Rating: 
Summary: May be useful for those married to the darkroom
Review: "Beyond Basic Photography" is indeed a technical manual, in the sense that it focuses on things you can do in the darkroom and in lighting setup. It does feel outdated for those of us who have left the bad-for-health-and-environment chemical world and adopted the digital revolution. There's also nothing about how to take pictures; the emphasis is how to light and how to process the film.
Rating: 
Summary: Great read
Review: As a student of Henry's at the Rhode Island School of Design I read the book BEFORE I attended RISD I was captivated by the simple ways he explained the "sometimes" complexity of photography.Such as Henry's way - making life easy and fun for everyone.
I suggest checking out his other books too.
Rating:
Summary: Great read
Review: As a student of Henry's at the Rhode Island School of Design I read the book BEFORE I attended RISD I was captivated by the simple ways he explained the "sometimes" complexity of photography. Such as Henry's way - making life easy and fun for everyone.
I suggest checking out his other books too.
Rating:
Summary: Simplicity
Review: For beginners the books is clear simple and describes you step by step how to take black and white pictures.
Rating: 
Summary: Useful book
Review: I read this book after Photography for Dummies, and it was just what I needed to get a more technical slant on some things. I am still basically a neophyte at photography, so there was a lot of new, useful, more in-depth info in this book for me. I thought the author's discussion of exposure issues was especially good, as getting a feel for all of the things that affect this, and how they interact with the developing process, is one of the things that separates the experienced photographer from the less skilled. For example, the author discusses of how and why you should expose for the shadows, and develop for the highights, and why even a negative that is overexposed by two stops is still usable versus one that is underexposed. Since the negative reverses everything, it is impossible to recover from an underexposed negative for the shadows, since you can't get detail that isn't there, no matter how long you develop. However, film that is overexposed for the shadows can still be used because there are ways to deal with the highlights during developing. Overall, I found the book full of useful info like this and can recommend it to photography buffs who want a more in-depth understanding of the processes.
Rating:
Summary: Great for post-beginners.
Review: I used this book when I taught my advanced photography classes at FSU. Very readable and concise. I recommend it to anyone who has advanced past the beginner level & wants to know more about creating a "perfect negative".
Rating:
Summary: a clear and easy to understand technical manual.
Review: Lets read the last part of that title again, "Technical Manual". While some people might consider the creativity or spirituality of photographs "Technical" I don't think that's what this book is supposed to be about. This book covers in detail techiques for improving image quality and technical problem solving. And it does a great job at it. The author doesn't get condescending or lose the average intelligence photographer with writing, and provides a valuable tool for improving photographs.
Rating: 
Summary: dead collection of dead facts
Review: The books wants to be a technical guide to advanced photography but instead it is a collection of technicalities. It does not provide any indepth insight into HOW all this will improve your photography. Some of the techicalities are obvious, some of them - irrelevant, nothing about it is inspirational or thought provoking (like Ansel Adams's books are, for example). The pieces of info are poorly connected. I got nothing out of this book and returned it back to where I bought it after reading. Worst of all, the photographs used as examples throughtout the book are bad as well.
If you want to improve your photography you will do *MUCH* better getting Ansel Adams' "The Negative" and "The Print", or "The Photographer's Master Printing Course" by Tim Rudman (truly excellent book, btw)
Rating:
Summary: Not very Technical or Up to Date
Review: This book is really surprisingly still in print. It's from the 70's and it looks like it. Some useful information can be gleaned from it to be overgenerous. I find it rather amusing in fact. The photos inside are absolutely ridiculous. They are clearly examples of "just let me take your picture for this ass of a book I'm writing..." -- the fat couple in lawn chairs is pretty funny (pg. 21). The discussion of the zone system is laughably short and comprises only 5 pages. Most of the discussion centers around mixing various chemicals in various ratios. I wonder if all of these are still available on the market. The drawings in the text are third grade level, and someone actually gets credit on the cover! This is a very poorly done text and I don't recommend it with so many other books out there on this subject matter.
Rating:
Summary: Dull technical review
Review: This is a mediocre book that presents a lot of loosely related technical facts but almost no link to the creative side of photography. For example, you learn how aperture affects depth of field but never really get a feel for why you would ever want to change depth of field and what creative control it gives you. The books is full of technical detail but is badly missing INSIGHT. Anyone serious about photography will get a lot more out of Ansel Adams trilogy ("The Camera", "The Negative", "The Print") which is very inspirational and insightful.
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