Digital Photography Hacks: 100 Industrial-Strenght Tips & Tools
Digital Photography Hacks is one of those neat little books that has a lot of really usable tips and tricks
for taking digital pictures. In my opinion, amateur and experienced photographers can probably get useful
information from the book. The book is not an instruction manual for photography. It is a collection of
helpful tips for doing common tasks. As the author states,
"Here, hack is defined as a clever solution to an interesting problem."
The book starts with a chapter about photography gear. My first impression was that the chapter was going
be of little interes to me. Once I started reading, I learned quite a bit. It is a fairly short chapter
but covers a few really nifty types of equipment that, while inexpense, can really give you a lot of
bang for your buck.
Chapters 2 through 4 contain tricks for daytime pictures, nightime pictures, and use of the flash. There
are some pretty great hacks in these chapters. For example, in the daytime chapter, the author covers
the use of pantyhose as a diffusion filter! One of the hacks in the nighttime chapter is how to
photograph fireworks. I used some of this information recently to take my first ever decent pictures at
a fireworks show! I still need a little practice but I was finally able to actually capture some great
shots of some of the fireworks.
Chapters 5 and 6 cover what you can do on the computer with your pictures. Chapter 5 discusses a broad
range of topics like picture file size and resolution and making slide shows with your pictures. Chapter
6 discusses post processing using Adobe Photoshop. There are some great tips here to help fix those "less
than perfect" shots, like those that are too dark or too light.
Chapters 1 through 6 all require the photographer to have a camera. But what happens when you are in the
woods without your camera and bigfoot walks right in front of you. If you have your camera phone and have
read chapter 7, you are covered. Chapter 7 covers camera phone hacks!
Finally, chapter 8 puts all the pieces together and covers weekend projects like scrapbooks and coffee
table photo collections. For all the crafty photographers, this chapter a great source of ideas and
information.
There are a lot of how-to books. I find that most of these types of books are hit and miss. Sometimes you
find one that has a lot of good information. Other times, you realize that after reading it, you have
actually lost information! Digital Photography Hacks, on the other hand, doesn't try to teach digital
photography. It contains 100 truly usable "hacks" that you can use immediately. You can read it in any
order, or just skip to those hacks that you need at the moment. You get 100 hacks in 298 pages and a
reference book you'll use over and over! Have fun!