Very helpful, easy to read and understand. Gained a lot of good information from reading this and recommend the book to anyone interested in photography.

One of the better formated photography books I've seen. Good information too.

Purchased this and tried downloading but it didn't work. Ended up buying the box set (which included the same book) by the same author, which downloaded immediately. Hoping the author will refund this purchase since I upgraded to the box set anyway.

As a new person to this field, I hoped to pick up a wealth of knowledge from this book and I did. My four star rating is because 1. I hate the price 2. I kind of wished it started off from the beginning with some explation, like this is what aperature means. I still got plenty of advice from this book and my pictures vastly improved. Scott Kelby made this funny, and yes, we may enjoy photography but not neccessarily how-to books. I really recommend this book if you are starting out.

The ratings on all of Scott Kelby’s books show just about as many one stars as five stars, with a few people in the middle. The one stars are probably because people don’t understand what Scott’s books are all about. I’ve been shooting for over twenty years, seriously for the last five. I have a shelf full of photography books, but this series from Scott Kelby are the only books that are in my bag (and now in my iPad). I've got them because it's like having Scott in my bag, I can turn to him anytime and ask how he'd shoot this. No matter how good you are, you can always use another opinion. There are two main divisions in photography books, technical and practical. I’m a firm believer that in order to understand how to make photographs you need to know the technical side, which is why anyone who’s serious about photography needs to get “Light, Science and Magic”. But when it comes to practical books, Scott's got the best. He gets right to the point. By the way, he tells you that his are not theoretical books up front in his description. Scott will tell you that when shooting flowers, you should get close, don't shoot down, and use a wide aperture. What he doesn't go into is a lot of the "why" you should do that (he does give you some of the "why" though). NEWBIES to photography will get up and shooting better photographs fast. You'll be able to know how to use your camera to produce the image you want. What you won't get is the scientific side of why things work the way they do. Hopefully this will keep you interested in photography and spur you to learn the technical and artistic sides of it. INTERMEDIATE photographers will have a quick reference to look up when you're just not getting the image you want. EXPERIENCED and Professional photographers, I was going to say that there wasn't much for you, but you might get a new perspective on how to teach photography. At the very least you'll get some quick responses to common questions (e.g. Q: "what lens should I get?" A: "how strong is your marriage?") That's another thing, Scott has a sense of humor. Some reviews say that Scott spends a page lying to you. That's a combination of Scott's sense of humor and him establishing a rapport with you. He's really trying to set a tone of friendship, so you can open your bag up and ask him a question anytime you want.

If the sample is any indication of the whole book, you're in for a slow, stingy with information, deceptive read. The sample has 64 pages of which 54 are are filler about the author. Chapter One on page 54 is more fluff-filler that the author later admits is an attempt to deceive the reader.