American Cinematographer

American Cinematographer is a magazine that has a specific focus on the art of cinematography and delves into the technical aspects of filming and other details of, predominantly, movie productions through in-depth behind-the-scenes articles and interviews about and with the people involved. The professional nature of the magazine is reinforced by the fact that cinematographers often submit articles on their work, that they themselves have written. Several Star Trek productions have received coverage in the magazine over the years. Launched by "The American Society of Cinematographers" in 1920 under the stewardship of "Captain Jack" Poland, the magazine is, as of 2013, still being published.

Though there is a certain overlap in the subject matter with the younger magazines Cinefex and Cinefantastique (reporter Ron Magid submitted his visual effects articles also to the latter magazine in the last quarter of the previous century), the focus of this publication lies, as the title suggests, on the various aspects of the actual filming whereas Cinefex is focused on special effects and visual effects while Cinefantastique covered a lesser in-depth but wider range of behind-the-scenes aspects. As such, the magazines can be considered complimentary. It should be noticed that American Cinematographer has remained true to its origins as a motion picture specialty magazine, and seldomly ventures into the field of television productions.

Star Trek issues
Of particular relevance to Star Trek are the below mentioned issues. The October 1967 issue stands out as the earliest professional behind-the-scenes coverage of a Star Trek production, pre-dating the book The Making of Star Trek. The article in that issue featured the visual effects (then still called "Special Effects") work on The Original Series, done by Darrell Anderson, Linwood G. Dunn, and Joseph Westheimer, and was, also being the very first one on the subject matter for Star Trek, written on the occasion of their 1967 Emmy Award nomination for that work. This rare issue has become a sought after item, commanding premium prices on second hand markets like Amazon.com and eBay.com.

Noteworthy is that has not received any coverage in the magazine.