In his biography of producer
Mark Hellinger (who produced
The Naked City (1948), which won Daniels an Academy Award for Best Cinematography, Black-and-White),
Jim Bishop wrote: "In the old silent days, Daniels had been the best of them all. His camerawork was so close to art that producers and directors and cameramen used to sit in private projection rooms, not to judge a picture, but to see what new tricks of lighting and effects Daniels had achieved. The industry acknowledged that Daniels' work was so fine that other cameramen were never censured for shamelessly stealing it".