Various aspects of application of derivative spectrophotometry to chemical analysis and investigations of equilibria and kinetics of reactions are scrutinised. In this work the viability of a spectrophotometric technique for the determination of ciprofloxacin has been deliberated. The method is based on the formation of ion-association complexes of ciprofloxacin with nickel(II) tetra thiocyanate, which are extracted into organic solvent (40% n-butanol in methylene chloride) having absorption maxima at 623 nm. The precision and accuracy of the method was checked by UV reference methods. The validation study indicated the parameters, which are in good agreement with the data obtained from standard methods. The proposed method was fruitfully applied to determine ciprofloxacin in their tablet formulations.