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Digital Photography Hacks: 100 Industrial-Strength Tips & Tools Review by W. Ng
Useful Tips, But Lots of Tips are Neither Hacks nor Industrial-Strength
I am an amateur photographer and I did learn a number of useful things from this book. However, I am rating it a 3, primarily because it contains few information on what I really bought this book for: to take better photos using my digital camera. I got the Digital Photography Pocket Guide, 2nd Edition by the same author at the same time as this book, and that one taught me more about how to take better digital photos.
There are really cool and useful stuff written in this book like eliminating bars from animal cages and using pantyhose to get some special effects; good suggestions on using tripods and flashes. These are what makes this book worthwhile.
But then, this book also contains lots of "tips" that I do not find very useful. Perhaps it is because it lacks focus and it doesn't consider what most readers already have. Whether this book is geared towards the novice photographer or someone who has a point-and-shoot or an SLR is unclear. Most "hacks" suggested by computer books will assume you only have the main software and may suggest you download few additional ones that are mostly free. This book has a number of tips that need additional equipment costing more than $100. I wanted to try out taking portraits using two external flashes as this book suggested, only to find out that the two external flashes can cost me $500!
Furthermore, there are a few suggestions that although useful, I find to be inappropriately labeled as an industrial-strength hack. Yes, an iPod can be used to store your photos. Even if there may be iPod owners who may have missed that, I don't own an iPod and I surely know it can store photos already even before this book told me so. It is cool that you can take photos and use your camera phone to communicate in a foreign country, but again, this info did nothing to make me a better photographer