If you're a passionate photographer and you're ready to take your work to the next level, The Enthusiast's Guide book series was created just for you. Whether you're diving head first into a new topic or exploring a classic theme, Enthusiast's Guides are designed to help you quickly learn more about a topic or subject so that you can improve your photography. The Enthusiast's Guide to DIY Photography: 77 Projects, Hacks, Techniques, and Inexpensive Solutions for Getting Great Photos teaches you ingenious, clever, and inexpensive tricks and techniques that will help you shoot great images without breaking the bank. In this book, six chapters are broken down into numbered lessons, with each lesson providing all you need to know to improve your photography. Photographer and author Mike Hagen covers lighting solutions, studio equipment, lens hacks, macro projects, and more. Lessons include: Making a DIY Beauty Dish Making an LED Light Wand Macro Reversible Lens Mount The Trekking Pole Monopod Kitchen Timer Timelapse Head Making Inexpensive Gobos Creating Action Camera Mounts for a Bicycle Written in a friendly and approachable manner and illustrated with examples that drive home each technique, The Enthusiast's Guide to DIY Photography is designed to be effective and efficient, friendly and fun. Read an entire chapter at once, or read just one lesson at a time. With either approach, you'll quickly learn a lot so you can head out with your camera to capture great shots.

Mike Hagen opens up a whole new world to those photographers who are already well versed in photography, but may not have a clue about flash photography. With the new and rapidly evolving technology, flash photography (especially advanced light modeling with modern iTTL flash systems) has become an art in itself and should be mastered by all aspiring photographers-amateurs as well as professionals-who are often helpless when it comes to using the full potential of these systems. Using a simple, step-by-step method for setting up and using the newest Nikon iTTL flash units, Mike teaches all the steps required to achieve consistent and amazing flash photos. He solves the common frustrations associated with flash and teaches readers how to use the SB-500, SB-600, SB-700, SB-800, SB-900, SB-910, and R1C1 strobes. Also included is a chapter showing system configuration so readers can duplicate the desired results on their own. Beginning at a basic level and progressing to more advanced techniques, Mike teaches you everything you need to know about mastering Nikon's iTTL flash system.

In The Nikon Autofocus System, 2nd Edition, photographer Mike Hagen, author of the bestselling The Nikon Creative Lighting System, takes his deep knowledge of Nikon technology and concentrates on its focus features. With today's advanced camera technology, achieving focus on a photographic subject seems like it should be a straightforward task. But many photographers know that it can be deceptively difficult, especially when shooting moving subjects or in challenging situations. Now, there is a complete guide available for Nikon shooters that will help them get tack-sharp photos every time. In The Nikon Autofocus System, 2nd Edition, photographer Mike Hagen, author of the bestselling The Nikon Creative Lighting System, takes his deep knowledge of Nikon technology and concentrates on its focus features. In this book, which covers all current Nikon DSLR models (including the D5 and D500), Hagen fully explains how Nikon autofocus works, including detailed discussions of all the autofocus modules, drive systems, and camera buttons and menus. He also devotes an entire chapter to explore how focus works with Nikon's lenses. Armed with this general knowledge, Hagen then dives deep and offers camera setups, settings, and best practices for specific field techniques that address the photographic genres that are notoriously challenging for focus: action and sports (indoor and outdoor), wildlife (including birds in flight), and macro photography. He also covers genres such as portrait, landscape, underwater, low-light, and street photography. Hagen not only advises on the best ways to set up the camera and focus systems. He gives helpful tips and tricks throughout the book. The Nikon Autofocus System also covers: - Live view autofocus methods and settings - Achieving great focus in video - AF tracking - AF shooting styles, such as back-button AF and shutter-release AF - HDR, panoramas, and other techniques for shooting with a tripod - An entire chapter on additional terms and techniques, such as hyperfocal distance, calibrating lenses, focus and flash phot