Essential Technical Books

[sanking]

"I'd add one "Image Clarity" can't remember the author but it is mentioned in other threads here. The only book I know of that pulls together all the elements of the 'sharpest' print.

I second this addition. The book is by John B. Williams, entitled Image Clarity: High-Resolution Photograpy. Great book for understanding how sharpness works, how to enhance it, and its limits.



Also second the addition of Barry Thornton's The Edge of Darkness.

[Emrehan Zeybekoglu]

1) Kodak Book of Large-Format Photography: Very easy to follow, highly recommended.

2) Leslie Stroebel, View Camera Technique: Has dry language, but full of useful information.

3) Jack Dykinga, Large Format Nature Photography. Has nice practical tips with some pleasant photos.

4) St. Ansel, Examples: The Making of 40 Photographs. This is a very good book. Quite instructive in many ways.

5) Henry Horenstein, Beyond Basic Photography. Presents general information on photography; it's a handy source.

6) St. Ansel, The Negative.

7) Lester Lefkowitz, The Manual of Close-Up Photography: Although not about LF, it is one of the most useful technical books one can invest in.

[William Mortensen]

"The Pencil of Nature" by Henry Fox Talbot. I only wish I could find a first edition...

For that matter, how many of us still have an old copy of "Keepers of Light" on our bookshelves? While more a practical introduction than in-depth technical manual, it helped inspire (or at least accompanied) the resurgeance in alternative processes about a generation ago.

[John Brownlow]

Books that I've found indispensible

Ansel Adams, The Print

Ansel Adams, The Negative

Ansel Adams, The Camera

Still nothing to beat them

The Focal Encyclopaedia of Photography

All the rest you can figure out for yourself.

[Allen Quinn]

What a magical list of fine books. I've read and or own many. I'll toss out "The Complete Photographer", a ten volumn set published by Willard Morgan in 1942. Everyone you ever heard of from that era contributed articles.

[Doug Howk]

Harold Merklinger Focusing the View Camera may be useful for understanding how view camera movements affect image clarity.

[Brian Ellis]

For traditional photography: Adams, The Negative, The Camera, and The Print

If you can absorb and apply everything in those three books you don't need to read anything else unless you want to get into some specialized area such as pyro. If I was limited to only one book it would be "View Camera Technique" by Leslie Stroebel. I own all of the books on your list except Simmons' book and I've read that. They're all good but I wouldn't consider any one of them a "must have" book. The closest I think is the Zone VI Manual by Picker for its simple explanation of the zone system and its testing methodology but you can get that in the Adams' books as well, it's just not presented quite so simply and concisely.

For digital: "Real World Photoshop CS" by Blatner and Fraser.

To add a book I don't think anyone has mentioned, "The Keepers of Light" by William Crawford, for the first half of it. The second half methodology for various alternative processes contains a lot of errors and later alternative process books are probably better. But I've never read anything like the first half anywhere else.

[eric mac]

For lighter reading I like Edward Weston's Daybooks. You really have to search for any technique info, but it sure proves that large format photography isn't really that boring.

Probably one of the more useful references is the History of the Lens by Kingslake. Definitely not as entertaining as Weston's books, but after reading it you come to the realization that half of the "magic" lenses you own are actually Tessar designs. ;>) It does gives a good insight to the various names and formulas to help you weed through all that vintage glass.

I actually keep falling back to Fred Picker's Workshop book. It presents zone system in a straight forward way with a lot of common sense hints. Many think it too basic, but sometimes less is more.

Eric

[Gary J. McCutcheon]

All of the above plus:

Basic Photography, by M. J. Langford;
Advanced Photography, by M. J. Langford

And I once had to memorize the chemical formulas for and optical formulas for a civil service exam for photographer and I used non other than the U.S. Navy Handbooks of Photography. Most of the photographers in this civil service position swore by it.

[neil poulsen]

Books that have meant the most to me. I go a little beyond technical books in my list.

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The Ansel Adams trilogy, Camera, Negative, and Print. These are masterful. Whenever I have a question about black and white photography, I go to these books.

Having said that, I had problems learning about the Zone System as a beginner when reading A.A.'s books. The best source I've found for learning about the Zone System is the New Zone System Manual by White, Zakia, and Lorenz. After reading this book, and after becoming a practitioner of the Zone System, I was better able to obtain benefit by reading A.A.'s comments on the Zone System in the Negative and the Print.

The Portfolios of Ansel Adams to see what's possible in black and white photography.

Another book that impresses me is Controls in Black and White Photography by Richard J. Henry. I think I learned as much from reading about his methodology as I did in reading the content in this book.

I enjoy photographing architecture. I think the following two books are must reads, if one's interested in photographing architecture.

Modern Architecture - Photographs by Ezra Stoller. This book shows Stoller's astounding sense of composition. He took architectural photographs back in the golden days of black and white, when that was the dominant photographic medium.

Photographing Buildings Inside and Out by Norman McGrath. Excellent on technique and excellent on color photographs of architecture.