books on lighting

wayne naughton

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• Feb 23, 2009

• #1

i'm after a couple of books on contemporary studio lighting. preferably not too technical, just something that explains current fx and lighting plans

mainly for portraiture/dance/figure

many thanks

wayne

 

archphoto

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• Feb 23, 2009

• #2

Some are even for free !!!
Check the site of Broncolor, they have quite a few .pdf 's

Peter

 

removed account4

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• Feb 23, 2009

• #3

ross lowell's Matters of Light & Depth
some of the amphoto portrait series aren't too bad.
the problems with lighting books is that often times
it is nearly impossible to understand their schematic diagrams ..
ross lowell's Matters of Light & Depth is great ...
some of the amphoto portrait series aren't too bad.

good luck
john

 

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wayne naughton

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• Feb 23, 2009

• #4

thankyou gentlemen, i wonder if there's anything written about sven nykvist....i can vaguely remember a very long documentary that went into great detail about his lighting techniques.... maybe a little out of date, but gee he was good

 

Allen Friday

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• Feb 23, 2009

• #5

"Light, Science and Majic."

It covers the theory of lighting objects. Once you understand the theory, all the other books (with their diagrams and step by step how to instrusctions) will be easier to understand and adapt to what you want to accomplish.

 

Klopstock

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• Mar 9, 2009

• #6

archphoto said:

Some are even for free !!!
Check the site of Broncolor, they have quite a few .pdf 's

Peter

Click to expand...

Sounds good, but I did not find those... do you have a link for us?

 

Urmas R.

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• Apr 28, 2009

• #7

Allen Friday said:

"Light, Science and Majic."

It covers the theory of lighting objects. Once you understand the theory, all the other books (with their diagrams and step by step how to instrusctions) will be easier to understand and adapt to what you want to accomplish.

Click to expand...

Absolutely agree with this suggestion. This is the book I learned the basics of lighting. It is well written, with a lot of illustrations.

 

Andrew Horodysky

• Apr 28, 2009

• #8

I, too, will suggest "Light: Science and Magic" by Fill Hunter, et al.

It's superbly written: accessible, readable, and comprehensible. Most every lighting situation is covered (natural, ambient/existing and studio) with accompanying diagrams and photographs. Once you go through this book, any other book will be a supplement. I can't recommend it enough.

Also, try some of the books published by AVA: http://www.avabooks.ch/index.php/ava/booklist/Photography.

 

archphoto

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• Apr 28, 2009

• #9

@Klopstock: www.broncolor.com , I access them mostly through Photal , the dutch importer.
Look for their magazine.
English and German versions.

Kodak had a book called Creative Lighting Techniques, pretty good aswell.

Peter

 

benjiboy

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• May 9, 2009

• #10

Light science and magic is sold by Amazon, It's one of the best books I have ever read on lighting, and I recommend it too .

 

Last edited by a moderator: May 9, 2009

DanielStone

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• Aug 3, 2009

• #11

anything by dean collins. i'm not sure how many books he did, but he did a few video series, of which i have found good enough to grab myself a copy a year or so back.

ANTHING by Dean Collins. he was the teacher that tought teachers on lighting.

-dan

 

Sirius Glass

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• Aug 3, 2009

• #12

Given to me by my boss at Kodak:
Seeing the Light: Optics in Nature, Photography, Color, Vision, and Holography, David Falk, Dieter Brill, David Stork; Copyright 1986 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

ISBN 0-471-60385-6

Steve

 

EASmithV

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• Aug 4, 2009

• #13

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw?url=search-alias=aps&field-keywords=lightning&x=0&y=0

lol, alright...

Actually, I have this old book on portraiture which has quite a bit of information in it. It's worth checking out.

Portraiture, Camerette Photo Library, Copyright 1947 The Camera Inc. Sorry, no ISBN number for this book.

 

memoryofadream

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• Aug 20, 2009

• #14

One of the single most useful sources of information on lighting for me has been strobist.com. Even though it's a web-site that's largely targeted at digital shooters using small portable flashes and I shoot film and use bigger monolights, most of the lighting concepts are universal and David Hobby has a true talent for hitting just the right mix of theory and practice in his posts and explanations that I learn the most from.