about books on photography. So far I've stumbled across many requests on book recommendations, but most of them never yielded much useful information. Plus, they're scattered all over this forum.

Most book reviews on amazon weren't helpful either, as people seem to focus only on what they didn't like. My personal favorites so far: "Didn't like the book as the photos featured inside don't look spectacular." and "Must buy!" Okay, if that is your opinion, so feel free to state it, but what about the book's content in terms of information? Did it help you improve your photography? Was it shallow and you didn't gain any new insights?

Please share your honest opinion with us, so I and everybody else can stop mass ordering books for selection and then return all of them as they don't meet our needs.

John and Barbara Gerlach - Digital Landscape Photography (Focal Press)

Content:
- Gear for landscape photography (e.g. filters, tripods, lenses)
- How to obtain sharp pictures (e.g. tripod, metering modes)
- Basics on exposure
- Qualities of light or when's the best time to shoot your pictures
- Camera settings for landscape photography (White balance, metering/exposure modes)
- Composition (e.g. rule of thirds, level the horizon)
- How to take HDR images
- How to make panoramas

Pros:
If you are totally new to landscape photography, haven't read Gordon's lens guide or watched his video tutorials or just want a quick overview on the basics of landscape photography this might be the book for you. The book is very easy to read from the beginning to the end, but it's also no problem if you jump from back to front according to your own interests. I liked very much that the authors put a stress on how to take pictures optimally with your camera. They're not much into post processing and neither am I, so except for the two chapters on panoramas and HDR images, post processing is not a topic in this book.

Cons:
It seemed to me that most of the book is about the acessories you need for landscape photography and the advantages they give you and how to properly use them. So there is a tutorial on how to use a tripod, the advantages and disadvantages of different tripod heads, or how to use a polarizer... Again, if you've browsed this forum, read some reviews and watched some of the tutorials, this is nothing new to you. The pictures are not stunning, but still nice to look at and illustrate nicely the points discussed in the text. This is definitely not a book designed for your coffee table.

It's a nice read, but probably something you'd like to check out from your local library rather than buying it.