Is this really for Photographers?

This isn’t a photography book, it’s not even a field guide, so the question is, is this even useful for photographers? In short, yes, if you’re a serious bird photographer it’s one of the most accessible ways to better understand your subjects.

Most importantly, understanding your subject better can result in better images with less wasted time and effort. For example, if you’re following a developing nest and don’t know the species incubation times you could end up having to check daily to see if chicks hatched. That intermediate time can probably be better used searching for new subjects or working on projects for other clients.

Secondly, there’s trying to capture the peak of action. Many birds display distinctive behaviors while, often these behaviors are great poses themselves, but also they can be key indicators that the peak action moment eminent. Examples of this are the characteristic “stall” Osprey make before diving on a fish. While most of these behaviors can be recognized after enough time in the field, the Sibley Guide to Bird Life and Behavior can give you a wing up.

Organization and Content

The first 120 pages are dedicated to an overview level discussion of birds, bird biology, and common bird behaviors. Sibley does a very thorough job of introducing these topics in an way that’s accessible to someone who’s not a biologist.

The second part of The Sibley Guide to Bird Life and Behavior rest of the book is organized by order (i.e. Pelicans, Eagles, Hawks, etc.). It contains details on 81 (if my count is right) different orders of birds, with each detailed section frequently having more specific details on individual species. The order specific sections are organized similarly to the order of species in The Sibley Guide to Birds, though there are some variations.

Verdict

The Sibley Guide to Bird Life and Behavior is a desk reference. It’s not going to help you identify birds any better, though if you’re seriously into bird photography I’d rank it as the 2^nd or 3^rd book to buy, right after you get your field guides. While it’s not something I’d read to relax, it is the first places I look when I start researching new species or when I want to play out photographing a familiar species. That said, the Sibley Guide to Bird Life and Behavior isn’t a substitute for field time.

Recommended by the Strboist, David Hobby, as the fundamental book on photographic lighting, need I say more?

Let’s get somethings straight, Light Science and Magic is a textbook. It doesn’t try and inspire you to be creative. It doesn’t have inspiring stories of photographic exploits. It doesn’t even tell you what dials to push or turn to change the settings on your lights.

What it does do, is give the fundamentals of how light behaves and how the things you’re photographing will behave under it.

Light Science and Magic is divided into 10 chapters by subject type. Chapter 1 and 2 provide an overview of light and its effects on the images that one might produce. While they don’t cover a whole lot of technical details, they do provide the foundation that is necessary for the rest of the book.

Chapters 3 through 9 are the meat and potatoes of this book. Unlike many photographic books, Light Science and Magic isn’t about setups but about techniques and physics. That is to say, the book never says, “light this scene by placing a light in such and such a location and setting it to f/5.6 ISO 100”. Rather it provides an understanding of the mechanics of light so that the photographer can make up their own mind about light placement for any given scene.

Light Science and Magic uses clearly drawn diagrams to illistrate each concept as it describes it in the text.

That is, in my opinion, a far more useful approach. Consider for example doing copy work. In this area of photography evenness of light is important. Chapter 3 teaches us about the family of angles produced by light reflecting off a surface. From this we can determine based on our lens, subject, working space, and lighting equipment exactly what the best locations for our lights are instead of simply having someone tell us, “put the lights x feet away and 45° from the axis of the lens”, or something similar.

The final chapter covers some basics of hot-shoe flashes, studio lighting, light modifiers, and some of the basics of balancing ambient light with flash. However, not nearly as long as it possibly could be, and there are entire books written on the subject, it does provide enough information to be a push in the right direction

The book itself is well put together with solid coated pages and good quality printing. As of the 3^rd edition, the images are in color. There are diagrams that explain the concepts covered in each chapter. While they are clear and cleaning illustrated, sometimes I think they feel a lot like uninspired textbook diagrams. In addition to diagrams, there are full color photographs that accompany each concept as well. They are well executed and clearly and unambiguously show what they are meant to.

I found this book to be an invaluable tool in learning the principals for manipulating light and dealing with the way light behaves on a verity of subjects and surfaces. What it doesn’t do is tell you what to do once you understand the behavior of light; it doesn’t lay out any recipes for lighting a given subject or type of subject. Then again, there are books dedicated to lighting and composing subjects for just about every field.

I’ve found Light Science and Magic to be an invaluable tool. Once you understand the behavior of light, you can start designing your own lighting setups with less trial and error. That means spending less time on location tweaking the light and more time making useful images and to me that’s always a good thing.

While the Sibley Guide to Birds (reviewed here) may be the ultimate field guide, the National Geographic Complete Birds of North America is the desk reference to go with it. First, this is not a field guide by any stretch of the imagination. It’s larger and heavier than the Sibley’s guide as well as being a hardcover book and not a paperback.

Physically the National Geographic Complete Birds of North America is a well bound hard cover book. My copy came with a printed dust cover featuring a portrait of a Golden Eagle, that mirrors exactly the printing on the hard cover it’s self. The pages are a medium weight coated paper with a matte finish. The printing is clear and readable and the illustrations are usually well reproduced. Though the same complaint I have with the Sibley books I have here which is that sometimes the illustrations are a bit too small to make out all the detail I’d like to be able to see.

The book is setup similar to the Sibley guides, there’s a short–in this case 4-page–introduction covering the basics of bird nomenclature, spotting marks, as well as some information about the diagrams used in the book. From there it immediately goes into the species specific details. This is where the National Geographic Complete Birds of North America separates itself from the Sibley guides and makes it clear it’s a reference not a field guide.

While the Sibley guides are intended for field use with their heavy focus on providing as many illustrations as possible laid out in a fashion that’s easy to search though and only short textual descriptions and notes. The National Geographic Complete Birds of North America is much more verbose, and that’s a good thing. This is what I think is the key to what makes the National Geographic Complete Birds of North America a solid desk reference. There is not only an illustration of the species but also a full textual description of the same along with some information about behavior. I find this immensely helpful, as under many conditions it can be difficult to tell if something is colored buff or light gray, but the text clears that up with out question.

There are some differences in the organization of this book from the Sibley book, though they are very close. I have prepared a PDF showing the differences. In addition, the National Geographic Complete Birds of North America is slightly more comprehensive featuring several species that are not contained in the Sibley guide.

National Geographic, Complete Birds of North America, Open

I find that both guides are valuable references. Actually the National Geographic Complete Birds of North America, is the middle of my 3 book bird reference set. The Sibley Guide to Birds is my first reference, but when I either cannot find a bird or am not completely sure of an identification, I turn the the National Geographic Complete Birds of North America. The final book is the Sibley Guide to Bird Life and Behavior (review coming) which is where I turn when I need more information about the behaviors of a species I’m trying to photograph.

I strongly recommend both books, but if your budget is tight and you can only afford one I lean towards the Sibley Guide to North American Birds or one of the two region specific Sibley guide books first and save this one for later.

Sibley’s filed guides are arguably is the definitive guides for birders, bird watchers and, by extension, bird photographers. There are three Sibley guides targeted at helping bird watchers identify birds. They are The Sibley Guide to Birds, The Sibley Guide to Birds of Eastern North America and The Sibley Guide to Birds of Western North America.

When choosing a Sibley guide, it’s important to understand the organization of the three books with respect to each other. The Eastern and Western guides focus on birds found either east or west of the Rocky Mountains, and omit the species not found in the region they cover, some subspecies and illustrations of some of the less frequently seen plumage variations. This helps to reduce the weight of the Eastern and Western guides quite dramatically, from 2.5 pounds to 1.5 pounds, making them much easier to carry in the field. The Sibley Guide to Birds contains the width and breath of the two smaller guides, and is the book reviewed here.

The first thing that struck me about the Sibley Guide to Birds is that it’s not small or compact by any stretch of the imaginations. The book weighs in the neighborhood of 2.5 pounds, and doesn’t exactly fit in a small bag. It of course can be easily carried in a backpack but it certainly doesn’t fit in the available space in the camera bag (a Domke F2) I normally carry with me. This is definitely the book to keep at home and either take one of the smaller Sibley field guides, or keep in your car–though I have no idea how it would be of any use there. The other alternative, at least if you’re a photographer, is not to carry a field guide and make your identifications from your pictures; though one has to be careful when doing that as much of the behavioral context is lost when working strictly from still images and that is an important spotting characteristic with a lot of species.

The build quality of the book I’d rate as average, it’s certainly not great, but it doesn’t appear as though it’s going to fall apart any time soon either. The binding seems solid and the pages are nicely weighted and are coated with a luster coating. My copy opens fully and easily and lays flat when set down. The pages also tend to lay flat and not turn on their own. I find the text is crisp and very legible and printed with a serif font so it’s easy to read.

Like most field guides, the imagery provided is in the form of illustrations, there is no photography in the book at all, other than Mr. Sibley’s portrait on the inside back cover. Each illustrations are on the order of 1 inch by 2 inches, and there are several per species. They appear cleanly printed, at least well enough to make an identification by. The only complaint I do have is their size, I would love to have seen larger illustrations, but I can understand and appreciate the need to keep them small in order to keep the book’s size manageable.

The first few pages consist of a brief introduction to birding including some field observation techniques, an introduction to filed marks, an overview of the way a bird’s plumage wears and some notes about natural variation and diagrams with nomenclature for referring to the feathers and anatomy of birds.

The introduction quickly gives way to the meat of the book, 514 pages of field marks and notes for each of the 810 species covered. The species are broken down into 45 groups related by shape and family. Each group stars with an overview and comparison illustration of the species covered in that section along with a brief description of general spotting characteristics. The introductory page is followed by the individual species pages. I have yet to discern how the species are organized in a given section or even how the sections are organized as a whole. Additionally there are expanded guides to identifying particularly difficult species placed in the relevant sections.

Each page is headed by a brief notes on the species describe don the page, or spotting differences if they are similar or often confused. This is followed by the common and scientific names, as well as a basic measurements and a short description. The majority of the page is devoted to illustrations of the species, including flying and standing/perching positions as well as variations in plumage. Each species’ description is rounded out with a description of its voice and a map showing its distribution in North America.

Photography books that aren’t clearly textbooks aren’t generally my thing. Even then, there’s so much good information available online that buying a book often seems like a waste of money. Even from that perspective, I’m always looking for new inspiration and new techniques and every time someone recommends a book, I tend to want to check it out—that’s the hopeless optimist talking. More often than not, I’m left leafing though a mediocre book that might have been great if I read it 2 years ago as a total novice but isn’t all that much help otherwise. When the local bookstores fail—and they often do, devoting a single case of shelves to photography—I turn to whatever I can find online; reviews, previews, anything.

I was researching this book when I found a review somewhere that said something to the effect of, “Joe McNally takes a point and distills it in to a single sentence, usually starting with, ‘I had an editor at National Geographic tell me once…’ and then illustrates it in a picture.” Coming from the last book I read and reviewed (The Photographer’s Eye by Michael Freeman, review here) the idea of a simple point illustrated seemed like it might not be a bad change of pace. After all, The Photographers Eye is possibly the most dense book I’ve ever read on photography yet. Based on the reviews and some other recommendations, I decided to take the plunge and order a copy.

It’s worth pointing out; I’ve had a hard time categorizing this book, its part inspiration, part stories and part technique rolled into a single package. Each concept is surrounded by a story that makes the book very easy to read and quite compelling just for the stories alone. In fact, I read my copy cover to cover in 2 hours, before I even started looking at the images and the technique descriptions that go along with most of them.

The trouble I have categorizing this book is mirrored by the trouble I have describing it. It’s clearly divided into distinct chapters, the table of contents tells us as much, but the grouping of topics seems rather arbitrary and scattered to me unlike one might expect. There’s clearly some method to the madness but I’m not yet all that clear as to what it is.

The best description may be what there isn’t. There isn’t is a chapter covering portrait lighting or glamour lighting or the like with detailed diagrams and flash settings, even though those topics are covered. Nor is there a chapter covering composition, framing or how to use a camera, which is probably why I like the book so much. There isn’t even a photo or diagram of Joe contorted into the myriad of seemingly bizarre stances he uses to minimize camera shake.

New Riders, the publisher, have done a lovely job with the production of the book. It’s a soft cover, printed on heavy weight laminated semi-gloss paper, with a seemingly solid binding. The text is clean and legible, though why shouldn’t it be? The photographs appear very well produced as well. Overall, the book is well put together.

If you were looking for an introductory “how to” photography book, I wouldn’t recommend this; nor would I recommend it if you were looking for a text covering a specific subject, like portraiture, or still lives. In fact the strongest thing this book has going for it is the wonderful blend of technique and tale wound together. The writing is easy enough to follow and the techniques are sufficiently explained that one doesn’t have to be an expert at anything to understand the concepts discussed, and anyone interested in the adventures of a working photographer would likely enjoy the stories on their own.

P.s. As you can see from the cover image, I’ve already torn though this book a couple of times, it’s just that good.

I had been looking for a good solid text that explained the what and why of making strong images. The Photographer’s Eye by Michael Freeman is that book. This book isn’t another one of those introductory how to take a better picture books; it doesn’t talk at all about how a camera works or how to change settings or what exposure is. In fact it only touches on technical aspects, like focal length, aperture or shutter speed, when they affect how an image is composed.

Physically the book is solidly put together, it’s a full-color soft-cover book, that feels well bound and solid in the hand. The cover is heavy coated paper, and it’s 192 pages are printed on heavy luster paper. The printing it’s self is clean, sharp and legible, and the photographs are also well reproduced. Overall the book feels solid and well put together, and handles well when reading whether on a table or laying down.

Don’t be mislead by the sub-title, the contents of this book apply to any kind of photography, film or digital. Actually the book doesn’t address anything that’s specific to digital photography or a digital work flow at all. In fact, the techniques presented here can be applied to any style as well, this isn’t a guide to better street, still-life or wildlife photography either. Rather is a guide to understanding how the images themselves work.

The content is broken down into 6 chapters; Image Frame, Design Basics, Graphic and Photographic Elements Composing with Light and Color, Intent and Process. The first four chapters address the graphical design aspects of the image itself. In other words, how leading lines, cropping and color, to name a few, affect the balance, flow and feeling of the image. The last two chapters deal with the photographer’s process and intent and focus more on visual story the photographer is trying to convey and how to convey it.

Each subject is covered by a few paragraphs of text, often no more than a page or two, and several photographs with accompanying illustrations and descriptions explaining how the technique discussed works in each photograph. The text serves as an introduction and overview of each topic and how to use it to affect the feel of an image. The real meat though is in the photographs and accompanying diagrams and captions showing and then explaining how a given technique worked in a given picture. For example in his discussion of dynamic tension, each of the images presented is complemented with a small diagram showing how the shapes and forms in the image draw your eye to create the effect. To get the most from this book one needs to really study the images–they aren’t merely supplementary illustrations but the bulk of the lesson–in addition to just reading the text.

There are few books that I’ve read on photography targeted at helping one improve that I wasn’t either quickly bored with or relegating it bookshelf as a reference book. That wasn’t the case here, though. Not only did I read it cover to cover as well as spending several minutes studying the images and diagrams in each section, but I found myself wanting to go back and re-read it simply because there was so much solid information there. I also recommend not trying to read this book all in one sitting; rather read a few techniques at a time and study the images, then put the book down and ponder what you just covered.

In the end, I strongly recomend reading this book. Especially if you feel your images lack the impact you’d like them to have. Even experianced photographers who know how to make a strong image intuatively can learn something from this, even if only to allow them to be more expressive in how they critique other’s work.