Digital Photography For Science Hardcover

Photography is the primary tool for visually documenting specimens, experimental findings and laboratory setups in many scientific fields. Photographic illustrations in these fields must satisfy criteria of clarity, objectivity and adherence to accepted standards, in addition to a pleasant but not distracting composition and illumination. This book concentrates on the choice and practical use of digital cameras, lenses and related equipment of types commonly available at research institutions and museums. The described techniques are suitable for subject sizes between approximately half a millimeter and half a meter, and differ from those used in general photography and microscopy. The intended audience of this book includes professional scientific photographers, scientists and students who need to carry out photography in support of their own research or as part-time scientific photographers at a research institution, and advanced amateur photographers who wish to master these techniques.

Physics is fundamental to all aspects of digital photography. This book works through the physics underlying the photographic imaging chain, from image capture through to the production of a viewable output digital image. It provides an invaluable insight into the connections between imaging science and photographic practice and is intended for use by both graduate students and established researchers. In this updated and expanded new edition, the material has been re-organised and extensively rewritten and the figures have been enhanced.

This book provides an overview of the detailed physics involved in the imaging chain for an audience of scientists and engineers. With the increasing use of digital photography in a research environment, modern scientists and engineers need to better understand the science behind digital photography to fully exploit this invaluable research tool.

While there are many books that teach the "how-to" of photography, Science for the Curious Photographer is a book for those who also want to understand how photography works. Beginning with an introduction to the history and science of photography, Charles S. Johnson, Jr. addresses questions about the principles of photography, such as why a camera needs a lens, how lenses work, and why modern lenses are so complicated. Addressing the complex aspects of digital photography, the book discusses color management, resolution, "noise" in images, and the limits of human perception. The creation and appreciation of art in photography is discussed from the standpoint of modern cognitive science. A crucial read for those seeking the scientific context to photographic practice, this second edition has been comprehensively updated, including discussion of DSLRs, mirror-less cameras, and a new chapter on the limits of human vision and perception.

Carried in wallets and displayed in homes, photographs are a common, but often an overlooked feature of modern life. And, with the advent of digital technology many believe that the so called 'wet chemistry' behind old fashioned photography is a thing of the past - but is it? The Chemistry of Photography endeavours to unravel the mysteries of picture taking and reflects on the diversity and complexity of the science. It gives readers an insight into the chemistry needed to generate pictures, spanning all mediums including still and motion picture as well as digital imaging. Beginning with the components of conventional photography such as films and papers, the book also looks at light capture and amplification, negative films, processing solutions, colour transparencies, the chemistry of colour and motion picture films. The book concludes with a discussion of digital technology and new innovations in photography. This fascinating book will appeal to scientists and those with a general interest in both the new and the old science behind photography.

"Physics is fundamental to all aspects of digital photography. This book works through the physics underlying the photographic imaging chain, from image capture through to the production of a viewable output digital image. It provides an invaluable insight into the connections between imaging science and photographic practice and is intended for use by both graduate students and established researchers. In this updated and expanded new edition, the material has been reorganised and extensively rewritten and the figures have been enhanced." -- Prové de l'editor.

Photography has been the business and the passion of LIFE since the original weekly magazine's inception in 1936, and it continues to be the business and passion of LIFE Books and LIFE.com in the new millennium. But photography has surely changed during these many decades. The rigs and gear of old have given way-first slowly, then all at once-to sleek miracle machines that process pixels and have made the darkroom obsolete. The casual photog puts eye to lens, sets everything on auto and captures a photograph that is . . . perfectly fine. One of LIFE's master shooters-in fact, the final in the long line of distinguished LIFE staff photographers-was Joe McNally, and he has always believed that with a little preparation and care, with a dash of enthusiasm and daring added to the equation, anyone can make a better photo-anyone can turn a "keeper" into a treasure. This was true in days of yore, and it's true in the digital age. Your marvelous new camera, fresh from its box, can indeed perform splendid feats. Joe explains in this book how to take best advantage of what it was designed to do, and also when it is wise to outthink your camera or push your camera-to go for the gold, to create that indelible family memory that you will have blown up as large as the technology will allow, and that will hang on the wall forevermore. As the storied LIFE photographer and photo editor John Loengard points out in his eloquent foreword to this volume, there are cameras and there are cameras, and they've always been able to do tricks. And then there is photography. Other guides may give you the one, two, three of producing a reasonably well exposed shot, but Joe McNally and the editors of LIFE can give you that, and then can show you how to make a picture. In a detailed, friendly, conversational, anecdotal, sometimes rollicking way, that's what they do in these pages. Prepare to click.