Mastering Digital Photography and Imaging

We all remember book reports. As far back as grade school, we were assigned books and then given the task of writing a summary. You remember the formula. There was an introductory paragraph, where you'd introduce the book and provide a short summary of what the book's about. Here's an example:

Mastering Digital Photography and Imaging is a new Sybex book written by Peter K. Burian, who's known as the co-author of the National Geographic Photography Field Guide. This nicely produced book is intended to demystify the world of digital photography and imaging.

So far, this little book report is going just fine. I've introduced the book I'll be telling you about, and I've given you some very basic overview information.

Back in school, most book reports tended to be about fiction, so they'd want you to talk about plot and conflict. Since I'm reviewing a non-fiction book, the plot and conflict aren't about the characters. In this case, they're about the book itself.

Let's think of the book as the main character. If this book were a person, it'd be very handsome or beautiful. In fact, this is a beautifully produced book, with gorgeous pictures and excellent production value, produced on nice, quality paper. It's cleanly organized, covering topics including the camera, printing, imaging, image editing, scanning, and the like.

As the book report moved further into the book, we'd get a better look at the character. As with any good story, it's the inherent conflicts of character that make the story good. In our case, entire movies have been made about the sort of conflict we see here.

Our character is good looking, polite, and presents well. He's like William Hurt's Tom Grunick character in Broadcast News. He's handsome, but something of a lightweight, although he yearns to be more. It's the yearning to be more that presents the basic conflict. Of course, in the movie, the conflict was also very much about William Hurt's rivalry with talented, but not-so-good-looking Albert Brooks for the affections of Holly Hunter.

Fortunately, our book report doesn't have a romantic conflict to explain. Even so, there is an inherent conflict within Mastering Digital Photography and Imaging, one that doesn't do it service.

You see, nice as this book is, it's as much of a lightweight as William Hurt's character was. Like Tom Grunick, the book is quite likeable, and we do recommend it. However, like anchorman Tom, the book wants to be more. It wants to be about mastery.

Sadly, there is no mastery in Mastering Digital Photography and Imaging. This is an overview book. It will give you some great background information, but it will not give you gravitas. Important topics like metering, white balance, and bracketing get a mere one or two paragraphs. The book spends more time on the perennial debate of Windows vs. Macintosh than it does discussing lenses!

And that, like in all good book reports, brings us to the final part of the book report formula: the conclusion. Of course, where we differ as adults writing about products rather than children writing because of a classroom assignment is we have to make recommendations, recommendations that may invite you to spend your money or hang on to it.

So, let's start there. This book is listed at $29.95 in the U.S. Is it worth it? Quite simply: yes. It's a very nice book, especially for someone just starting out.

Our primary gripe is that the book's title is a misnomer. Were the title something like "Understanding Digital Photography and Imaging" or "Getting Started With Digital Photography and Imaging," we'd be able to give it a completely unreserved recommendation. This book, as it stands, has the wrong title. If you're looking for a book about mastering digital photography and imaging, don't buy this book. If you're looking for a gentle and very well-put-together overview on the topic, then this is a fine book for you.