Customer Reviews

Reef

5 star:		(21)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I bought this book for my own birthday, and had the pleasure of showing the pictures to my family who do not SCUBA dive like myself. I must say these photos are first rate, draw attention to the underwater world and make for a frequent return to the bookshelf. The freeby DVD is surprisely good, with music, pics, and video. The DVD alone would sell for $15 or $20 in some SCUBA resort areas. If you are looking for a good present for an underwater life admirer, buy it ASAP. Tell them some ardent and hard-core underwater naturalist recommended it!

Take DK's legendary photo quality. Add a great topic: life in the shallow oceans. Finally, mix these with a few gung ho underwater photographers with superb equipment, and you have 360 pages of a visual fiesta: Reef.

This oversized book is a photography frenzy: crystal sharp focus, vibrant colors, and close-ups that surpass the ability of the human eye to see this level of detail unaided.

It's like the ocean is an alien world. Do you think those sea creatures have the same feeling about us?

Highlights: close-up of a tiger shark's face. All those pigmy seahorses. The little things made big. THE COLORS!

The book comes with an additional disk of photographs. Even the book jacket is beautiful (it has a three dimensional look and feel).

Enjoy, and protect the ocean.

I recently received Reef. Before even spending 5 minutes with the book, all I could say was - WOW! The photography is nothing short of amazing. I cuold spend hours flipping through the pages of this book. It's almost painful because it's giving me the scuba diving "bug" and I don't have a trip planned in the near future.

I'm so inspired by these photos and I'm also impressed by the identification, common and scientific names, of all of the creatures featured. The site where each photograph was taken is also listed, along with information on the behavior or other characteristics displayed in the photos. I would have loved to have this book available last year when diving in Indonesia. We had some ID books, but nothing compared to this. Unfortunately it would be a bit cumbersome to carry along on a dive trip as it's more suitable for a coffee table, but I look forward to using this resource for identifying marine life photographed upon my return from upcoming dive trips. The DVD that comes with it is also an excellent bonus!

I have been an avid diver and underwater photographer since the early 80's. And I must admit, this is one of the finest u/w photography books ever published. The layout is unique, well thought out and entertaining. The photographers do this for a living, along with being dedicated reef conservationists. In fact, some of the proceeds of this book go to a reef conservation and education organization.

As I mentioned, the photography is superb. And as an added bonus, this book includes an incredible DVD full of beautiful video.

I was so impressed with this book that I have purchased 27 more of them to give as gifts this Holiday season. A GREAT book, incredible pictures, and the price is unbelievable.

I was a long time fan of DK series, but mostly for their educational values. As for photography, DK was always good, but did not seem spectacular until this one (and a few others recently - Rainforest, Ocean...)! The color splash with amazing details created such a sensation that learning becomes a multi-sensory experience. In a short period of time, I remembered a great deal of information about the undersea world and am able to recall them vividly in graphic details. This is also true for my 5-year old, by his own requests, read (absorbed) this book over three sittings, with our occasional assistance on the descriptions.
You could literally take most of the pages of this book, frame them and put them on the wall for display. That's how good the photography is!

As a diver, I have long said that it is sad that the experience of being within coral reefs can't be communicated by photography, film and video. Well, that was before "reef". What a truly rewarding experience it is to repeatedly view and read this wonder. And, it's comparatively inexpensive for such a large high quality publication, too. I also like the fact that part of the proceeds from sales go to the Coral Reef Alliance for saving our planet's threatened coral reefs. Buy this book for yourself, your family and the local schools and library. For me it really is that good.

This is a great coffee table book for yourself or your diver friends. I bought it for a friend for Christmas and thumbed through it before wrapping. I gave it 4 stars instead of 5 because from what I saw, it could use more explanation of what you are looking at, behaviours, etc.

This is simply gorgeous--I bought it for a fiend who is a coral/anenome expert but I want to keep it myself!! I can't bring myself to wrap it now.

I received this at my request on my Wish List for my birthday...love the U/W photography! I've recently started diving (2008) and have become enamored with the art of photography, and I'm seeking the best dive sites to try out my ever evolving camera set-up, and this book is shedding new light on several locations!

Really love the variety of sea life in this book and have enjoyed sharing it with others. Beautifully done images of challenging subject matter. Many images of things I'd never seen before.