These four volumes of the Digital Photography books by Scott Kelby are my second Digital photography sources by the same author. The first one was his "The Adobe Photoshop CS5 Book For Digital Photography".The materials and information that are presented in these four little books have a great value for any photographer either for a beginner or even for an advanced professional like Scott Kelby. You could learn a lot from these books and I even made some reference booklet of my own where I just listed step by step all the necessary steps of actions to achieve the result as a pro by following Scott Kelby's tips and special techniques for specific shooting conditions. All I need is a practicing and shooting. As I mentioned above, this set of books is great and very helpful for any type of photographer. However, there were downsides of the Scott's teaching that I personally have noticed while reading his books. As a digital photography hobbyist, not a professional who makes his living by taking pictures, I am on a budget and cannot spend so much money for the gear to accomplish many task as a pro. So I have to accept less than pro-quality results and that would bring me to the position I used to be before taking the challenge to improve my photos using my limited equipment. I wish I could afford Canon EF-S IS 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 lens (B&H $570). I am still using only one glass EF-S IS 17-85mm f/4.0-5.6 that came with my Canon EOS 20D and that was not enough to get everything the way I wanted it. Next, the author is trying to teach you to shoot by trial and error by repeating your shots several times until it's perfect or near to perfect. Personally, I usually shoot subjects (not a paying models) that have very little patient to wait for repeat shots - may be the second one would be possible because regular people do not understand why you have to take so many shots of the same subject. I shoot my grandkids and guests at different parties in the much less than favorable lightening conditions. And this one is the most important downside as author has missed or otherwise has given very little attention to the one of the most important skill in digital photography as "where to meter your scene for the best exposure?". He explained that in the sunset shots only. Bryan Peterson really stands out in that respect as he constantly emphasizes on where to point your AF and metering point in different shooting scenes in his book "Understanding Exposure" 3rd edition. I guess, that`s why the author subscribes to try and see theory of getting a perfect exposure like in his Flash Photography section he recommends to switch your camera to the Manual mode after getting the settings of the ambient in the Program mode and to switch your Flash to the manual mode too starting with like 1/8 of the total Flash power and to take a shot. Then, check your flash exposure and if it's too dark or it's too light, start either increasing or decreasing the Flash power until you get the acceptable shot. I use E-TTL and FEL (Flash Exposure Lock) pointing my AF point at the subject's faces and using FEC (Flash Exposure Compensation) raise my exposure by +3/4 or more depending on the distance between my diffused flash and a subject, as the skin tone is a little lighter than gray 18%. Usually 90% of my flash shots come out perfectly exposed using that technique with the first shot so I don't have to bother my subjects to stay longer and to test their patient. Sorry... but that scenario is a realistic life situation for a hobbyist photographer and you have to live with that.Again, in conclusion I definitely recommend Scott Kelby's box set of four volumes to anybody who really wants to grab the right fundamentals of pro-techniques and to start shooting better photos. However, at the same time you should not stop there only and try to expand your knowledge in digital photography by reading different other books on that subject like "Understanding Exposure" by Bryan Peterson, "Speedliter's Handbook" by Syl Arena and of course, post-processing books like "Camera Raw With Adobe Photoshop CS5" by Jeff Schewe and Bruce Fraser. Good luck!