It's rare when a top shooter also produces a top instructional book, but this is one of the exceptions. McNally's photography is every bit as good as his advice, and this book does something unexpected. It elevates a maligned and misunderstood photographic tool to an art form.

Electronic flash is too often seen as the amateur photographer's crutch, used to provide washed out photos under available darkness, or deployed from the 1000th row of a rock concert to (laughably) attempt to capture Jack Johnson in action. More seasoned photographers disdain their camera's built-in flash entirely (even though they can credibly be used for fill in sunlight), and dismiss hot shoe flash units as too much trouble or too difficult to use. McNally explodes this misguided paradigm, showing exactly how small flash units can be used creatively to produce pictures that you couldn't get any other way. You don't need a studio and studio lighting to create great flash pictures. All you really need is Joe McNally's advice, and the gumption to put his techniques to work. If you can't get great flash pictures after reading this book, you shouldn't be shooting.

I definitely think that Mr. McNally has improved quite a bit with "Hot Shoe Diaries" when compared to his first effort "The Moment it Clicks". I think there's a lot more useful advice to be found in the latter volume, and it seems better structured as well. If you are fond of flash photography there are definitely a lot of hints, tips, and tricks to be found here. No doubt about that. The pictures complementing the text are, as was the case with "The Moment it Clicks", beautiful. The semi-coffeetablebookness of this book makes it stand out from the competition. We are able to see what can be done with flashes right there, and it's quite a lot that can be done, apparantly.

There are, however, still a few problems with the text. First and foremost I do not care for the very colloquial way in which "Hot Shoe Diaries" was written. There are far too many 'ya might wanna dis and dat' (not quoting, but using actual words from the text, though) and colloquialism that lead to incorrect grammatical constructions. Normally, writing in a more colloquial manner, makes the text more accessible, but in this case, in my opinion at least, it subtracts rather than adds. Closely related to this is his attempts at humour, which sometimes hit, but most times fail. Awfully. I realise, that I might be alone in this judgement, because humour is, after all, a matter of personal preference, but I really think he's overdone it. I'm sure he's a blast to share a pint in the pub with, but books are sadly not pints in pubs.

Because McNally uses Nikon gear, the discussion about how to utilize this and that piece of equipment seems, at least to me, to be rather limited. I use Nikon myself, but I would suspect that a Canon, Sony, etc. user would find the tips and tricks less useful at times.

These quibbles, however, does not subtract from the lessons that one might learn from this volume. The advice McNally gives is sound and straight forward, making this book worth buying. I just wish he would drop the overtly Kelby-like approach to writing books and get on with the subject at hand.

Joe McNally has done it again! This book should be in every photographers library. No non-sence and usable from the get go!

This book definitly has made me bring my flash out of the bag.
The help I needed to demistify the use of flash.

Thought I was buying a book on Strobist technique. If you have a Nikon D90 or better and some sb600 - sb900 flash units this book is for you. Can't say it was worth the money.