Our Books

First proofs of Complete Digital Photography 9 have arrived!

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We hit an important milestone this week with the 9th edition of Complete Digital Photography: we received the first proof copy of the book from our printer, and it looks great!

In the last couple of weeks, we prepared the first half of the book to be printed as a test. We wanted to check the general layout, making sure the margins were correct and the fonts readable. We also wanted to get a sense of the look and feel of the book in its new, slightly larger, format. Plus, since it is a book about photography, we also wanted to make sure that the images looked good when printed on our chosen paper type.

Overall, we’re very pleased. The cover looks awesome, and the feedback we’ve gotten from others is that it’s clean and readable inside, with a good balance of images and text. It’s a great feeling to see the physical fruits of something that you’ve worked on for so long, and know that you’re getting closer to the finish line.

We should have the 9th chapter of the upcoming book available as a free download in the next few weeks. If you’re a subscriber to the blog, we’ll let you know as soon as it’s ready. If you’re not a subscriber, it’s quick and easy to sign up for our low-volume mailing list. (You’ll also get the first shot at the book when it’s released in December.)

Complete Digital Photography proof copy is inFor more information about the book, check out the Complete Digital Photography 9 video update from Ben Long.

Ben Long: looking at photos with a fresh eye

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Ben remains hard at work on the 9th edition of Complete Digital Photography (“chained to his desk,” says Rick.) And yet, he still found time to send us a short video about how the creative process of publishing — i.e. the “slog” — informs his photographic work, even when he can’t get out and shoot.

It’s all about looking at your photography with a fresh eye.

Setting your work aside

Ben’s observation, that we could see our work in a different way by setting it aside for a while, is a good exercise. It can separate you from the moment you took the shot, giving you an alternative process for analyzing your photos. (Mixing things up from time to time is also a great way to give you a fresh perspective on your photography.)

While we were working on this post, we learned, sadly, that one of photography’s great practitioners of the “set your work aside” school, Henry Wessel, had passed away recently. Wessel was one of the more interesting photographers of the past 50 years, obsessed with the light — and the sense of place — of the West in all its forms. Part of the infamous “New Topographics” movement of the mid-1970s, Wessel was well-known for developing a roll of film, printing a contact sheet, and sticking it in a drawer for a year. We loved this quote from the New York Times obituary:

“If you let some time go by before considering work that you have done, you move toward a more objective position in judging it,” he said. “The pleasure of the subjective, physical experience in the world is a more distant memory and less influential.”

Give it a try. And, while you’re at it, don’t forget to sign up today for updates to Complete Digital Photography. Get sample chapters, discounts, free ebooks and more.

Complete Digital Photography 9 video update from Ben Long

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Ben Long sent us a short video update from his top-secret writing lair. He tells us that is working hard to finish the 9th edition of his Complete Digital Photography book. Well, mostly…

If you would like to find out more regarding the next edition, check out our recent post, Update on the 9th edition of Complete Digital Photography. To stay informed about updates, sign up for our upcoming books list, and we’ll let you know when the book is available. We will also send information on free sample chapters, book discounts and much more.

Hudson’s Advanced Panoramas course

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Mount Adams, from Trout Lake, Washington.
Mount Adams, Trout Lake, Washington. ©Hudson Henry Photography

Last fall, when we released Hudson Henry’s Panoramas Made Simple, it was our intent to offer a companion volume, Advanced Panoramas, designed for photographers who wanted to go beyond the basics and create complex panoramas. In the end, Hudson and I decided that the advanced course made more sense as a video series than an ebook. (There will be extensive written cheatsheets to go along with the videos, however.).

Hudson is working on that course now, and he anticipates that it will be available in the fall of 2018. Here’s what he says about the new course:

The advanced course is for the photographer who wants to create complex, multiple-row and other specialty panoramas; ones that require extreme precision during the capture process. It will cover the equipment necessary for building these advanced panoramic images and how to calibrate your camera and lenses. It will also offer more advanced editing techniques utilizing Photoshop and other powerful software. 

If you purchased Panoramas Made Simple, we’ll let you know when Hudson’s course is ready. If you didn’t purchase the book, and have been waiting for the advanced course, the best thing to do is register over on Hudson’s website; he’ll keep you up to date on that course, as well as any other cool things he’s doing.

[If parts of this post look familiar, I apologize. I posted a small bit about this at the end of the item about the upcoming 9th edition of Complete Digital Photography, but it appeared to have gotten lost in the shuffle, hence the repost.]

 

Update on the 9th edition of Complete Digital Photography

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UPDATE (December 2018): The ninth edition of Ben’s Complete Digital Photography is now available. You can find out more on our CDP9 book page, or, you can order the book directly from Amazon.

We’ve had a few requests recently for information on the status of the 9th edition of Ben Long’s Complete Digital Photography, so it seemed to be the right time for an update.

While I really do wish that the new edition was finished and ready for sale, I can tell you that the book’s production is well underway. Ben has been diligently working on the book for a while now, and I’ve started on the editing and the design side. The biggest challenge for Ben has been the change in the postproduction landscape since the 8th edition, which has meant that most of those chapters need to be rewritten from scratch.

Read more

Panoramas Made Simple—now available

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Panorama ebook: Patagonia pano

We are excited to announce the release of our latest ebook, Hudson Henry’s Panoramas Made Simple. Hudson has a deep passion for panoramic photography, a legacy that goes back to the days of film, when he worked to translate his vision of the landscape in front of him into large digital print. Since then, Hudson has become a master of the panorama, and in this book, he shows you how easy it is to ditch your camera’s ‘auto’ mode and create stunningly beautiful panoramas that capture the grandeur of our world—and without needing to buy special pano gear:

The first panoramic photograph I remember seeing was a series of overlapping Kodak prints that my cousin laid out on his kitchen table to show the incredible view from atop a peak in the Pacific Northwest. I was amazed at the scale of the combined scene: it was big, with an ultra-wide angle, and highly detailed. Today, with the advent of digital cameras and sophisticated editing software, we can leave the kitchen table behind and easily merge individual digital photographs into high-quality, seamless panoramic mergers.

You don’t have to invest a lot of money in gear to create panoramas. You can begin using the simple panoramic techniques I cover in this book without purchasing any specialty camera gear whatsoever. If you have a decent tripod, that will help, but you can also create shockingly good panoramas without one. With some care, you can even capture surprisingly good panoramas with nothing but a smartphone.

Panorama ebook: Golden Gate bridge

Panoramas Made Simple is richly illustrated with gorgeous examples of Hudson’s panoramas, and includes helpful tips on shooting in the field, as well as the best ways to assemble your panoramas on your computer (with Adobe Lightroom Classic, Photoshop or ON1 Photo RAW).

The book is available now in the CDP bookstore as a free download.

Click the gallery below to see the introductory chapter, or you can download a sample PDF of the introduction and the first chapter free via this link.

Panoramas Made Simple
Introduction to Panoramic Photography
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