Review of

The Digital Photography Book - Scott Kelby

Overall rating (1): Overall user rating The Digital Photography Book - Scott Kelby

2 offers from £9.04 to £11.05  

All The Digital Photography Book - Scott Kelby reviews

 Write your own review


 


 


The Digital Photography Book by Scott kelby

5 Dec 20th, 2006

Advantages:
Superb nugget sized tips, fits the camera bag nicely

Disadvantages:
None

Recommendable: Yes 

Detailed rating:

Degree of Information

How interesting was the book?

How useful was it?

Would you read it again?

Value for money

more


ilaskey

About me: Horribly busy but will catch up on my review reading - promise!

Member since:22.10.2006

Reviews:90

Members who trust:19

Review rated by 10 Ciao members on average: very helpful

There are lots of big shiny books out there that tell you all about digital photography and while many of these are great books, they can be a little intimidating too.

Scott Kelby, author of many of the better photography boooks out there has now come up with the antidote. The Digital Photography Book is a mere 200 odd pages and is just slightly bigger than A5 in size yet contains a whole lot of useful information that will almost certainly improve anyone's photography.

I was initially wondering quite what Scott Kelby had been smoking as the first few pages were somewhat surreal. Even the author noted they included lame (his word, not mine) humour.

After that somewhat shaky start the book morphed in to something far better. Each page is a self-contained tip or concept, often with an inspiring image for illustration. The text is rarely more than a paragraph or two yet manages to get important and useful stuff covered concisely and clearly.

Taking for instance, a chapter on tips for getting sharp pictures. You get a page for tripods, ballheads, cable releases, self-timers, mirror lockup (for really sharp pictures), Image stabalization, aperature, lens quality, ISO, sharpening, pro-sharpening and steadier hand held shots. All in a few pages and without leaving you feeling short changed.

The rest of the book continues with coverage of flower photography, weddings, landscapes, portraits and so on. Unlike many digital photography books, the bulk of the information presented is aimed at getting the original photos right, not in fixing things in Photoshop. Best of all, as the cover notes, much of it applies to point-and-click cameras as well as Digital SLRs.

I particularly liked the last section which presents a number of recipes for certain types of photo. In each case there is a great looking image such as a landscape, some sports cars or a pair of musicians, each with an accompanying list of things to do to achieve the sort of shot shown.

Another useful (albeit potentially expensive) side effect of this book is the discovery of all sorts of interesting accessories you could or indeed should be considering. Things like flashguns and tripods are pretty obvious but stuff like spirit levels, extension tubes and neutral density filters may be news to some. Certainly, for landscape photography, a graduated nuetral density filter is a must have.

The last section is a mixture of all sorts of interesting things such as printer paper, monitor calibration, selling photos online, further reading and an ad for Scott's Adobe Photoshop TV weekly podcast. Most of these should be considered inspiration for further research by the reader though as they don't contain much real meat.

I thought this was a great little book. The content is pure gold for the beginner to middle ground photographer and there are nuggets here which will make even fairly experiences readers think 'Ah ha!'

It's small, it's easy to read, has great content and is reasonably priced. As such I can't recommend it highly enough. To prove the point, three people have now borrowed my copy and all three have bought it.


 
Evaluate this review

How helpful would this review be to someone making a buying decision?

Rating guidelines

Comments about this review
llbcollins

llbcollins

01.01.2009 23:56

Loved the review. I am going to buy the book.

PaulineLees

PaulineLees

24.07.2007 23:56

Very informative review. Sounds like an excellent book to read without getting lost in the unnecessary waffle and jargon. I have a few books on photography now, some of which I haven't even contemplated reading yet. Too much information! Thanks :)

Coloneljohn

Coloneljohn

18.03.2007 12:57

Nice one.I am always interested in anything for photography. John

Add your comment

max. 2000 characters

  Post comment
Compare Prices sorted by Price
Digital Photography Book : The Step-by-Step Secrets for How to Make Your Photos Look Like the Pros, Scott Kelby : Book

Digital Photography Book : The Step-​by-​Step Secrets for .​.​.

Digital Photography Book : The Step-by-Step Secrets for How to Make Your Photos ...

more

£ 9.04 Aphrohead.com Rate it now

Postage & Packaging: £0.​0.​.​.

Availability: In stock

     Visit Shop  

Aphrohead.​com

The Digital Photography Book - Scott Kelby

The Digital Photography Book -​ Scott Kelby

The Digital Photography Book

£ 11.05 Snazal.com Rate it now

Postage & Packaging: refer to websit.​.​.

Availability: in stock

     Visit Shop  

Snazal.​com



Compare prices
Digital Photography Book : The Step-by-Step Secrets for How to Make Your Photos Look Like the Pros, Scott Kelby : Book The Digital Photography Book - Scott Kelby
Digital Photography Book : The Step-​by-​Step Secrets for .​.​. The Digital Photography Book -​ Scott Kelby
Aphrohead.com Snazal.com
£ 9.04 £ 11.05
Postage & Packaging: £0.​0.​.​.
more
Postage & Packaging: refer to websit.​.​.
more
 Visit Shop  Visit Shop
Aphrohead.​com Snazal.​com
Similar offers
Digital Photography Book, Volume 2, Scott Kelby : Book The Digital Photography Book (v. 2) - Scott Kelby Scott Kelby's Digital Photography Boxed Set: WITH The Digital Photography Book Volume 1 AND The Digital Photography Book Volume 2) - Scott Kelby
Digital Photography Book, Volume 2, Scott Kelby : Book The Digital Photography Book ​(v.​ 2)​ -​ Scott Kelby Scott Kelby's Digital Photography Boxed Set: WITH The Digital Photography Book Volume 1 AND The .​.​.
Aphrohead.com Blackwell.co.uk Snazal.com
£ 9.04 £ 13.99 £ 18.95
Postage & Packaging: 0.​00
more
Postage & Packaging: 2.​00 GBP
more
Postage & Packaging:
more
 Visit Shop  Visit Shop  Visit Shop
Aphrohead.​com Blackwell.​co.​uk Snazal.​com
Review Ratings
This review of The Digital Photography Book - Scott Kelby has been rated:

"exceptional" by (20%):
  1. llbcollins
  2. PaulineLees

"very helpful" by (80%):
  1. Coloneljohn
  2. Soho_Black
  3. gizmogizmo
and 5 other members

The overall rating of a review is different from a simple average of all individual ratings.
Products you might be interested in
Adobe Photoshop CS3 for Photographers: A Professional Image Editor's Guide to the Creative Use of Photoshop for the Macintosh and PC - Martin Evening Adobe Photoshop CS3 for Photographers: A Professional Image Editor's Guide to the Creative Use of Photoshop for the Macintosh and PC - Martin Evening
Non-Fiction - Arts & Music - Art & Design - ISBN: 240520289
This product has not yet been reviewed. Rate it now
Buy now for only £ 17.50
The Complete Guitar Player - Russ Shipton The Complete Guitar Player - Russ Shipton
Non-Fiction - Art & Music - ISBN: 0711984492
This product has not yet been reviewed. Rate it now
Buy now for only £ 5.00
The Tattoo Encyclopaedia - Terisa Green The Tattoo Encyclopaedia - Terisa Green
Non-Fiction - Art & Music - ISBN: 0743252268
This product has not yet been reviewed. Rate it now
Buy now for only £ 6.17
Related products on eBay