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Average Customer Rating:

Lighting from a scientific point of view	Customer Rating:
The explanations "how to" are great. For those who want to go further in lighting comrehension and fundamentals. I tried some of the exercises, and it...works. Highly recommended (it is a strobist.blogspot.com/ choice). I don't think this book is for the very beginners.

essential for all photographers

Customer Rating:

If you are just starting or have been working for awhile with artificial lighting I really recommend you buy a copy of "Light, Science and Magic" , third edition. I have never come across as comprehensive yet down to earth guide for understanding and using the properties of light as this book. I have no connection with the authors and in fact only recently (early Sept. 08) bought a copy after hearing certain people here on photo.net rave about it. I was skeptical because of the title and feared it was yet another lighting cookbook of cookie cutter approaches to using light. it emphatically is not . It is very useful even if you never intend to never use artificial light. It is both well written and well illustrated. As a companion volume I also recommend Kirk Tuck's book " Minimalist Lighting: Professional Techniques for Location Lighting" if you are using small strobes such as the Canon, Nikon, Metz or Sony Speedlights. Together these two books virtually 100% of the ideas concepts and practices of using light dynamically to make more creative and visually powerful photographs.

very comprehensive	Customer Rating:
The book is about what is light, how to use it in the difference materials and special effects. it was very helpful for me because i look for a book that talk about the basic principles of light.

It is SCIENCE!!!!	Customer Rating:
I just scan the book. I like the way the book teach how to manage the light during photographing. When I have time, I will go through deeper. Satisfied!!

the glory of sweat stains

Customer Rating:

i wasn't paying attention or the information has leaked out through the trade off for real estate in my fibrous container yearning for relevancy. that is why i need you. to bolster the methods of a successful preparation. but i haven't bought you yet. and here i pronounce indecision. there are just too many. what if i was limited to walking to the local bookshop? i would scoff at the washed up selection of used guidebooks then feel cheated by tweaked reprints of the industry standards. this industry is too big. hypothetically, i walk home, and along the way i am taunted by the satellite dishes i wish i had already reframed (to both my community plus my unknown community) for being a completely obvious art project that sacrifices the aesthetic for the conceptual yet surprises you with anonymous racism. what if my search terms could have been better. what if the auto completion / auto correction was hindsight itself--imagine it: letters slowly congealing into subliminal idiom. do i keep it general, interrogative, pessimistic? "how to take a good picture" "photography" "light" "portrait" struggle to completion in the same suspense of watching a kid mess up at a spelling bee, going really meditative about their my mistake, sweat stains the only glory. once i learned through exercises how to appropriately evoke the mood of (wheel's been invented) electrical setups. it was another notebook, seventeen pages in, that i was too lazy to recycle when the storage space let out the air in its balloon. i couldn't read my handwriting anyway. i really can't stand the artificial much longer. i am planning a purchase by justification of investment. i will be ready now when the mother of some friend of mine contacts me about a reputation i had for training in this skill and therefore she'll want to pass my name on to someone who needs headshots of their niece's aspiring actress daughter. i will agree under the condition that the daughter will probably fail in that competitive industry and it won't be my fault. i will agree under the condition i take them in natural light. technical hocus pocus may evaporate in the politeness of a first time conversation. so i should be prepared if someone misunderstands me and wants to be portrayed as an indoorsy hermit. discovering a niche is what to sell nowadays. so what am i going to do when the pop of a flash resting on top the camera, as lazy as a microwave, exerts itself as if it knows how to light my subject? (i hope to have learned by now) i would plant the flash elsewhere, a coiled wire ready to trip any intruder between me and it's piñata stronghold. (i hope to have learned by now) i would wrap the palm of a rubber glove around it, the allergic latex fingers brushed back like sturdy hair plugs not to interfere with the consistency of a diffuser. (i hope to have learned by now) you may decide not to pay me in fives tens and twenties because the job was shot on film, handed over in a closed off canister with a prankster smirk that reads: take it to not only walgreens but cvs, duane read and rite-aid when they are closed and shove it through their overnight drop off slot, creative directions on the envelope only--no contact information--scribbled in sharpie marker: turn me into grey scale to satisfy my craving for abstraction. (i hope to have learned by now) to prevent the inevitable of bargaining image quality for lack of knowledge. (i hope to have learned by now) i've been less qualified than others yet hired to team teach this stuff before i even have the time or energy to refresh my memory. (i hope to have learned by now) sunglasses and or a cigarette don't actually make you look cool. (i hope to have learned by now) tell the subject not to stand in front of the sun. that larger forces in life mess up my light meter is the true search for compensation. while techniques indoctrinate trial and error, you bring me closer to secrets.