After all the praise I'd read about this book, I bought a copy (and quickly resold it).

Nominally this is a 160 page book, but many of those pages are filled with the author's photos, and like a copy of Byte there's relatively little actual text. What text there is belies the 2004 date or the claim that it's updated: despite the occasional token reference to digital photography, this is a book about shooting film with 1980's technology, and is additionally biased toward landscapes. The author is big on focus-then-recompose shooting, which is much less feasible when shooting, say, humans than it is for mountains and distant tree silhouettes. The techniques advocated range from being inefficient with today's (or even 2004's) modern cameras to being inappropriate for modern dense digital sensors.

There is a modest to moderate amount of common-knowledge content, but an hour spent with a web browser will give the reader that and more without all the anachronisms.

This book wont make you a better photographer for sure. It did not answer main question - how to shoot?

If you're looking a book to begin with in photography, this is it. I understand this is probably quite shallow for experienced photographers, but I also understand it's not the book's aim to teach *them* something. This is a book for people who are going from point-and-shoot to SLRs and wish to explore the potential -- but actually *teaching* them something, not just providing hints without explaining the why's. As such, I would highly recommend it.

This book is fantastic! I already had solid knowledge and understanding of photography before purchasing this book and I must admit, this book is really great! Not only does it look at the technical aspects of making a correct exposure, it also gives you same more creative ways to look at taking various shots. A must have for any enthusiast photographer!

Fantastic book; easy to read and understand whether you are just starting out or have been shooting for a while. I highly recommend this book.