Photographic science

By Earl N. Mitchell

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• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0471090468
• ISBN13: 9780471090465
• Release Date: January 1984
• Publisher: Wiley
• Length: 404 Pages
• Weight: 1.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 3.0" x 3.0"

Customer Reviews

The Book Lives Up to Its Name!

Bad stuff first: the book is dated and most of the pictures are not particularly good. A good scientist does not necessarily make a good photographer. Still, the book lives up to its name. I know of no other book that gives such a thorough treatment of the mathematics, physics, and chemistry of photography in so few pages (369 + back material). Even if you think chemistry-based photography is obsolete, the explanation of the film characteristic curve offers a 1984 fortune-teller's elaboration on the loss we see today when we convert from raw to TIFF or JPEG, why that loss MUST happen, and how to evaluate the image to minimize that loss. Furthermore, the mathematics and the physics are not one bit obsolete, but eternal and worth studying. I don't want to do a dozen calculations every time I shoot a picture, but knowing I can do those calculations if I need to is hugely empowering, allowing the artistic hemisphere of my brain greater freedom, knowing that the technical hemisphere is standing by to provide backup support any time it's needed. For most artists, this is a fairly difficult book, written by an astronomer, not one of us. Nevertheless, read it. I will pay you back.