With the huge rise in interest in photography since digital became a real (and cheap!) option, there has been an equally explosive increase in the range of books on the subject. One of the latest to arrive at PCBookreview is Closeup Shooting by Cyrill Harnischmacher.

The book is a pleasure to behold, being hardback, printed on acid free paper and in full colour throughout as is the norm for titles from the specialist Rocky Nook stable. The sample images are all excellent examples of what can be achieved and serve well to whet the appetite.

Product	Closeup Shooting
From	Rocky Nook
	Lots of information on all aspects, presentation
	Very dry prose, no price guides, needs more depth coverage

The book covers equipment options, lighting techniques, specialist guidance for different types of subject matter and provides a wealth of tips across the range of subject matter. That's the good news. What we didn't like was the extremely dry and humourless writing style which made reading it a mixed experience. The images were stunning but the prose gave no feeling of excitement or inspiration. It was not unlike reading a camera manual - it tells you what to do but not much more.

We also felt that whilst it did cover a wide range of topics, some really needed a bit more depth in the discussion and after several sections we felt a need for a little bit more background material or coverage on other options.

Another negative for us was that there was no real feel for how much many of the lenses and other items of kit was likely to cost. Whilst reading, it felt neccessary to have a web browser ready and waiting to search out information on the equipment mentioned. We understand nothing dates a book quicker than prices but we'd have appreciated some sort of idea even if it was 'cheap' or 'very expensive'.

More so than most books we've seen here at PCBookreview, this is a difficult book to sum up. The book feels and looks gorgeous, the price is right and there is some good solid information inside but we did find it quite dull to read and by the end felt no burning urge to go out and put the newly gained knowledge to the test. If you're able to look past that, it's a worthy read but we can't help but feel there must be better books on the subject out there that are more able to inspire the photographer.