{"id":5217,"date":"2009-08-30T22:41:35","date_gmt":"2009-08-30T14:41:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chekyang.com\/musings\/?p=5217"},"modified":"2010-01-14T15:35:21","modified_gmt":"2010-01-14T07:35:21","slug":"lonely-planet-wildlife-travel-photography","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/2009\/08\/30\/lonely-planet-wildlife-travel-photography\/","title":{"rendered":"Lonely Planet: Wildlife Travel Photography"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"blog-wildlifephoto-book\"I finally set aside some time over Sunday evening to begin reading the second of two photography books I\u2019d bought from Kinokuniya during the 20% members discount a week ago<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Lonely Planet<\/em> has a couple of photography-theme books. I like them for a few reasons: they\u2019re slightly cheaper than similar books from other publishers, the pictures in them are invariably annotated (more on this later), and most importantly \u2013 the books are novel sized. As much as I enjoy reading Tom Ang\u2019s How to Photograph Absolutely Everything<\/a><\/em>, hard cover books of that size just aren\u2019t much fun bringing around to read when I\u2019m eating dinner alone at Kopitiam.<\/p>\n

I found Wildlife Travel Photography<\/em><\/a> by Andy Rouse a good read. The author has certainly traveled widely, and the book is broken down into many chapters, and then into bite-sized sections. Not essay-like like Joe McNally\u2019s The Hotshoe Diaries<\/a><\/em> whose author uses a writing style that doesn\u2019t appeal to me.<\/p>\n

All the pictures in this book are annotated with equipment identified: the SLR and the lens used, alongside shutter speed, aperture, and ISO settings. What I like even the more was that the annotations also note the location where the picture was taken, and the full name of the animal or critter in the picture.<\/p>\n

The little descriptions finally also include the author\u2019s explanations of challenges he faced in taking each picture and how he got through them. Some of those anecdotes elicited chuckles from me, like one picture he took in which his subjects – inquisitive wild dogs at a South African private game reserve \u2013 bit the DSLR he\u2019d mounted to take remote-trigged pictures, leaving teeth marks on the wireless transmitter unit.<\/p>\n

That said, there\u2019s also lame humor, as though Rouse is trying hard to be cute when writing. E.g. when describing the usefulness of angle finders, he says<\/p>\n

“It (an angle finder) allows the camera to be flat on the ground without you having to be, which is great for those tuxedo-wearing photographers out there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Duh. The humor works better when it\u2019s part of a situation he encountered taking pictures.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve got a couple of other little gripes I\u2019ll make a mention here.<\/p>\n

Firstly, there\u2019s some incongruity between the book\u2019s intended audience and the kind of equipment that non-professionals are likely to use. Rouse makes no bones about the value of expensive glass. Ok I get that; but not everyone has the moola to own a 500mm f4<\/a> \u2013 which costs a very cool USD5.8K. If this book is written with advice and ideas pitched at entry-level enthusiasts, then I think the author should have provided more material advising non-professionals how best to maximise their consumer-grade equipment to take the best pictures. Like what Tom Ang did in his Absolutely Everything<\/a><\/em> book.<\/p>\n

Secondly, the book was published 3 years ago, and there\u2019s a bit of information in it that isn\u2019t as correct as it once was. Not the author\u2019s fault of course though. But still\u2026 for instance, Rouse discourages the use of laptops for field use and makes a pitch for portable photo storage devices.<\/p>\n

But 2006 was before netbooks came about, which has made photo storage devices look so yesteryear. Netbooks are cheaper, have better and larger displays, bigger storage space, potential photo-editing abilities, better battery life \u2013 and most importantly, don\u2019t cost an arm and a leg. Just take a look at the Epson P-7000<\/a> photostorage device. It costs USD740. For that money, you could get two<\/em> netbooks that can do everything the P-7000 does, and better <\/em>too.<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

Still, I\u2019m happy with this purchase, considering that it costs just SGD24 for a good read that I can bring along with me. I\u2019ve got another Lonely Planet<\/em> photography book on order, and this time it’s the new edition of Richard I\u2019Anson\u2019s Travel Photography<\/a><\/em>. Hopefully the next one\u2019s just as good.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I finally set aside some time over Sunday evening to begin reading the second of two photography books I\u2019d bought from Kinokuniya during the 20% members discount a week ago. Lonely Planet has a couple of photography-theme books. I like<\/p>\n

Read More Lonely Planet: Wildlife Travel Photography<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,8,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-at-home","category-books","category-photography-cameras","wpcat-6-id","wpcat-8-id","wpcat-13-id"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5217","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5217"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5217\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}