May 272013
Scott Kelby’s Digital Photography Boxed Set, Volumes 1, 2, and 3
This attractive boxed set includes:
The Digital Photography Book (ISBN 0-321-47404-X)
The Digital Photography Book, Volume 2 (ISBN 0-321-52476-4)
The Digital Photography Book, Volume 3 (ISBN 0-321-61765-7)
Scott Kelby, the man who changed the “digital darkroom” forever with his groundbreaking, #1 bestselling, award-winning book The Photoshop Book for Digital Photographers, shows which button to push, which setting to use, when to use them, and hundreds of the most closely guarde
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Price: $ 40.15
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Tips and tricks ‘from a friend’,
In the usual Scott Kelby style he write these books as a collection of pointers to a friend photographer. Every page in all three books are written with one pointer or tip on each page. As Scott writes in the prelude:
“If you and I were out on a shoot, and you asked me, ‘Hey, how do I get this flower to be in focus, but I want the background out of focus?’ I wouldn’t stand there and give you a lecture about aperture, exposure, and depth of field. In real life, I’d just say, ‘Get out your telephoto lens, set your f/stop to f/2.8, focus on the flower, and fire away.’ You would say, ‘OK,’ and you’d get the shot. That’s what this book is all about. A book of you and I shooting, and I answer the questions, give you advice and share the secrets I’ve learned just like I would with a friend, without all the technical explanations and without all the techno-photo-speak.”
This being said, this also means that he doesn’t dwell deeply within each tip or pointer explaining _why_ everything works as it does. This is for the reader to find out researching the topic further in other reference books.
Surprisingly to me, this works very well! I thoroughly enjoyed reading these books and I would say that I have become a much better photographer reading through all the tips.
Book one is quite general in topic, spanning from how to create really sharp photos to a description of wedding photography. This book is, according to me, a must have in every digital photographers bookshelf. This book is also clearly aimed at beginner photographers.
Coming to book 2 and 3 they differ a bit, especially of how they are written. These books also have the ‘pointer and tip’ layout, but more detailed information can be found here. Book 2 for example describe thoroughly which gear to use when using flash and how to set up your mini-studio and book three goes even further on how to shoot specific subjects.
This box set offer any digital photographer a helicopter view of how to use your digital camera in the best way to get ‘professional’ photos. Primarily these books – as all Scott Kelby books – offer small insights of what to think about when shooting digital photos. Kelby also does this with a huge amount of humor, making all his books a joy to read.
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Kindle Version Difficult to Use,
This review is specific to the Kindle version of the box set. These are great books. So good, in fact that I bought the Kindle version for my iPad even though I already own a set of print edition. I intend to use this as a reference while traveling with my camera.
Despite my enthusiasm for the content, the Kindle edition set is very difficult to use. All three books are delivered as a single file, but the table of contents pulled up by the menu only refers to book one. To find the contents of book 2 & 3, one must search or manually scan the pages. This issue renders the Kindle book very difficult to use as a reference.
Updated: Amazon informs me that the only option is to contact the publisher or take a refund. With regret, I have accepted a refund and will continue to use the print edition. I cannot recommend that you buy the kindle edition of this set.
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Good info for DSLR Beginners,
These books are aimed a novice DSLR users. If you’ve done much photography or read up on the subject, you won’t find much real new material in here. Fortunately, Scott Kelby avoids the traps of getting bogged down in the operational specifics of the equipment he is discussing (this is not a rehash of the Owners Guide). The books are to the point, light hearted and fun (with lots of the usual Kelby humor).
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