Bates Books

I don't like to discourage authors, especially those in my field (New Age/reincarnation) but I think that Raymond Bates should have secured the services of a good editor before submitting this book for publication. The best I can discern from his material is that he feels that since a newborn infant has an entirely new brain, yet still might be afraid of a lion, etc., etc. this proves reincarnation. I'd hate to hear what hardcare skeptics would have to say about that.

But there may be more to the book than this. My high school English teacher would have returned the manuscript for this book full of red pencil marks. You can't wade through all the errors in grammar and usage to get to the heart of the matter.

If Raymond Bates really feels he has something valuable to offer in this field or any field, he had better take a brush-up course in basic English and writing techniques, or else hire a good editor, before publishing any more books. I would like to really be able to discern what he has to say. Good luck to him.

A 547 word article that is only a portion of the full article. Go directly to Liability Consultants rather than pay $5.95 for an incomplete, and relatively useless article.

"Photographing Birds" is a pocket-sized book aimed at covering the full gamut of bird photography from equipment to a short list of places to take photographs of birds. In between, chapters include luring and stalking birds, photographing nesting and flight and special challenges like night photography and winter photography.

This book is apparently an update of a previous National Geographic book entitled "National Geographic Photography Field Guide: Birds". While I did not read that prior volume, this book has the feel of a job of cutting and pasting. For example, in the Getting Started chapter, there is an extensive discussion of film in the main text and then some sections that feel like they had just been appended on digital photography. The same section contains a discussion of catadioptric (mirror) lenses. No bird photographer I know would consider using such a lens today.

Two of the basic problems that any bird photographer will face are exposure and focus. There is no discussion in this book of how one might compensate for different lighting conditions and bird tonalities. There is a reference to the histogram, one of the most useful devices that digital SLR cameras offer for the control of exposure, but no explanation of this function. With regard to focus most modern cameras offer a choice between single focus and continuous focus and the selection of one or the other can greatly affect the images taken, but there is virtually no mention in this book.

The basic shortcoming is that while the book recognizes the problems of bird photography, there is very little practical advice. Even such a basic subject as depth-of-field is not included in the book.

For several years the gold standard for bird photography has been "The Art of Bird Photography" by Arthur Morris. It doesn't cover digital photography but it's still a lot more useful than this book. Morris has an e-book on digital bird photography which is available from his web site, but which he is not yet offering in a printed version.

The bottom line is that I cannot recommend this book for any photographer.

I had purchased Bates' book "Optical Networking and Switching" in March. Now that I saw this book, I was expecting something new. However, it just a chapter scanned from that book and so donot buy this if you already have the book.

this has got to be the most dumb story i've ever read in my life. people who call it a piece of literature must be nuts. i have read a fair bit of literature and have not landed upon a worse piece.

Mr. Bates claims to cover the 3 step process. He never identified the steps, keeps clearing his throat throughout the 39 minutes of oral presentation (disgusting).

Instead of proceeding with valuable content/information, he uses up time by asking questions of the audience. Non-value added.

The first few pages describe the Bates Method in very general terms. The rest of the books has nothing to do with eyesight in any way or manner. If you are interested in the Bates Method do NOT buy this book. I recommend BETTER VISION NOW by Hackett and Galton. Probably there are other good books out there on the Bates Method.