I received National Geographic's "The Ultimate Field Guide to Photography" as a gift several years back. It is a collection of articles by different authors organized by topics. I think it was their first edition that assumed everyone was now using digital cameras. Like a Time-Life home repair book, it tends to cover a vast breadth of information, but not necessarily a lot of depth. Every step from composition, exposure, archiving, editing, to final printing. I'm still searching for why every picture I take looks underexposed. Living in the cloudy Pacific Northwest and taking pictures of all-black stream locomotives has proven problematic. I remember my friend Peter (a professional photographer) telling me I needed a camera that can break the frame into pieces and only use some parts for things like white balance. The Nikon D80 I bought years later has three modes that uses the entire view, around the center, or very near the center. My understanding is professional cameras offer more options. Anyway, it is a reasonably good book, especially if your photography background is limited. I consider myself someone who has been exposed to a lot of information, but admit not everything has settled in. The only negative I have to say is related to the physical form of the book. Mind you its about a solid and dense as hardbacks come. But it is as if they took an online version and sent it to the printers without adding some margin to the binding edge. It made it hard to read the next anywhere near the binding. I found myself having to force the binding open with considerable pressure just to read the text at a 45 degree angle. That is just unsuitable for bedtime reading. National Geographic came out with a softbound version in 2009 and I'd choose that over the hardback.