Acknowledgments
WRITINGthis book was my own exploration into many areas about which I was so unfa-
miliar that I didn’t know how much I didn’t know about them until they raised their obscure,
obtuse, and unfathomable faces, from which dripped entangled equations and a new vocab-
ulary with terms such as Airy discs andcircles of confusion. What I saw originally as a
three-month or four-month project when I started grew by leaps of weeks and bounds of
months. While I spent time assimilating optics, one of the strangest sciences I’ve encountered,
a lot of people waited with patience—most of the time, anyway—and encouragement. To
them, I owe such tremendous debts of gratitude that I never will be able to repay them ade-
quately. But for now, here’s a down payment of thanks to Tim Downs, whose artistry
explodes into a new universe with every book we do; my editors at Que, Stephanie
McComb, Greg Wiegand, and Todd Brakke; technical editor Jay Townsend; and my agent,
Claudette Moore. I’m enormously grateful to John Rizzo for pitching in and writing some of
the material in the software section. (If you’re a Mac user, check out his How Macs Work.)
Usually I have to track down experts and convince them to share their valuable time to
answer my layman’s questions. After the first edition of How Digital Photography Works,
however, I unexpectedly received email from two experts offering advice, information, and,
ah-hem, corrections. Robert E. Fischer, the CEO of OPTICS 1, Inc., was generous with his
time, information, photos, and illustrations. Stephen Shore, an old friend from our days at
Ziff-Davis and now president of Stradis Corp.—and who I didn’t know did his graduate work
in optics—reappeared with helpful advice I really needed. A reader, Don Wagner, pointed
out that I had changed the speed of light to about a tenth of what it actually is. I, and the
laws of physics, thank him.
For sharing their knowledge, research, and photography, I’m grateful to outdoor photogra-
pher Ed Knepley, Ravi Nori, light field camera developer Ren Ng, and Michael Reichmann,
whose Lucious Landscape site (http://www.luminous-landscape.com/public/) is a must-see
for all photographers. Sabine Su[um]sstrunk of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology
Lausanne, David Alleysson of Universite Pierre-Mendes France, Ron Kimmel of Technion
Israel Institute of Technology, as well as Alan Schietzsch of interpolateTHIS.com for sharing
their insights and photos regarding the fine art of demosaicing, or demosaication, or...
whatever. I couldn’t have done this without the help, information, and equipment loans from
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ix