Photography at Night

Rating:
Summary: Somewhat useful book of pictures and ideas...
Review:

As a primer on the technical aspects of night photography, this book is short on details and rather disorganized.

The chapter on equipment and the properties of different B&W developers is useful. There are detailed sequences of pictures demonstrating the effects of different levels of exposure and development on various kinds of film. Sometimes, pictures are worth a thousand words.

The book falls short when connecting the pictures and instructions. Metering is described as being important, but no information on how to meter properly is provided. Furthermore, there is no information on reciprocity failure for different films, other than a vague suggestion about doubling exposure time. This leaves the reader wondering exactly how long exposure time should be. The digital camera section is also disappointingly short, mostly containing information on how digital cameras work.

This book's strength is in its photos. The first 40 pages consists of portfolios from different photographers. Detailed captions describe the circumstances of each photo shoot and how the photo was exposed. Finally, some information that could really help amateurs!

The last section is a list of assignments. At last, the author provides detailed information on how to meter a scene, how to determine exposure, and how to pick a camera angle for shooting. Why wasn't this information provided earlier in the book?

In conclusion, buy this book for the great photos, not for the instructions included.