Bill Frakes, Sports Illustrated photographer, documents his experience photographing the 2009 Super Bowl. Includes example images and links to Super Bowl photography.
If you aren't sure what to get your photographer dad, we've got you covered with ideas ranging from equipment and photo storage to a formal critique or cool shades, in a price range from $25 to over...
When photographing a wedding, don't forget the details: the scene setters. Celebrity wedding photographer, Donna Newman, shares key tips to shooting these key non-portrait wedding shots.
Kodak Professional Photoguide by Eastman Kodak staff members,
1996 Silver Pixel Press. ISBN 0-87985-798-6. 56 pages. You can order this book
from amazon.com
.
If you
had this book, which you'd find in virtually every professional photographer's
camera bag, you wouldn't need to ask any questions in the
photo.net Q&A Forum. In fact, the
Kodak Professional Photoguide contains virtually all the information
that you'd get in a one-year photography course.
Confused about exposure? The last page is an 18% gray card. Hold it up in the
same light as your subject, meter off the card and you'll get the correct
exposure regardless of subject reflectance. Can't remember how to use a meter?
See page 19. Too dark for your meter? Turn to the existing light exposure dial
and turn until the film speed is across from "moonlighted snowscapes -- full
moon".
Worried that your 20 second exposure will induce reciprocity failure in Royal
Gold 25? Turn to the film data section and you'll see that no reciprocity
correction is required. [Sadly, the film data section contains no information for
Fuji products.]
The section on
filters for color temperature control in color photography and contrast control
in black & white photography is extensive and probably a little overly
technical for most people. Still, there is a decent half-page summary of what to
do to control sky and cloud appearance in B&W.
Flash
photography is covered in detail and equipped with an elaborate computer wheel.
More useful are the two pages devoted to fill flash. Especially clever is the
idea of fooling an old automatic flash into performing as a fill flash by
misleading it as to the f-stop that has been set (or alternatively as to the film
speed).
Lens selection across formats from 35mm through 8x10 (but not APS) is
facilitated with a chart showing magnification and field angle for different
focal lengths. Three depth-of-field calculators serve to assist those working
with medium format and view cameras but unfortunately omit the 35mm format.
Kodak's explanation is that 35mm lenses come with depth-of-field markings next to
the focusing ring but of course this ignores the increasingly popularity of
unmarked zoom lenses over the last 15 years.
All formats get equitable treatment as far as close-up photography goes. There
is a calculator wheel showing necessary exposure corrections at varying
magnifications plus a couple of pages of optical equations.
The Kodak Professional Photoguide concludes with a concise
appendix on perspective control with view cameras and 35mm cameras and a few
checklists for location photography.
A bit of a rant:
I agree that every serious photographer will want
to (and should) own a copy of the _Kodak
Professional Photoguide_, but it seems to me that
Kodaks writers should consult some of Edward
Tuftes work and put the guide through a serious
revision. This clearly seems like a case where
Kodaks offering is the standard simply because it
was the first and is still, to the best of my
knowledge, essentially the only such guide
available. Several of the wheels and dials seem
unnecessarily cluttered (how many people still use
flashbulbs?) and just plain ugly (e.g. the dials
in the "camera lenses" section). Further, a lot
of the information, while useful, isnt
necessarily something I need to have with me in
the field for ready reference (e.g. "How to Clean
a Lens," "Caring for Film"), which brings me to
my final complaint: I cant see why the book
needs to be as big and heavy as it is. When I
started out in photography, I used a 35mm
rangefinder, an old Weston meter, and a Kodak
Professional Photoguide my father bought sometime
in the 1960s. As I recall it, the old book was
attractively produced, perfectly legible, had
essentially the same amount of *useful*
information, and was less than half the size of
the current version you could stick it in your
shirt pocket and not think twice about taking it
everywhere. And I did. I cant say the same
about the latest one. Perhaps in attempting to
please everyone Kodak has produced a book only
large-format specialists could love. Maybe Fuji
could do it right?
A friend recently pointed me to the FotoSharp
Quick Reference Field Guides being sold at
.
They are clearly not a replacement for Kodaks
offering, but some look like they might be useful.
Has anyone any comments on these?
Kodak does publish a smaller version of the
Kodak Professional Photoguide ("Pro Guide"
hereafter): the appropriately titled Kodak
Pocket Photoguide (Kodak Publication No.
AR-21; ISBN 0-87985-609-2). It is indeed about
half the size of the Pro Guide and has slightly
simplified version of most of the dials and
computers in the larger version. It is strongly
weighted toward 35mm photography (the
depth-of-field dial covers 135 format lenses) and
doesn't even try to tackle large format. There is
no gray card in the Pocket Guide however.
My copy is a minor revision from 1991 so it
seems a bit out of date compared to the 6th
edition of the Pro Guide (the latest one with the
blue cover), but there's nothing wrong with what's
in the Pocket Guide or my older 5th edition of the
Pro Guide.
While the Pocket Guide isn't going to win Tufte
style points, it is a reasonable pocket companion
to the Pro Guide.
I guess all of the photographers in the Las Vegas show photograph were using their copies of AVN and Hustler for photographic reference....
Sorry, I couldn't help myself.
The Kodak Professional Photoguide, though thought out and certainly helpful in my humble opinion cannot stand close or even compare favorably to the one I obtained when I attended the Nikon School. This field guide far surpasses the Kodak guide with useful information that is more in line with current technologies. I like useful information and, though I do recommend the Kodak Photoguide, I personally carry the Nikon Field Book which I would not surrender or loan to anyone... ya want it?... go sit for a day at the Nikon School and learn something useful.
The Nikon Field Book and Nikon Field Guide are two different animals. The Field Book, as far as I can tell, is only available as a text at The Nikon School. It is closer to the Kodak Professional Photoguide than to the Nikon Field Guide.
And speaking of the Photoguide, boy has it gotten pricey now that it appears to be out of print. I'm just glad I remembered mine, tucked inside the pocket of my LowePro bag with my film cameras. Retail for the Sixth Edition (1998) was $29.95 when I bought it, and now on the used market it's hard to find for under $100.
I know this comment thread died, oh, ten years ago, but if anyone is still reading, Lark Books has updated this book to this newest version: KODAK Digital Photoguide. It still contains the best of the film book version, but now these technical applications are applied to digital. Definitely worth checking out.
