Customer Reviews
Average - By: Londoner, 27 Aug 2008 
As someone relatively new to Digital SLR's (but not photography) this gave me a brief overview however I found it a bit waffley & did not reallly get into assisting with getting the most out of your digital SLR camera. It covered a lot of things but not in any great depth.
I would highly recommend a couple of other books to look at as well if you are looking for a book of this type : (1) The Book of Digital Photography by Chris George or (2) The Digital Photography Book Volume 2 by Scott Kelby.
difficult - By: MISS D REYNOLDS, 20 Aug 2008 
i was looking for a book to give me an idea on how a slr works with easy to understand writting. however i found that even the introduction was hard to understand if you are new to the scene.
so i must say i made a mistake buying this item purely because i needed something less complicated.
do not buy this item if you want something easy to read & are new to the world of photography. however if you already have a background of the subject then im sure it will be fine.
Brilliant - By: ED, 23 Jul 2008 
I am very much a hobbyist photographer with a limited in depth knowledge. This book is extremely helpful, not only does it help you understand how to use & set up your digital slr, but it explains technique for taking photos & provides a lot of helpful information regarding everything digital photography related. If you are only going to buy one book, i suggest you get this one.
Excellent book for the more serious digtal photographer - By: S. Hall, 09 Jul 2008 I have learned more about the working & setup of my digital SLR from this book than by reading the camera's manual alone. This book explains the reasons certain features are useful & why you may want to use them, where the manual just skips over what options are available & a brief description.
For example, I now understand what the histogram display is telling me & what I can do with that information, why I may want White Balance Bracketing & what to watch out for when using my 35mm camera lenses on my digital SLR.
It does not just give details of the SLR itself, but proceeds in great detail on other associated subjects - Colour Calibration, editing, optimising, distribution & storage. It gives advice on accessories (flashguns, tripods, backup storage etc), hardware (laptops, wi-fi, printers) & probably every aspect of photgraphy that a professional would need to consider as far as 'tools of the trade' are concerned.
This book refers to Adobe Photoshop CS3 in detail, but does also give examples of other alternatives for editing & archiving your photos.
It is not a light read, but goes into a large amount of technical detail in several areas (it has the best article I've read on the differences between the various sensors used by different manufacturers).
If you just bought your digital SLR for a bit of light relief & aren't reallly concerned with how it does what it does then this probably isn't the book for you. However, if you are interested in getting the most from your camera & reallly want it to produce the picture your mind thought it had taken, then this gives the information & guidance that you wil need.
I have a couple of minor issues, relating to the sequence of the articles & the examples shown. For example the section on Advanced Optimising mentions Curves & Levels, which are actuallly explained a few pages after this article (although it is cross-referenced). And some of the before/after examples are printed too smalll for me to actuallly see any differences, although the descriptions in the related articles do describe what I should be able to see.
A reasonably experienced film photographer's guide to digital - By: Mr. Clg Bell, 19 Jan 2008 If, like me, you understand film photography but have finallly scraped together the money to buy a decent digital camera, then you will discover that your new toy is both familiar (focus, aperture, shutter speed) & very different (noise, histograms, washed out highlights). Also you will find that some film & darkroom processes (ISO rating, colour balance, cropping, shading) have moved to the camera or the computer.
This is the best written & most informative description of the technical aspects of the digital format that I have found. The illustrations are clear, the style is lucid, & the level of technical detail is sufficient to explain the technicalities without descending into horribly complex equations. It is also a good read - & definitely not boring.
Although the author explains things from the basics, in practice this is a not a book for a beginner, but rather for someone who already has a good basic knowledge of photography & wants to master the subtleties of the digital medium. So it is ideal for those converting from film to the new format.
One final comment: don't buy this book if you have a simple "point & shoot" digital camera! You'll get frustrated because, as the title makes clear, it is about digital SLRs & it assumes that you both have one & want to learn about using it.
