Customer Reviews

Applied Photographic Optics, Third Edition

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I have an older (second) edition of this book, and I use it regularily for reference. It is comprehensive and covers everything imaginable about photographic optics. It does skip basics and a reader without deeper prior knowlegde would do good, to read a solid optics book beforehand (the old books by Conrady are to be recommended). Mathematics is not overly complicated, highschool knowledge should be sufficient - but one can learn a lot from this book, even without going into the details of the formulae presented. Sidney Ray is a great teacher with a precise and clear language.

If I miss something, it is mainly all the specifics about digital imaging. At least the second edition is very thin on this... But it lays very solid foundations and serves as a venerable reference even in our digital imaging age. Applied Photographic Optics does not cover things like colour and the scope is very focused. So it is really not a substitute for a general optics or colour book (like Hunt's "The Reproduction of Colour").

For many readers the much shorter "The Photographic lens" by the same author might be a good and much cheaper alternative. But it won't go into detail as much and might leave the reader with the wish to learn more - then Applied Photographic Optics is the logical next step.

To my (limited) knowledge, there is no other current book, that could be a sensible alternative to this classic.

If you have an amateur interest in photographic optics, there are excellent books for a lot less money. But if you really need the most in-depth information in a wide range of detailed topics and applications, this one is well worth the price. Though for $150 you'd think they'd throw in a hard cover, wouldn't you?