Jud Dagnall Photography Blog

I recently had the pleasure of meeting Mark Hatasaka, a professional nature photographer and author of two books on digital photography. While both of his books are very impressive and packed with useful information, I was really blown away by his most recent book, “Mark Hatasaka’s Digital Landscape Photography”. Both books are full of stunning images taking with a variety of digital cameras, ranging from compact digitals (which he advocates because of their convenience and use in capturing images other cameras can’t reach) to high end digital SLRs.

What I find most useful about his books is his overall approach to photography, which is to concentrate on the essentials, and focus on
those techniques which will allow you to rapidly progress as a photographer. For example, he advocates what he calls “high volume digital photography”, taking a very large number of pictures, bracketing compositions and exposures, and then carefully examining the results. Digital cameras are an incredible teaching tool, because you can experiment with new techniques, variations and (almost) random chance. By taking a large number of pictures, you become intimately familiar with how your camera responds to a wide variety of situations, you are able to record your photographic thought processes for future reference, and you have a visual record of what works, what ALMOST works, and what doesn’t work at all.

I have typically shot primarily RAW images. Mark advocates shooting highest resolution JPEG images for most landscape and nature photographs, arguing that the advantages of being able to take (and process) 3 to 4 times as many images with the same storage, battery and time requirements outweights the extra security (and detail) provided by a RAW file. Although I continue to pursue my own independent investigation, I have begun trying his techniques and in just the first week had learned more about how my camera handled exposure and depth of field by bracketing (and comparing) multiple hi-resolution jpegs instead of trying to post-process my RAW images in Photoshop.

I highly recommend his books to all serious students of photography. If you are new to photography and are looking for a way to take better pictures quickly, buy his book and follow his techniques. If, like me, you have been honing your skills for a number of years, there are still plenty of jems, and the photos themselves are woth the price of the book. As of this moment, only his first book Digital Nature Photography is available on his site, but if you contact him, I think you can purchase it directly. I also understand that Keeble and Schuchat Photography in Palo Alto, California, carries one or both.

I honestly think that had I gotten his book and began rigorously applying his techniques years ago, I would have progressed much faster as a photographer.