Photography

I’m an experienced night photographer, workshop instructor, and college level Photoshop teacher. I’ve been reviewing various night photography books to find one to recommend to my students. The author of this book obviously shares the joy of night photography, and has made some very nice night landscape images in the Bay Area, and Sierras. Those interested in landscape photography could find this work inspiring. The book shows some breadth of night photography subject matter, hard won images, and plenty of enthusiasm.

Unfortunately, quite a few of the images suffer from insufficient sharpness or depth of field (poor choice of aperture), blatant purple sensor burn (failure to understand CCD sensor limitations vs. CMOS), strange white balances (especially overly magenta skies), images with massive amounts of chroma and luminance noise, and poor technical advice (shooting at f/22 and f/29, which causes loss of sharpness due to diffraction).

This may sound like I’m coming out of left field with all of the other glowing reviews, but as an avid night photographer, I felt like someone had to speak up for image quality and proper technique. Fundamental concepts such as high ISO testing calculations, color temperature settings, and camera setup advice are either glossed over, or ignored. Light painting tools and techniques are not explained, and the use of gels to modify light color & color temperature is sorely lacking. Jill Waterman’s book Night and Low-Light Photography, while not perfect, has better coverage of the fundamental techniques of digital night photography, and is recommended as an alternative.
Rating: 2 / 5

Night photography is a huge subject. Harold Davis does a good job of covering many of its aspects in a clear and straightforward way. Since he is primarily a landscape photographer, many of the example photos are of landscapes, though he does cover many other areas of the subject such as cityscapes, light trails, light painting, moonlight photography, simple object photography and more. A short list of equipment is discussed and helpful extras are mentioned. While there is not yet a definitive book on night photography, Creative Night is my current favorite.

Davis also includes a section on post processing with Photoshop. Two night specific techniques that cover stacking multiple exposures to capture star trails and noise removal are very helpful.

While specific technique descriptions are mostly brief, all images include exposure details that provide a good starting point for personal experimentation. And experimentation is a main theme of this book. Less experienced photographers may want a bit more hand holding. There’s very little fundamental photography instruction here. Davis has written this book for photographers who understand the basics of exposure and camera operation. That saves a lot of padding that many writers include in their manuals to increase the page count. If you’re new to photography and want do do some night shots, do learn exposure basics and study your camera manual first.

In addition to photography how-tos Davis does offer important information specific to night photography, much of which seems like common sense. But it’s easy to overlook a detail that means the difference between a successful and safe photo shoot and a disaster. For example: dress warmly, learn your camera control by feel and rote so you can operate in darkness, dress for visibility, get permission to photograph sites, scout your location by day, and so on. While some of this seems obvious, it’s these details that help make for a safe, comfortable and hopefully successful shoot.
Rating: 5 / 5