----- Original Message ----- From: "Joseph Chamberlain, DDS" <drjchamberlain@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> To: "List for Photo/Imaging Educators - Professionals - Students" <photoforum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Monday, May 02, 2005 4:03 Subject: Re: Best technical text on photography. : Karl: : : "Photography Theory and Practice" by Clerc seems a little outdated. The copy : I found at Amazon's is used and dates back to the late 1800's. Is there a : newer edition of this text that I have been able to locate ? yes, there was a few reprints - mine is the third translated edition from 1954 > The only copy of "Photography Theory and Practice" by Clerc I found was in >Amazon's used books section and the copy was printed in 1937. it's a highly sought after book and you're lucky to find that one! :-) : The Ilford Manual of Photography is much newer and the most recent copy I've : located is from 1978. Does this seem right ? Would it be okay to get a book : from 1978 if doesn't incorporate information on the much more : technologically advanced cameras and equipment we used today ? it depends if you're interested in photography or technology. Many of the peaks of photographic endeavor have been achieved long before now ;-) Seriously though, a lot of the modern stuff is based on similarly old technologies modified by software and manufacturer obfuscation. The stuff from the periods in which these books were written are very 'in depth' and very technical. I guess the reason there hasn't been anything written of this callibre since is that these books covered it all so thoroughly and so well that updates were pointless. (I imagine though if they'd been software writers rather than authours, there'd have been a new book every year with a different cover and some of the pages torn out ;-) If a new book on the new technologies came out then I'd be keen to grab it - but depth is what many publications lack.. Maybe if you dredged into the history of Video and read up on those technologies you'd find yourself primed for the new stuff, which is really video in origin anyway. The amalgam of optics, sensitometry, chemistry, video, video electronics, electronics, software, computer hardware, CRT and LCD's, formats, standards, codecs, etc etc is a LOT to swallow. k
