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Photographing Minerals, Fossils & Lapidary Materials
The Mineralogical Record, Mar/Apr 1997
Jeff Scovil's photography is well-known to readers of the Mineralogical Record; as an associate photographer he has contributed many exciting cover photos and probably hundreds of specimen photos published with articles and show reports. He is one of a handful of photographers internationally who have spent years polishing the special skills necessary to master mineral and gem photography. Here at last he presents an accounting of some of the arcane knowledge and personal techniques which he and other masters have accumulated to deal with their beautiful but often difficult subject.
The book is divided into 19 chapters which cover everything the beginning to intermediate photographer might want to know. Discussions of aesthetics, orientation and background materials are followed by advice on preparation and handling, specimen supports, cameras and lenses, medium- and large-format photography, film types, light sources, lighting techniques and applications, metering, filters, magnification and photomicrography, stereophotography and fluorescence photography. There are also chapters on the special problems associated with photographing fossils and lapidary items, with traveling to do photography, and with improving your slide presentations. Appendices listing a variety of gadgets, gizmos and supply sources are followed by a glossary, a bibliography and an index.
Scovil has produced a very useful and comprehensible guide, well illustrated with clear diagrams and examples of good photographic technique, which should give anyone the information they need to learn mineral photography and refine their personal style. This is not a master-level text in subtleties (which would have doubled the size of the book!), but rather a good, basic text designed to serve as the core of one's education in the subject.
-Wendell E. Wilson
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