Customer Reviews

Secrets of Successful Aerial Photography

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3 star:		(1)
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1 star:		(1)

 

 

When purchasing this book, I was looking for a good source of information for someone interested in breaking into the Aerial Photography business. This book pretty much fit that bill exactly. It starts with three short chapters on atmospheric conditions and their effect on the image, and include tips on the best techniques for handling different situation. Chapters 4, 5 and 6 discuss equipment, film choices and exposure. Chapter 7 is about preflight planning. Eight covers aircraft recommendations, and then the book ends with some informatin on the business side of Aerial Photography, to include clients, marketing, pricing, sample forms, etc. Overall, this book addressed all of the topics I had question about, and it definately gave me enough information to get me started in the business. However, it was not quite as thorough or as detailed as I would have liked. It is not a comprehensive guide to aerial photography, and has left me with several questions on the subject. The bottom line is that this is a good book to have in your photography library and will be very usefull in conjunction with others. It also included a list of references where I plan on getting the answers to the rest of my questions.

Text on the subject of aerial photography are hard to find. Richard Eller has produced one that is worth the investment. It doesn't waste time with teaching the basic operation of a camera. For non-pilots, it gives you an understanding of visibility in different atmospheric conditions without sending you to college to be a weather forcaster. For pilots, it will help you choose your altitude and distance from your subject.

This is a subject that has long needed a good book. And here it is.

This is the worst photo book I have ever bought. The printing and reproductions are awful - the essential text could have been fitted into a 20 p. booklet book and the photo examples suck. Getting away with this kind of publishing is almost like getting a way with murder. The folks recommending this book is actually getting people to buy the book under false pretence - shame on you! This book does not diserve the one stat rating!

Let me start by saying that I got this book for very specific reasons, as my aerial photography is maybe different from some peoples. Let me also say that I am a professional pilot so this book was incredibly basic when talking about anything related to the actual flying. This is written for a photographer who would like to expand into aerial photography. With that said I believe that this book is a waist of money, I read the whole thing in one evening (only 80 pages or so with words) and I don't think that I can think of one really good thing that I learned that I did not already know. Basically I will sum up the book for you right here: Stay low, get good equipment and know it well, and get the most bang for your buck. I also found the book out of date even though it is only six years old. It discusses only film cameras and doesn't even mention digital cameras (I can't remember the last time I saw a camera with film!) It also makes references to flight rules that are out dated. The book had three good things about it, it talked about the best weather conditions, it talked about the best time of day, which are both good for the non-pilot, the last thing that was good about the book were the pictures. While this book does not have an abundant amount of good writing it does have some good pictures (all of the West Coast) but even the pictures left some to be desired as only four pages were actually in color. Bottom line, only good if you are a photographer who doesn't know much about flying, who shots with actual film cameras, and who doesn't care about the details just the basics.

If you ever consider aerial photography, you'd be silly not to buy this one (unless, of course, you know of any better). Let me put it this way: It costs a lot less than the film you would have to waste to get the same knowledge first-hand. Not to mention the cost of flying... It might not be perfect - there is probably more to be said about aerial photography - but the author has, on the other hand, resisted the temptation to include superfluous text on basic photography. I was at first dissapointed to find that a lot of the illustrating photographs are in B/W, but coming to think of it, in most cases that rather distilles their information value.

Unless you are using 35 mm film and flying a biplane for your aerial photography needs, don't buy the book. Go to the library instead. It's too expensive to take the space on my shelf.

Ok so it is a bit dated...As a professional pilot/aerial photographer I bought this book several years ago and it indeed had some relevance at that time. I got a recommendation to purchase the Pentax Medium Format Camera mentioned in this book and it served me well for a couple of years.

But as one reviewer suggests, in our industry, film is essentially dead. Eller does spend a fair amount of ink discussing out of date technology but discarding that, there is still relevance here. Mr. Eller does give some reasonable information about technique, composition and planning. When I started out, already a twenty year pilot and an amateur camera buff, Secrets of Successful Aerial Photography was useful and would still be useful to a complete neophyte.

It is not fair to downgrade this book if you are already a seasoned pro. For the beginner I would still recommend it...perhaps a used copy. As a seasoned pro I still have it on the shelf for reference.

All in all if you are new to the profession, sure, get one. Old timers will not get much out of it. And by the way...there are not too many "secrets" left out there.