The Nikon Coolpix 950 digital camera is one of the best. If you own one of these cameras and want to get the most from it, here's the book for you. Complete, clear explanations show you how to use this versatile camera's many controls to get much better and more interesting photographs. To get the most from this, or any camera, you need to understand both concepts and procedures; the "whys" and "hows" of photography.
Concepts of photography are the underlying principles that apply regardless of the camera you are using. They include such things as how sharpness and exposure affect your images and the way they are perceived by viewers. Understanding concepts answers the "why" kinds of questions you might have about photography.
Procedures are those things specific to one kind of camera, and explain step-by-step how you set your camera's controls to capture an image just the way you want to. Understanding procedures gives you the answers to the "how" kinds of questions you might have. For example, among the many things you'll see are how to throw the background out of focus, how to keep everything in a landscape sharp, how to avoid or creatively use blur; how to photograph sunrises, sunsets; and how to take pictures at night with city lights, the moon, or fireworks.
This book is organized around the concepts of digital photography because that's how photographers think. You think about scenes and subjects, highlights and shadows, softness and sharpness, color and tone. The procedures you use with the Nikon Coolpix 950 camera are integrated throughout the concepts. They appear in those places where they apply and are described step-by-step. This integrated approach lets you first understand the concepts of photography and then see step by step how to use the Nikon Coolpix 950 in all kinds of photographic situations.
Spotlight customer reviews:
Customer Rating: Summary: Poorly written generic book Comment: I bought this book because Thom Hogan's on the same subject failed to come out when promised last Fall. Curtin's book is nothing more than an adaptation of his book for the 990 which, although shares a lot of features with the 995, it is not the same camera. Pictures on the book are bad. He uses gray scale pictures to demontstrate the camera's color features. It is clear that Curtin used a word processor's find/replace feature to "convert" his book to the 995. Even that was done poorly. You are better off trying and failing while learning to use your camera's features. Reading this book will not get you much closer to knowing much about the 995 than just playing with the camera yourself. After all, you need not pay anyone to develop your pictures! Customer Rating: Summary: Photo Class Manuscript Comment: Mr. Curtin's book looks like it was used at a community college photography class and then zeroxed poorly. The photos are pretty grainy for a book on digital photography. If you are using this book as a resource guide, subjects are hard to find. Granted, Nikon camera guides are often poorly translated and difficult to understand, but this book doesn't clarify a lot of things. For example, I use an off-camera Nikon Speedlight in a lot of my photos, and it took me 6 weeks to figure out how to turn off the built-in camera flash but still fire the external flash. I finally found the answer on the internet. If this book were selling for ..., it might be worth it. Customer Rating: Summary: Some decent info for the beginner, but poorly printed Comment: This book is self-published. In other words, Dennis prints the pages from a laser printer and then binds it. As such, the photos do not look that good. It looks to me like an HP PCL printer driver in the banding/speckling, so the photos look "digitized" and not smooth.
Dennis, switch to a Postscript driver and halftone those graphics and photos. That would make the photos and graphics much smoother in the final print.
Some decent info, but nothing earth-shattering here. I think the poor printing has turned off a number of readers, but the content is still OK, especially if you are a beginner. I have been shooting with SLRs for a while, so I was not that impressed, but it did have a couple of CP950 tips that were valuable.
Customer Rating: Summary: a book for beginners? Comment: Perhaps, this IS really a book for beginners. But, if this is the case, it misses some important stuffs. The most noticeable one is no discussion about playback. The second problem is that it looks like a generic book that fits every digicam. The author(s) could just replace a number of sidebars and instantly make the book for another camera, say Sony 505! So, that means you could read a good basic books on photography and then read the Nikon manual. Third, the discussion on flash is weak. The use of external flashes is not there, although the author(s) did mention slave flashes. However, they failed to point out the disadvantages of using slave flashes. Finally, there is no index, and, as a result, it is difficult for a reader to perform keyword searches.
Nikon did not do a good job in writing a good manual for E950. That manual looks like something written by computer programmers. (You know how bad that type of user manuals are.) The CD version does a better job in terms of providing technical information. Hence, this book still has its value. What I really don't know is how long you will need this book, ;o)). A week? or a month?
By the way, the copy I have was purchased last August. I am not sure if a new version is available.
Customer Rating: Summary: A Short Course in Nikon Coolpix 950 Photography Comment: The book is spiral bound which is about the only high point about it. It describes very basic techniques which are displayed by very poor photos. The worst thing is that there are descriptions of color techniques/problems that are shown in black and white. Don't even bother ordering this book, it is a total waste of time and money.
