Applied Photographic Optics: Lenses and optical systems for photography, film, video, electronic and digital imaging

Great book, just one caveat, sophisticated, not for hobbyist or someone who just want to have a glance at this topic, you must hunger to study some theorizes, read the graph and do some calculation to learn something,I really enjoy it, this is the book I need.

Wide, very well documented bible of optical instruments, with a lot of very practical references.All you see in table of Contents fully reflects this what you can find inside without any disapointment

Used immediately upon delivery

I have an older (second) edition of this book, and I use it regularily for reference. It is comprehensive and covers everything imaginable about photographic optics. It does skip basics and a reader without deeper prior knowlegde would do good, to read a solid optics book beforehand (the old books by Conrady are to be recommended). Mathematics is not overly complicated, highschool knowledge should be sufficient - but one can learn a lot from this book, even without going into the details of the formulae presented. Sidney Ray is a great teacher with a precise and clear language.If I miss something, it is mainly all the specifics about digital imaging. At least the second edition is very thin on this... But it lays very solid foundations and serves as a venerable reference even in our digital imaging age. Applied Photographic Optics does not cover things like colour and the scope is very focused. So it is really not a substitute for a general optics or colour book (like Hunt's "The Reproduction of Colour").For many readers the much shorter "The Photographic lens" by the same author might be a good and much cheaper alternative. But it won't go into detail as much and might leave the reader with the wish to learn more - then Applied Photographic Optics is the logical next step.To my (limited) knowledge, there is no other current book, that could be a sensible alternative to this classic.

Ho letto solo i primi capitoli di introduzione, ma sembra comunque un ottimo libro. Pieno zeppo di immagini, grafici e matematicamente non troppo pesante e anzi ricco di tecnologia fotografica. L'ho acquistato per passione e spero una volta finito il dottorato di avere il tempo di leggerlo perché sembra veramente interessante. Se l'inglese non vi spaventa e masticate dell'ottica e un pochino di fisica, questo libro fa per voi.