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The Digital Photography Book Vol. 2 by Scott Kelby Review

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Posted by Patrick on Sep 21, 2008 in Book Review, feature

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Scott Kelby’s books are like Photoshop’s smart sharpen filter for your brain. They aren’t hard to digest, easy to reference, and have the distinct ability to make things that may have been a little fuzzy in your head, much clearer. And so it is with The Digital Photography Book vol. 2, Scott Kelby’s sequel to the “must have in your camera bag” book, The Digital Photography Book. Written in the same “pro over your shoulder” style that is trademark Kelby at this point, The Digital Photography Book vol. 2 picks up were the first volume left off, covering a range of slightly more advanced topics such as flash photography, setting up your own studio, and travel photography. In addition there are other chapters that add some meat to things covered already in the first volume, like shooting landscapes, portraits and further still, chapters covering macro, and wedding photography and more, honestly lots and lots more.

While the chapter titles may seem exceedingly generic, the information contained within is definitely not. Because of Kelby’s writing style and intended purpose of this book (…”show me how to do it”), the chapters don’t break into a long winded explanations of all the technical aspects of (for example) the hows and whys a flash works, instead Kelby prefers short and direct passages that tell you what you need, or what to do, and sometimes even more helpful, what exactly to buy. This isn’t to say that The Digital Photography Book vol. 2 (or any Kelby book for that matter) is light on information, on the contrary, literally every page has some golden nugget of information, it’s just that Kelby manages to boil it all down to the most relevant bit of information you need to know. A typical and actual example is “how to shoot lightning manually” followed by the actual settings your camera should be set to all in about about a half a page of text. Multiply that by one hundred, and you begin to get an idea of just how useful this book is.

One more thing, while it may be easy to dismiss this book as strictly oriented to the learning (”noob”) photographer, it is in fact exceedingly relevant to a broad range of skill levels behind the camera. I can assure you, even if you are more than the casual weekend photographer, this book will be still be incredibly useful. As I said at the beginning, I love Kelby’s books because in addition to providing some insights into how a pro works and shoots, they also help reinforce what you already know. Not to mention, The Digital Photography Book vol. 2 (and vol. 1) provide a very handy reference guide to have close by. Regardless of experience level, like its predecessor, The Digital Photography vol.2 is a highly recommended must have.

Available at Amazon:The Digital Photography Book, Volume 2