But digital shots can look one-dimensional. A gulf still exists between amateurs and professionals, as Wide Angle: National Geographic Greatest Places shows. This 12-chapter collection displays 260 of the magazine's finest photographs, which, judging by the depth of field, were taken with SLRs.

Culled from an archive of more than 10 million, the photographs span the world and more than a century, with an emphasis on the past decade. Commentary comes from Ferdinand Protzman, an ARTnews magazine editor who contributes to The New York Times, The International Herald Tribune and the Harvard Review, among other 'heavies'.

Some readers may find Protzman's style too formal. He peppers his prose with allusions to Tolstoy and Marx. He claims a 'multivalent' photograph of sailors touring New York's Times Square contains references ranging from hip-hop to Rembrandt's The Night Watch to Sinclair Lewis (the 1930 winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature).

Many readers will perhaps flick past the prose, which faces formidable competition epitomised by a portrait headed, 'A Woman Walking Past War-ravaged Buildings in Croatia'. The picture, taken by political specialist Ed Kashi in 2002, is starkly graphic: it depicts a black-clad woman in a headscarf taking a wending path lined by buildings so bullet-ridden they bring to mind a moth-eaten jumper.

Other pictures in the book prove the value of observation, zeroing in on details easily overlooked as we focus on guidebook landmarks in a spirit of 'seeing the sights'.

But the shots that have the most impact are those that take a direct approach, thrusting the viewer close to the action. 'Smiling Crocodile in Botswana', a 1995 portrait by nature photographer Frans Lanting, reveals the reptile in such detail you can almost touch its pointy teeth and smell its evil breath.

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