Customer Reviews

The Magic of Digital Close-Up Photography (A Lark Photography Book)

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

 

 

I love this book. It is for both digital and SLR fans and what I like about it is that it's for intermediate and professional photographers as well. The writing style of Joseph R. Meehan is great. It is so interesting and fun to read. The techniques are very easy to understand. Gives some great insights on close photography, has lots of images as examples, and an overview at the end of each chapter of the most useful facts that makes everything easy to remember. Introduces you to photographers of different styles that give advice on their picture taking that you can learn from or relate to at the same time. This book is great to have.

I would definitely recommend this book if what you're looking for is a concise and informative guide to a wide array of techniques for shooting close ups with your D-SLR, your digicam, or even your scanner (the scanner chapter was particularly inspiring). Mr. Meehan's prose is a bit labored, but he does exactly what I was hoping he would do: he gives examples of different close up photos you might want to take (flowers or insects outside, jewelry in artificial light, model cars with a dedicated macro flash system, ETC.), and then gives a concise run-down of what you need to do and possibly purchase in order to make similar shots.

My only criticism of this book is that it contains an almost unbelievable number of typos, nearly one every three pages, as well as at least one totally incorrect image (an image of what is supposed to be a camera with a bellows extender attached actually shows something completely different). Still, if you can get past all the typos, it's a good basic primer in digital close up techniques, with a few ideas you may not even have thought to try.

I ordered this book along with "Closeup Shooting" expecting to learn some techniques for macro photography with digital and film SLRs. I got a lot out of "Closeup Shooting" - but this one not so much. (Sorry, it's hard for me not to compare the two.)

This one is much more shallow in the areas I'm interested in than what I expected. A key reason for this is that so many of this book's 192 pages cover topics that I didn't expect given its title. For example, over 40 pages are devoted to creating images with scanners. The entire last chapter describes how to use copy stands. And as another reviewer pointed out, there are no exposure details provided with the example photos in the book. For me looking for tips on taking my cameras out into the world to make nice images these were all disappointments.

But it's not all bad. I did learn a few things from this book. The information on lighting, in particular, I found to be pretty good.

I'll keep this book, but if I had found it in a bookstore I never would have bought it. I blame Amazon as much as the author/publisher since there is no good description provided. Chalk it up to the perils of online shopping. I am very happy with "Closeup Shooting" though.

Digital cameras have some special advantages when it comes to taking close-up photos, as the author reveals in this excellent book. There are also some pitfalls to avoid, and the author covers them, too. While this book is aimed at intermediate to advanced photographers, even beginners can learn something from the friendly tone and thorough coverage. This book is a great tool for becoming a master of macro photography quickly.

I bought this book based on the fact that it was advertising techniques for the enthusiast to advanced users. What I got was a book that gave a fairly basic, broad overview with very little to offer me. I read through the book in only a couple of hours, with nothing grabbing me to go "Wow! I had never thought of that before!" Yes, there is a couple of unusual things in there, with close-up image capture utilising scanners and close-up stands, but the vast majority of people would never use that. A disappointing purchase.

This book was a bit harder to follow, but the results are worth the work. Good book to buy.

An excellent book. The author doesnt push you to buy the most expensive equipment, but gives honest reviews about the advantages and disadvantages, about different equipment and lets the reader decide how best to match their budget to their requirements. If your starting out in macro photography well worth the read.

A beautiful and inspiring book. As a retired microscopist I am glad to find this book that not only describes useful equipment and photographs that illustrates the effects of using the equipment. The results are inspiring. Going from photomicrograph's to photomacrographs is a great adventure.

This is a really good book for both new photographers and those of us moving from 35mm to digital photography.

Very clearly written for beginner or advanced. A lot of information. Beautiful pictures. I only wish that each picture had the camera info. Like the f stops, shutter speeds, lens etc. But it does cover landscapes, wildlife, color, close ups very well. Nicely catagorized and a good read. If only it would have the camera info like some other books do it would have been a 5 star book.