Interactive iPad Book Brings DSLR Camera Lessons to Life

Are you buying someone a fancy DSLR camera for Christmas? Might want to throw in a $9.99 iPad app, too. Well, that’s what Open Air Publishing is hoping you’ll do, with the release of its “Master Your DSLR” iPad book today.

Built on the Inkling platform, the slickly designed book includes material like videos, tours, slideshows and cheat sheets for common shooting scenarios.

For instance, in the screenshot shown here, a reader could scrub along a series of different shutter speeds to see how they affect pictures of the same waterfall.

I was particularly interested in a section on solving common photography problems, like blurry images and uneven lighting. (But perhaps you could escape those issues by forgetting the whole DSLR thing and buying a Lytro.)

Open Air’s first iPad book, “Speakeasy Cocktails,” was named one of Apple’s best apps of 2011. The New York City-based company also recently released a holiday cookbook app. The DSLR book was written by tech journalist David Becker, with video tutorials by photojournalist Mary F. Calvert.

Other makers of neat interactive iPad books include 955 Dreams and Push Pop Press (bought by Facebook).