Capturing the Night with Your Camera: How to Take Great Photographs after Dark [Paperback]

John Carucci (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 144 pages
• Publisher: Amphoto Books (October 1, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0817436618
• ISBN-13: 978-0817436612
• Product Dimensions: 11 x 8.3 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #714,080 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A good general guide, July 15, 2002

By 

S. White (Sydney, NSW Australia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Capturing the Night with Your Camera: How to Take Great Photographs after Dark (Paperback)

I would recommend this work to beginners and photographers who are intermediate but have little or no experience with low light or night photography. There are better works out there on this subject that will serve the more advanced and serious amateur better than this volume might. I bought this book because it gave a good general overview of just about all the various aspects to an often overlooked area of photography. I nearly didn't buy it because I picked up Andrew Sandersons book at the same time. I had been vowing to buy Sandersons work for over a year and finally the time came. The only thing that made me buy this work was the excellent sections on Painting with light and Star Trails at the end of the book, rarely seen or discussed in any other photographic literature I have ever seen. I give this book a four star rating for tackling these last two sections but would otherwise have rated this book in parallel with Meehans 'Guide to Filters' for the exact same reasons.

Having said all of the above it's a great general guide and if thats what you need then get this book. If you are an intermediate or professional needing something more dense to bite down on you can't go past Sandersons work which I have reviewed elsewhere.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Not All I Thought It Would Be, March 24, 2001

By 

"jdhi" (Friendswood, Texas United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Capturing the Night with Your Camera: How to Take Great Photographs after Dark (Paperback)

I made the mistake of ording this book and Lee Frost's Complete Guide to Night and Low Light Photography at the same time. They are very similar books, but Frost's is better. (I gave it a 3.)

Whereas Frost's book is fairly balanced between landscape (sun afterglow, moon light) and city/building shots, this one is heavily weighted toward the city. (From the photos, I can't confirm that Carucci has ever stepped off pavement.) I guess if your specific interest is low light city work, you might prefer this one. Same thing if you're very interested in slow-sync flash and other flash techniques. Otherwise, both books remain a bit weak on technical substance. (The brief twilight section in Zucherman's Natural Light Photography gives you about 30% of what you get here.)

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Barely enough for most, April 28, 2001

By 

Darren Chong (Singapore) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Capturing the Night with Your Camera: How to Take Great Photographs after Dark (Paperback)

Apologies first, the cover was not that inspiring compared to many other photography books, and so had yet to buy it. I picked it up at a local library and went through it, basically it focus on cityscapes shooting, a very interesting area to learn due to the difficulty in getting the desired exposure and lighting.

I realize that there are many repeating information on bulbs/lights temperature and type, sure they are the main essence to coloring the shots but having such information all over the place makes the book seems so messy. The best thing about this book is the illustration of shots taken on diferent lighting and film. It really does help you to see more creatively if you are new to this.

Interestingly it does shed some light on light painting, seldom found in writing, actually I had no real idea on how it really works till I read this book. I had done some light painting prior to this, but only for fun, this book tells you how to expose it.

Whether it appeals to you, you just have to see it for yourself. This is not a wholly technical book, more inclined towards beginner on night shooting. Newbies may like the presentation of the book, very journal-like (and hence seems disorganized), like writing a trip on night photography, but there's no section on fundamental photography (and I dont suggest one to start learning photography through this area...might just put one off with the difficult shooting situations). Newbies to night shooting may like the information on color temp and the type of lights associated, and how they actually look like. Advanced people may find the book too shallow, and fundamental.