By 

James R. Lowell (Jacksonville, FL USA) –

  

Since I’m offering an opinion (and review) on the book, The Digital Photography Book, I think a brief look at my background may give what follows a bit more veracity. I am an enthusiastic advanced amateur photographer with roughly 40 years of experience that includes a goodly number of awards and published photos. I shut down my wet darkroom a few years ago and have happily traded film and silver-based images for electrons, pixels and ink jet printing.
Enough about me; now let’s look at the latest book by Scott Kelby (of National Association of Photoshop Professionals fame): The Digital Photography Book.
This is a different kind of animal in the world of self-help photography books. The author describes the experience of reading the book as having your good friend–who also happens to be an expert in digital photography–standing besides you while you’re taking pictures.
The book lives up to Scott’s description–complete with the frequent interjection of his quirky sense of humor. (Warning, watch out for the first page of Chapter One.)
I don’t feel this is a book for complete novices–either in photography or in the use of digital equipment. Scott assumes the readers already know the basics of how their cameras work (what and where the controls are) and have used their cameras long enough to know what else they want to learn to take better photographs.
Another reason some basic knowledge of photography is necessary to get the most from this book is that Scott doesn’t shy away from including the terms in common use by digital photographers today: ISO, white balance, focal length, lens aperture, etc. He also assumes the readers have the desire to move up in the ranks from point-and-shooters to at least competent amateurs. Therefore, Scott includes numerous suggestions about photographic gear he feels can help any photographer take better pictures–and, although he breaks his suggestions down by price range, much of the gear still comes with a hefty price tag.
A look at the chapter titles also confirms that Scott was not writing a teach-everything book for all readers. The 11 chapters include specialized topics, such as, Shooting Flowers like a Pro, Shooting Weddings Like a Pro, Shooting Sports Like a Pro and Taking Advantage of Digital Like a Pro. For me, the final chapter, Photo Recipes to Help You Get “The Shot”, was the best part of the book. This is where Scott puts everything together and takes his readers into the field to practice what they’ve learned.
So, do I like The Digital Photography Book? More importantly, do I recommend it? Yes, to both of these questions; but, as I mentioned above, to get the most out of the book, the reader should have at least point-and-shoot digital experience and a basic vocabulary of photographic terms.
One final note. The book can be read front to back, or chapters can be sampled at random to learn just the techniques each reader needs. At the offered price, I think The Digital Photography Book definitely has a place in a well-rounded photographer’s library.

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