The Photographer's Guide to Acadia National Park: Where to Find Perfect Shots and How to Take Them

This is a nicely comprehensive listing of locations in Acadia National Park and surrounding areas. The book contains some useful "pro" tips to get the most out of a location, although most of these are catering to the less experienced photographer. I liked the vivid verbal descriptions of some of the views to be expected.However, I would find it infinitely more useful to see a picture for each location right where it is described. Many of the locations have a picture associated, but not all of them and for a photographer's guide, the author should heed to the rule that a picture is worth a thousand words. Many locations are described in detail and there are up to two images on that page, but none for the location described. If space was a concern, I would prefer to see smaller photos throughout, but for all locations. Looking up images on Flickr or Google should not be a requirement when reading this book.The book is also heavily promoting golden hour photography. Whereas that is the epitome of landscape photographers, there are people who don't do mainstream landscapes and rather focus on other photography aspects. One aspect that is completely lacking in the book is night photography. Most night photographers in New England (and elsewhere) count Acadia as one of their favorite spots, just search for time lapses taken in that park. Most suggestions in the book, however, and even complaints about a location, are centered around whether or not one can see sunrise or sunset. A beach pointing south may just be the ticket for someone wanting to shoot the Milky Way, yet Sand Beach's location is considered sub-optimal because of its southern orientation.One other oversight is modern navigation: instead of cumbersome and often vague directions, the authors should simply publish exact GPS coordinates, perhaps with a few words added if a location's access isn't intuitive or obvious. Coordinates would make it much simpler to find a location, both on maps and getting there.As for the photos that are included in the book, only some of them are what I would call inspiring, none breathtaking, and often quite bland. And whenever I see a photo with a crooked horizon (Winter Dawn, Ocean Drive on page 27), I simply have to question the photographer's expertise or at least attention to detail.All in all, this is a useful guide to list the best locations to shoot in Acadia and surrounding areas, but you will have to do some more research to find out if the actual view is what you are after. The book is quickly scanned to select a couple handfuls of candidates, which enables you to plan for your first trip (as I am). Once there, I assume that much research is done as I go and explore the area myself.Since buying this book, I found Greg Hartford's website www.acadiamagic.com, which has dramatically better and more targeted imagery. Perhaps not as comprehensive as this book, but certainly a good and less expensive start.

I purchased this as a preview before travelling to Acadia for a fall trip. Since I wasn't going to be there for very long, I needed a head start in order to focus my efforts as a pro photographer. The book provides a good overview of the park, with hints on best lighting and general features for specific areas. For a park newcomer, it's a good resource to begin narrowing down your targets based on your desired photo subjects. I suspect that some expect to get tripod GPS co-ordinates out of this type of book, but I felt less bound by the more general descriptions and hints this book provides.The book is ultimately aimed at hobbyist and enthusiast photographers more than it is at professionals. Most of the Pro Tips are aimed at helping people take better pictures, rather than at pro photographers looking to get the most out of a park visit. I took as much away from studying the photos in the book as I did from the text, and came away with some saleable pictures as a result.I would recommend the book strongly to those hobbyist and enthusiast photographers that want to learn a bit more about photography while visiting the park. It is a decent resource for other park visitors, both casual sightseers and pro photographers, but it is not aimed at either of those groups.

I purchased this photographer's guide by Jerry and Marcy Monkman at the same time as Acadia: The Complete Guide: Mount Desert Island which I give a 5-star rating to. I was planning a trip to Mount Desert Island (MDI) and wanted to maximize my photographic opportunities during a too-short, only 3-day visit. I had been there 40 years ago as a young boy and needed to plan ahead to get the most from my short visit.What I liked: The book is very comprehensive and well organized. I like the initial tips on the importance of lighting,depth of field control, and the reminder to shoot a variety of wide view and close-ups. The information boxes at the beginning of each chapter were very helpful, giving such tips as best time to photograph, facilities, parking, and specific sites within each geographic area.The map with numbered spots, correlated with information for each specific location, was a great time saver. The variety of what can be captured; the mountain vistas, the lakes, the ocean, the rocks, the waterfalls,the wildlife, the vegetation, was covered well.My visit was limited to MDI and not the other areas of Acadia National Park, which this book does a good job of covering also. So, 20% of the book was not valuable to me, but is a good resource if you are visiting the areas of Acadia National Park that are not on MDI.CanonCameraGeek.com

I liked the book a lot and I field tested it when I went to Acadia couple of weeks ago. It helped me a lot with finding locations as we were stressed for time (three day is not enough time to explore Acadia). In that sense the book was fantastic. It also has a lot of photography tips for amateur photographers which I didn't care for that much, I would have preferred geographical coordinates or GPS addresses once can use to find locations instead. We had to use our smart phone to find these locations on the internet and as with the case with most National Parks there were no reception once we entered the park and so that rendered any plan changes impossible. Other than that I really enjoyed the trip and the book.

This reference book will be very helpful to all the folks who travel into Acadia Park. I have been there once already and now armed with this book will be far more informed on my routes and planned stops. It is a large park and you will want to carry this book with you on your journey.