35mm Handbook

Rick Franchuk - TranSpecT Consulting, has returned with a book that's a little different then the norm - Michael Langford's 35mm Handbook. For those with the photographic bent, click below to read more about fine-tuning your art. 35mm Handbook author Michael Langford pages 224 publisher Alfred A. Knopf rating 9/10 reviewer Rick Franchuk - TranSpecT Consulting ISBN summary An outstanding reference for beginner-to-intermediate level photographers, with piles of useful tidbits, tricks and techniques.
The Scenario...

My wife Lysa and I recently acquired a new Nikon 35mm SLR camera. It's been more years than I care to think of since either of us took a visual arts course in school, so we felt the best idea would be to go find a book or two that'd bring us back up to speed on how to use the little contraption.

I'll freely admit that Lysa is the more artistic element of our union, and when it comes to things like this I usually just stand back and let her work her magic. True to form, we wandered our separate ways in the bookstore and she came back with this little gem in her hand. I was initially skeptical, based purely on the compact appearance of the handbook (measuring 8" x 5" x 0.5"). It looked more like a video game manual at first glance.

What's Good?

As soon as I opened the handbook, my attitude completely changed. Just standing in line waiting to pay for it I learned a dozen or more factoids that continue to help us make our pictures simply look better. There's an incredible amount of useful tidbits and suggestions, covering nearly every photo situation a person might be faced with.

The book starts out with physical basics: What a camera is, how it works, the differences between SLR (Single Lens Reflex, the kind which you can remove the lenses on) and Compact cameras, the relationships between the amount of light available, aperture size, shutter speed, depth-of-field and so on. It then builds upon those foundations with an examination of appropriate film usage for a general classes of photo situations.

My favorite portions are just beyond the hardware how-it-works sections, moving into suggestions of how to handle specific jobs and overcome common problems. The Tackling Special Projects section contains detailed advice for more than a dozen photographic scenarios (landscapes, portraits, nudes, still life, etc) which have definitely made my shots better, and given me a new appreciation of the work which oft times needs to go into make a truly GOOD picture.

The latter third of the book explores more complex topics and add-on ideas for your camera, specifically flash and lighting usage, buying specific lenses and filters and what they're useful for, and how to round out your camera gear. Most of the information in this area is directed toward SLR camera usage and people aiming at a professional approach to photography.

As an ironic additional bonus, the book size itself is a blessing. It tucks lengthwise into the inner chamber of a standard-size camera bag perfectly, letting us take it wherever we go with the camera. =)

What's Bad?

Only a couple minor annoyances kept this book from being a perfect 10 for me. Although the text within is easy to understand and retain, the layout of the handbook is in a sort of magazine style, with side-bars, picture samples, sub-texts and various other distracting elements. Staying focused on a particular topic can be challenging, as the side-bars are usually filled with yet more interesting factoids that are hard to resist scanning. Similarly, the book seems to shift between single independent pages to where facing pages merge together to make a double-wide 'page', which can also be distracting when you're expecting left-to-right, top-to-bottom text.

Our particular copy also had some misprint glitches (ink obscuring some words, offsets on color pictures that weren't quite on top of each other)... and unless I'm going color blind, there's a couple black and white images associated with discussion about color techniques in the text. Whoops!

So What's In It For Me?

There's a large Aha factor here... that being where you read a section, grok it completely, and exclaim 'Aha!' out loud. You also don't need to be an espresso-sucking, black-jumpsuit-and-beret style artiste in order to enjoy and find this book useful. Even if you're one of the majority of camera owners who pulls it out 4 times a year to snap that obligatory family holiday photo I'd recommend it. Aunt Agnes will have never looked so good.

BEWARE - There's a very good chance that you'll read a section or two of this book and immediately want to run out and try what you've learned. Watch those film and development costs! =)

Buy this book at Amazon.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
2. Cameras
3. Film
4. Solving Picture Problems
5. Tackling Special Projects
6. Flash
7. Accessories
8. Special Effects
9. Reference Charts