This is an amazing book! For me to take the time to write a review about anything means that I either hate it with a passion or I enjoyed it so much, I have to share it with everyone I know. This book would definitely be the later because Christian’s HDRI Handbook is a resource guide that no HDR photographer should go without.
This book provides the photographer with everything they need to know regarding HDR photography for beginners and advance photographers alike. The HDRI Handbook has a connect-the-dots explanations as to what, how, and why HDR works the way it does. It gives a basic understanding of procedures on how to set a digital camera properly and tweak the range of exposures to obtain the best results. So for those who don’t know squat, this book will definitely get you moving in the right direction. However, if you’re an advanced HDR photographer, don’t let this fool you because it’s loaded with tons of tips for getting the most out of every exposure.
The HDRI Handbook is currently selling at Amazon, my favorite online book store. This book comes with an accompanying DVD, which contains the trial versions of different HDR software such as Photomatix, Photosphere, FDRtools, PTGui Pro, and Picturenaut. The photos in the tutorials are also included in the DVD so readers can practice creating HDR images found in the book and compare their output with Bloch’s. The first few chapters of the book may seem technical for the novice photographer, making it more challenging but HDRI itself can be a very complicated and technical subject in the first place. However, Bloch easily explains the technical aspects of HDR so that any non geek can understand.
Bloch did a great job in helping his readers comprehend the intricate concepts without turning the book into a software-training manual. Any photographer, computer graphic artists, or cinematographer would definitely find this informative book a good reference for capturing amazing quality HDR photographs. Like the ones seen on this site and all over the web. If you’re looking into buying a book about HDR photography this would be the one Captain Kimo recommends.