Lighting Books

I bought three books at the same time, recieved two within seven days of the order. The third has yet to come. Contacted the vendor and he stated that it must be lost in the mail and offered to re-ship or re-fund, I wanted to re-ship because I needed this book for my work. Waited a couple of weeks and sent an e-mail asking when the book had been re-shipped, got and e-mail back but didn't state the date it was shipped but said if I didn't recieve it in three days they would give me a refund. Well have not gotten the book after 40 days. Not sure if I will get a refund like they state but if you are looking for a quick and no hasel transaction don't look here.

Needs to be updated to include IBC 2003. Still showing 2002. Don't expect a new edition. Note printing of June 2002.

The first review said that this book is for novices. I got it because I consider myself to be a novice that wants to install some recessed lights. To this, I needed to install more wiring and switches. This book did not help at all. If you can install a ceiling fan based on the instructions in the box then you do not need this book. It just shows you how to connect the wires from the electrical box in the ceiling to your new fixture. Any competent human can do this. Do not buy this book. If you are like me and need some basic wiring advice get Black and Decker the Complete Guide to Home Wiring. The book has much more than you need, but then again there might be another project later where the Guide to Home Wiring will be helpful.

This book is great, IF your a novice at putting in lighting. It lacks the design tips that I was expecting. I expected more out of this extremely thin book. If you are on at least an intermediate level of electric knowledge, then find another book. My husband and I were greatly disappointed.

This book has various mathematical errors in some of the key equations. Even the equation for the basic CPC is wrong.

Yet, in the first book, by Welford and Winston, the key equations are all correct. [Welford was a meticulous proof reader.]

This latest edition is a badly flawed book because of poor (if any) proof reading.

Get the 1st edition if you can (1978 version), to get the correct basic math, then use this edition for a reasonable review of more recent stuff.

Anyone contemplating buying the online-edition of this book should be forwarned: All the appendices, which constitute 77 pages of important reference material, have been left out of this edition. You can see what you're missing in the table of contents, but that's all you'll get to see. The physical book is 491 pages long, while the online-edition gives you only 414 pages.

When I attempted to bring this to the attention of the Amazon customer support staff, I was informed that my message informing them of this technical error was itself lost due to another technical error.

If I cannot have a refund, at least I can save my fellow customers from a frustrating experience.

I bought this book hoping to learn some new ways to build small touring sets. Unfortunately only the first couple of chapters were really applicable to my situation. Even then, the directions for building were sketchy for non-technical types of people. I guess that the diagrams will make sense to someone who is used to building sets, but I am not and the language used is too technical for me. I did get some nice ideas about using screens and blinds, though.

I purchased this book to add to my collection and found that it contained less information than one might find in a basic stagecraft book found at any college bookstore. It is my opinion that some of the staging ideas though sound if done properly could be hazardous otherwise. I suggest that if you are not experienced in stagecraft to purchase this book along with a companion stagecraft book and pull from both sources to design and build your show. There are some good suggestions for easy to move lightweight pageant grade sets and this source should not be overlooked. I simply sugest that you not use this as your only reference. To the experienced builder - skip this text all together the designs in the book are old and you most likely will kick your self and say I know how to put plywood platforms on sawhorses why did I buy this!.

Like its two previous manuals, Stop-Motion Armature Machining and Stop-Motion Puppet Sculpting and Fabrication, the publisher chose to print Stop-Motion Filming and Performance on substandard paper stock, with low-quality images. This hurts the overall look of the manual, belies the content of the manual, and results in a product that is overpriced for what one gets visually.

The author had requested color photographs for the lighting portion of the manual, and was initially told by the publisher that up to 8 color images would be printed. Eventually, color photos were not used, which further impeded the manual's discussion on color lighting.

The most important aspects of filmmaking (be it live-action or animation) are the story and performances. As such, the author spent a great deal of time discussing story development and animation performance. The author would especially welcome comments from consumers of the manual on those aspects of the manual as well, and to provide more objective and fair criticism.

I am a film student at the University of Miami. I was trying a first time stop/motion experiment and bought this awful book. The section on lighting techniques are all introductory and in no way specific to stop/motion animation. The very few pictures in the book are in b/w and extremely muddy. It is way too general, a complete waste of time, and a rip off for 50 bucks.

I have created portraits for over 30 years. I read every book I can to observe the creative techniques that others use. I was stuned to start this book and look at the techniques. I thought that they were reflected the photography of an amateur, rather than a professional, especially one who is writing a book.
There were some statements that were made that were of interest.
However, the bulk of the photographs were poorly exposed and that was enough to be distracting.
I also found that the models used, no matter how much preframing the author did, did not reflect the mood that he had suggested that he accomplished.
All in all this is one of the few books in photography, that I am sorry I had purchased.

I don,t know that I must fill in this space about which subject.

To my mind, this book is designed and published in the most amateur way. The page layouts seem not to be carefully thought through. Some pictures are laid one upon another in the most unfavourable way, others are cut and/or placed too close to the binding in the center. What is the most annoying, several pics are "broken" - placed in such a way that the most part of the picture is on one page and 1/6 of it is on the opposite one (whereas the binding is quite tight), though could be zoomed in to see it as a whole.
Some pictures are magnified to such extend that lose their sharpness and really look like the pictures I sometimes print out using my DeskJet printer (even the photographs of ballet scenes are grainy!)
At least one picture is mistakenly described as the costume design for Salome, though is is clearly written on the drawing itself by the hand of Bakst: "Swan Lake" (in Russian). This leaves me wondering whether the author made a thorough investigation.

What I cannot understand is that if the book is about Bakst and his art, why there are so many reproductions of other painters' works (Serov, Bilibin, Shishkin, Chagall, Matisse, Gauguin, etc.)? No doubt, it is important to mention in the narrative all the influences on Bakst's art as well as the historical preconditions of his development as an artist, but why to include all these works, especially in such a large format?! For example, it is just briefly mentioned that Bakst was invited to teach at Zvantseva's school of art where Marc Chagall later studied, and there is a huge ("broken") Chagall's painting on the opposite page! I cannot get rid of the impression that the author didn't know how to fill in the pages.

On the brighter side, there are a lot of beautiful Bakst's works and despite of all its faults, I do not really regret bying the book, especially as there aren't (unfortunately) many books on this artist.

The author gave many cutesy anecdotal examples of how lighting related to ordinary life in the 18th and 19th century, but his approach was so scattershot that the book became very hard to follow. e.g.(you might be reading on page 100 of the book and the author would refer back to a photo plate on page 10 and then to another photo on page 137). The writing is not structured along a logically progressive timeline as most people are used to following in modern research texts. Also the photgraphic plates yield photos of lamps and candlesticks which are quite small with difficult to determine details, due to the large number of items displyed in each plate. The plates are in black and white and the paper is not the best quality for photographic reproduction.

However, on a more positive note, the anecdotes were a refreshing change from an otherwise boring treatise. I wouldn't recommend this as your first or only choice for scholarly study of the field, but as an adjunct to other texts and for some interesting background material it is fine.

This is purely a picture book and the photographs are mostly bad. The whole point of photographing garden lighting is to capture the look of the lighting at twilight. When the photographs are taken too early the lighting has no impact; when taken too late the contrast levels result in hot spots of lighting that do not in any way replicate what is seen by the eye in that particular after-dark setting. The text merely gushes about what you are looking at but seldom provides any useful information about how the effects were achieved. There are a number of books about garden lighting that are better photographed and contain details about how the lighting effects were achieved. I have reviewed all of the books on outdoor lighting that were or are still available. If what is being sought is a well illustrated primer on lighting effects in a garden setting one will not find it here.