Book review

This is a quality, well produced book consisting of over 300 pages illustrated with over 800 excellent quality images and graphics. I was impressed with the easy layout, which facilitated ‘skipping’ some chapters.

The first chapter covers general principles of photography, with the first few paragraphs enthusing on the indispensible benefits of image capture. There is to my mind a little too much detail for most, but to the enthusiast the detail is interesting. A brief description of aperture and shutter speed in general photography terms follow. This chapter also covers correct handling and choice of camera.

Chapter 2 gives more ‘in depth’ descriptions of optical systems I suspect many will want to skip, that is until the detail on ‘magnifications’, which is good, is reached. The authors have a good knowledge of the main aspects of optical reproduction and the information is accurate. Mastering magnification combined with the camera settings, covered in Chapters 6 and 10, is paramount to achieving consistent reproducible images.