What's the best book for understanding lighting?

Can someone recommend a good book that shows intermediate to advance fundamentals behind lighting? 

If you want to understand lighting, you probably want to understand light.  "Light: Science and Magic" would be a good place to start.

garyrhook wrote: If you want to understand lighting, you probably want to understand light.  "Light: Science and Magic" would be a good place to start.

 excellent recommendations.  I have the last two versions of this book

Lighting Notebook

Roy Wilson wrote: Lighting Notebook

I didn't care for this book as much as I did the Light: Science and Magic book.  Then Joe Mcnally has a few titles that are a good read too.  

Sketching LIght is a good book worth reading

You didn't mention whether you're using a dSLR or a point & shoot. Or, whether what you're looking for is indeed a book on understanding light & its effect on your images (artificial light, photographic light, studio light approaches, modifying light in post-processing, etc.) or exposure and how to set it under different conditions. There are also different books and techniques depending on the time of day you'd like to shoot (night lighting would require a whole different set of techniques than daytime and golden hour shooting).

That said, here are a few book options for you to check out (some you can scan portions of online at Amazon & some may be in your local library or bookstore so you can see if they suit your desires before purchasing):

1- Lighting: Digital Field Guide by Brian McLernon. A clearly written guide that covers lighting principles as well as practical techniques. It very nicely defines terms too - doesn't assume the reader knows it all, but doesn't talk down to us as readers either.

2- Speedliter's Handbook by Syl Arena. The sub-title is "learning to craft light with Canon Speedlites". I'm a Canon user, but many of the points covered in this book relate to the use of hotshoe-based (or off-camera) flash units and some of the accessories that complement them. This one I'd say to scan the contents online or at a library before you decide whether to purchase...

3- Lighting by David Prakel. Almost an academic course on photographic lighting in book form. Definitely not a how-to, step x step, cookbook type of book. More theory oriented.

4- David Busch's Quick Snap Guide to Lighting -or- Stoppees' Guide to Photography & Light. I'd say these two are tradeoffs of essentially the same approach; that is, descriptions in an almost encyclopedic style of key terms, techniques, tools you should know about if you're really into lighting. Again, not a step x step how to.

5- Light: Science & Magic is for intermediate level photogs - rather advanced. But excellent book.

If you can clarify the following we might be able to narrow down options for you. Do you have a P&S or dSLR? Do you plan to use your on-camera pop up flash or an external flash? Do you mostly care about field or studio lighting? What type of photography do you want to perfect lighting techniques in (portrait, landscape, macro, etc.)?

Good luck! Hope you find what you're looking for. There's a lot of options out there. Some video training online - like that offered by - might be of interest to you too. But I haven't looked to see if they have training on lighting. YouTube may have some free tutorials if you search by term. you'd have to pay for in various subscription options.

 Nice.