Customer Reviews

Digital SLR Astrophotography (Practical Amateur Astronomy)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

After reading Michael's previous works I was prepared for a good and thorough treatise on astrophotography with digital SLR's. Unfortunately this book doesn't do that. $37 gets you a modest 234 page, soft bound book that could be described as more of a draft outline than a valuable reference work.

Images Plus, possibly the most powerful and economical commercial astrophotographic image processing and camera control program available today only gets briefly mentioned in passing twice in this book.

And there is nothing whatsoever on imaging the sun, h-alpha image processing techniques or solar eclipse techniques and equipment.

Many other subjects are treated rather too lightly to justify the price of this book too.

I believe that Jerry Lodriguss's book "A Guide To Astrophotography with Digital SLR's" is a much more useful work however it isn't exactly worth it's $40 price tag either.

There is more useful and thorough information available on the Internet for free. Start with the Digital Astro Yahoo discussion group and then supplement with Jerry Lodriguss and Paul Hyndman's web sites.

In first place, I bought this book because of it was recommended from Sky and Telescope.
But, when having it on my hands and after reading it I found:
1- Author is making constant references to his other two books, with no further explanations (if you want to know more, BUY my other books).
2- Book is soft cover and pictures are black and white.
3- Has many formulas. Amateurs want a "hands-on" style, not making calculations that show the author as "how much I know", that's not practical.
4- Many parts are really useful, and some others don't.
5- Some parts look like a handful of advices that you can find everywhere on the net.
6- He explains methods, that end up with author saying like "despite of this method I prefer..." and then he mentions another one. A waste of time!
7- Add the book cost, and this is not a deal.
Hope my review can be helpful to other people that as me, thought this book was a real good one (before purchase).

Like another reviewer, I found that this was a well written book however, I agree that a little too much was referenced in another book for its price. I am happy to look up the many websites which are referenced...I expect that these days. It is probably time for a new integrated book that has it all. The cameras discussed were a bit old now Nikon D70 etc.

I bought this book after coming across an excerpt from it on the Web. My goal was to pull the most out of my Canon RAW astro images. The section pertaining to that precise topic is spectacular, but doesn't add much more than the excerpt I'd found on the Web. The rest of the book was only mildly interesting. Perhaps if you were an absolute beginner in the field, you'd get a lot more out of this book. It's a good book - just didn't have much in it for me.

If you have a DSLR and want to try astrophotography this is the prefect place to start. Covington's previous books on the subject were classics and the basic information in this book is superb. Since cameras and equipment change very rapidly you will need to do some additional research online to get more insight on your particular setup. Covington will give you the fundamentals.

Mr Covington is an amayeur astronomer who has taken some wonderful astrophotos and is well qualified to explain the hows of this art. He has written a straight forward, easy to understand book that makes the subject to digital photography easy for the average person. I found his explanations understandable, making sense to even my "photo challenged" mind. Excellent book!

BOOK IS VERY, VERY PRATICAL WITH "DOWN TO EARTH" EXPLANATIONS. EXCELLENT
PUBLICATION FOR THE NOVICE ASTRO-PHOTOGRAPHER AND BOOK CAN BE USED AS A
REFERENCE WHEN ATTEMPTING DEEP SPACE PHOTOGRAPHY. IT IS EVERYTHING
I HAVE EXPECTED AND MORE.

Michael Covington's new book contains the latest information, it was published in December of 2007, on recent cameras' and their features that apply to digital astrophotography. The author, after covering the DSLR features, makes informed recommendations regarding their use for astrophotography. I highly recommend this book.

Wonderful book. The natural prosecution of the first volume of the author. Just a little bit disappointed about the cost. Too expensive for a 200 pages book

No matter how much you know...there is always much more to learn. Thats the feeling I got after reading this book. I thought I knew a bit about photography and image processing, but it appears my knowledge had as many holes in it as a block of Swiss cheese. If you are new to astrophotography, this book should be your bible. If you already know a bit, there are still topics you may not have even considered. Highly recommended for the serious amatuer.