Dusk to Dawn: A Guide to Landscape Photography at Night

Credit for my purchase of this book goes to Brenda Tharp who, in her book Expressive Nature Photography, devoted a short chapter to photographing stars, which included these words: “many resources for getting much deeper into stars and moonlight photography are available on line and in books.” I like brevity. I have continued to check back to her chapter.Nevertheless, her words led me to Glenn Randall, an author I also respect. His Dusk to Dawn has become my book for details. It is comprehensive and written in plain English, easy to understand. His teaching should apply to any make of camera, assuming a wide-angle lens.Randall tells you how to photograph it all: the milky way, night landscapes, moonlit landscapes, star trails, the aurora borealis, meteor showers, lunar eclipses. He tells you how to determine the right night for shooting, how to select your location, and how to do everything in the dark from getting to your location and back to fumbling with the buttons on your camera to what to look for in your histogram. After your night into morning is over, he takes you through Photoshop and Lightroom step by step and tweaks to get results you might never have imagined.If I had a problem, it was with Randall’s style of presenting procedures. He writes long paragraphs, and some of his paragraphs contain more than one step. It is frustrating for me to hold my Kindle on my lap and try to get back and forth between the mess of words on my Kindle screen and the things to click or slide on my computer screen. I hope I am not violating copyright laws, but I made paper copies of the procedures I use and marked them up with a pen, numbering the steps. That helped.I have never read other books or chapters on photographing stars, so I cannot say if this is the best. All I can say is that this one is mighty fine. I’m amazing my friends with the pictures it helped me get. Randall is an excellent mentor. Brenda Tharp is pretty good too.

IMO, Glenn Randall is one of the top 5 landscape and night-sky photographers out there, and his books are always top notch. Unlike many photography writers, he knows both the technical and artistic nuances and can convey them in an easy to understand manner. In addition, Randall honors your interest in the topic and tells you how to do it and provides tons of valuable info without going out on tangents.There are lots of photography books on the market, but very few that actually convey anything beyond the basics. Randall goes far beyond f-stops and equipment and educates you on the physics of light, but in a very understandable manner, enabling you to make educated decisions on how to get the photo you want.He also covers practical topics like how not to get lost at night (or scare yourself to death with an overactive imagination), as well as topics like where and when the Milky Way is best viewed, how to shoot the Aurora, meteor showers, light painting, and shoot star trails. His photos are truly inspirational. And unlike some photography books, each photo has the equipment he used and the settings data.Along with Jennifer Wu’s excellent book, this is all you need to become a night-sky pro (except equipment), and I highly recommend both.One last thing - Rocky Nook needs to recognize that charging outrageous prices for ebooks actually hurts their bottom line instead of helping it. I bought this book only because it’s by Randall, but believe me, at $31, I felt the gouge. Print books are a different matter, but It costs almost nothing to produce an ebook. I would feel better if most of that went to the photographer, but it doesn’t.

I have had this book for about a week but I am learning a huge amount about my camera and technique with this book. I previously read through the author's The Art, Science, and Craft of Great Landscape Photography which was amazing. This book is also incredible and expounds significantly on the night photography section found in the previous title.Pros of this book:- Well written instructions and details to consider in various scenarios- It is focused more on how to use what equipment you have well but does share recommended specialized equipment and software.- The photos are very good and show a variety of styles.- The chapters go quite deep and will give you a thorough understanding of intermediate and at least I think, more advanced techniques.Potential Con:- This book is written for intermediate photographers. You should know how to use your camera and be able to compose with a solid understanding of aperture, shutter speed, and ISO and how they relate to changing landscape light. You should also understand post processing, especially layers, masking, stacking, and blending.For me I have only been doing photography for approaching 3 years but this was exactly what I needed to get deeper into night landscapes. If you already have general understandings, this could be a great step for you.

Too technical and dives deeper into photo software then I wanted.

I had originally read one of Glenn's previous books entitled "the art, craft, and science of great landscape photography" and this book is a nice complement to that one. I was really excited to read this book having preordered it and I wasn't disappointed. Besides being an excellent photographer, Glenn's style is unique to say the least. He writes about things that most others don't think about. I also appreciate that each photo lists the camera, lens, date, and time the shot was taken which provides a good baseline reference. Basic and advanced post-processing techniques for Lightroom and Photoshop are also covered. I think this would be a good book for people who already have a good handle on daytime photography who want to learn night landscape/astrolandscape photography. Lastly, Glenn lives in Boulder, CO and I also live on the front range of CO and so many of the photographs in the book are taken at places in Colorado and Utah that I photograph. Overall, a wonderful book that I'd highly recommend.

Excellent