Customer Reviews

Techniques of Natural Light Photography

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Mostly I've been disappointed in the pictures I've taken outdoors. The colors were never quite right and my subjects didn't seem to be as impressive as I imagined them to be at the time. Mr. Zuckerman's book helped me understand why. His sharing of the intimate details of each of the spectacular shots in the book provided insight to the thought process of a master photographer. His simple approach took the complications out of the process and gives a feeling of confidence for even an amateur's next attempts. Beautifully written, one can sense his excitement and passion on each page. A job well done!

This book was written in my favorite format: A great picture followed by a text describing the technique used. You are expected to know your way around the camera as well as different lens characteristics so there's not a lot of repetitive text found in other books. I would have preferred that more technical data and technique descriptions were included but what's there is quite enough. The pictures are quiet inspiring. And the techniques explained helped me a lot to produce better pictures. I highly recommend this book. Worth the money.

The book is divided into 'Sunrise', 'Early Morning/Late Afternoon', 'Midday', 'Sunset', 'Twilight', 'Overcast Conditions', 'Interios' and 'Special Conditions'. Each chapter has a series of photographs with describing text and technical details for each shot. Zuckerman is using medium format (and almost exclusively Velvia), although the book is by no means restricted to any particular format. If you have some other book describing exposure, there's not much new in here. The text feels very repetetive, saying the same over and over again only with different words.

This is the first book I've bought by Zuckerman and it will most likely be the last. I didn't even feel like finishing this one. I find his photographs mostly boring, soulless, stereotypical and unimaginative. Some are so clichés it's almost funny, yet also demotivating. But what can you expect from a photographer that studies "postcards in book stores or gift shops" as the "first things I [Zuckerman] do when I'm shooting the scenic highlights of any city, whether foreign or domestic" (p. 82).

I also have John Shaw's "Nature Photography Field Guide" and it's definitely better on the text side. Zuckerman's book adds little to what you can get from Shaw's book, and the latter is far more comprehensive. Shaw's photography is better than Zuckerman's too.

I give this book one star as it gives so little, both in terms of text (there are far better and more comprehensive books) and pictures (postcards).

I really enjoyed this book. The photographs are amazing, and the way that Mr. Zuckerman presents the topics in a compare/contrast method really helps us amateurs learn the techniques so we can make better decisions. However, he is a bit skimpy on some of the details. While focal length and film choice are included, apteture is rarely mentioned. This seems odd in a book that has an advanced primer feel to it, as apteture is one of the major factors affecting how much light reaches the emulsion and light is such a concern to Mr. Zuckerman. This does not make this book useless--on the contrary, it is a superior book for showing the differences between the ordinary and extra-ordinary photo. I learned quite a bit that will help me with visualizing how I would like my photos to look, and some of the techniques I could use. However, I need all the help I can get on choosing depth of field for a given image.

This book would be worthwhile simply for the images themselves, which are breathtaking.

The fact that the author also shares his composition techniques and technical settings makes it a true gem for any serious photographer, pro or amateur.

The reviewer who said the pictures are "soulless" must have a strange, strange definition of "soul". The images capture incredible beauty in the world all around us. No quasi-artistic forced poses or special effects here - just wondrous images that the author has recognized, captured, and presented to us, without pretense.

Another reviewer said that he could not take the same photos because he does not have the same equipment, but I think this comment is misguided. Any 35-mm or digital camera of even moderate sophistication would capture at least 80% of the beauty of most of the images. A medium-format camera is necessary only if you want prints that are good enough for a coffee table book or fine art museum, which most of us don't need!

If you learn how to control your camera and how to compose shots the way the author does, you, too, will take wonderful shots!

Though the book claims to teach you how to make use of the natural light, in reality you can hardly duplicate the efforts Jim had made, they were simply composed perfectly, flawlessly. And the equipment too...I will not buy the equipment he used and will not have the time to wait for the perfect shot like him.

As for the cover shot, he claimed that it was a snapshot. And this is simply the best safari photo I had ever seen! Period.

I gave 5 stars not for the techniques you can learn to use but for the flawless and simply stunning shots. However you can appreciate how the same scene will look like under different lighting conditions. And the book is organised into shots taken during different times of the day.

One of the hardest things to learn about existing light photography is how things will appear on film under various lighting conditions. This book explains most common situations clearly, and illustrates them beautifully with a selection of the author's fine images.

This was a very very helpful book in explaining how to shoot with exsisting lights. He explained how to calculate exposure using things out there in the outdoors under all lighting. He is helpful and easy to read with lots of helpful hints.I

Although there may not be a tremendous amount of new information here for serious photographers, the author offers a lot of reinforcement of basic techniques applied to specific lighting situations. It was very helpful that the book is organized by categories of lighting such as sunrise, mid-morning, etc. Many of the photographs are excellent and motivating.

The photos in this book is worth the price alone. The cover is probably one of the best safari photos I've seen to date and just makes me want to make a trip out to Africa! The great part is the techniques and technical data is shared so you can know exactly what was done. In any case the other great thing about this book is many of the photos are shown in different light. Similar books only show you the subject in the light the photographer thought was best. Highly recommended.