Outdoor Photography Masterclass [Book Review]

There are master classes in everything: from cooking the perfect soufflé to constructing a brick wall. So why not one in outdoor photography?

Ten years ago author Niall Benvie wrote two books on shooting outdoors. He confesses he was relieved after the two years’ labour expended in their creation and, as he says, “retired from writing photography books”. But that didn’t last…

In the intervening years he faced a continuing flow of new ideas, revised his approaches to the subject and made the break from film to digital capture. The new book is assembled on a structure resembling a three day course, with each day broken down into three sections.

Gear preparation is first: the difference between RAW and JPEG; bit depth and its role in capturing smoother tonal transitions; then white balance, colour space and image noise.

A useful chapter on interpreting histograms will settle a lot of arguments and dissipate much ignorance. Benvie makes the point that sensors are better at differentiating between light and dark tones and, unlike our eyes or film, sensor response to light is linear. The message is: don’t trust the LCD, interpret the histogram!

Much of the info in the book will help the more advanced photographer, able to evaluate the different subjects before the lens. I feel it would possibly bewilder the lesser able lensman or –woman.

And Niall: how about an iPod app?

Author: N Benvie.
Publisher: PIP.
Distributor: Capricorn Link.
Length: 176 pages.
ISBN 978 1 86108 679 2.
Price: Get a price on Outdoor Photography Masterclass (currently 33% off at Amazon).