David Noton - Photography in the RAW DVD

David Noton - Photography in the RAW DVD Review

Runtime: 100 minutes, Format: PAL UK 16:9.

David Noton is a professional award winning landscape and travel photographer. His first DVD called “Chasing the light” looked at the essentials of landscape photography. This second DVD “Photography in the RAW” continues where the first DVD left off, and looks to improve and challenge your photography with practical examples in a variety of locations and shooting subjects.

The DVD is split into four main sections: Home patch, Interests, Foreign Adventures, Roots. Each section covers a number of different subjects including shooting at dawn, dusk, shooting infra-red, shooting a ship, shooting abroad, shooting people, fireworks, macro and capturing the moment such as interesting sights while travelling to and from a location. You can also play the whole DVD from beginning to end.

He also explains the variety of lenses used in landscape photography from extreme wide-angle, fish-eye, tilt and shift lenses, zoom, telephoto and the use of tele-convertors, and extension tubes (for macro). As well as camera techniques, such as exposure compensation, use of HDR (for extension of dynamic range, not extreme HDR – he's not a fan), creating panoramas, different metering modes explained with recommendations, reducing lens flare, and backup procedures / memory card management.


David Noton is an interesting person to watch, with a easy to understand use of language, and the techniques and examples he demonstrates are clearly explained, with the use of live view from the actual camera when needed showing what the changes being made look like. For example when using a graduated neutral density filter, David will slide it into position using live view, and you can see on screen the effect it is having. The delivery is very good, and there are some elements of humour although they seem a little forced, and slightly unnecessary as David's content is very interesting without, and the subjects and locations are interesting and entertaining to watch.

The DVD is a great way to learn basics of landscape photography, and also answers some of the “hot questions” like: “How important is the actual camera?”, “What to pack in the bag?”, “How to get sharp shots using a tripod?”, “How to use Hyper Focal distance” and “How to use the histogram, for maximum tonal range and detail?” - The DVD format is a great way to visually learn some of the techniques, and seeing them in action makes it very easy to learn quickly, as some of the techniques may take a lot longer to read about on the internet or from a book.


At the end of each section, the DVD gives an overview of each location, and shows the best shots, the camera settings, and how he got them. It's not all perfect though, he will also show examples of when the photos aren't working, and there's a few times when he's visited sites and the light or situation just hasn't worked. It's nice to know that professional photographers have to work with the same light and weather as the rest of us. David explains how a little bit of planning, checking the area, determination, and persistence can result in great photographs.

Photography in the RAW DVD Verdict:

The David Noton DVD has got it all, you can learn so much in one DVD without being overloaded with too much information, and the visual form of learning, with the direct (from camera) live view demonstrations makes it very easy to learn. The DVD is excellent value for money, considering the amount of information that can be learned from it. Highly Recommended!

Note: David Noton's 'Photography in the RAW' is now available in full High Definition BluRay.

Photography in the RAW features a huge variety of locations and photography tips, making the DVD extremely useful for anyone wanting to improve landscape photography.

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Photography in the RAW is available for £19.99 from DavidNoton.com.