|
Magic Lantern Guides: Nikon D50 (Magic Lantern Guides) | 
 enlarge | Author: Simon Stafford
Brand: Unknown
Category: Book
List Price: $19.95
Buy New: $8.12
You Save: $11.83 (59%)
New (33) Used (10) from $8.12
Avg. Customer Rating:  7 reviews
Sales Rank: 420413
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 240
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5 x 0.6
MPN: 1579908047
ISBN: 1579908047
Dewey Decimal Number: 771.33
EAN: 9781579908041
ASIN: 1579908047
Publication Date: February 28, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: New; Excellent condition! Clean crisp tight copy, no marks,could have some minor shelf wear. Email Notification, Satisfaction Guaranteed,Direct from our warehouse.
|
| Similar Items:
|
| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
MAGIC LANTERN GUIDES: NIKON D50, Simon Stafford, A Lark Photography Book Simon Stafford's photographs have been used widely in newspapers, books, calendars, and magazines. Completely self-taught, he has built up a wealth of experience over the past twenty years with both film and digital cameras. Throughout his photographic career he has used the Nikon system extensively, and is now the Technical Editor to the Nikon Owners' Club International's Nikon Owner magazine. Amateur photographers can explore their creativity and get professional results with Nikon's offerings in the world of consumer digital SLR photography. In addition to being compact, lightweight, and wonderfully easy to use, the D50 features a 6.1-effective megapixel sensor, 5-area autofocus, and a large 2-inch LCD. All this, along with the superb Nikkor optics and high-performance zoom, make the Nikon D50 one of the top-selling cameras in its class. This guide covers it all written by the technical editor of the Nikon Owners' Club International's Nikon Owner magazine it is the perfect way for the proud owner of this digital model to learn every facet of this capable camera and get beautiful, expertly shot photos. 5 X 7 1/2. b/w illus. throughout
|
| Customer Reviews: Read 2 more reviews...
 Too many errors August 25, 2007
This book is helpful with the basics, but the amount of errors located throughout really makes you second guess the author/editors. I recommend going with the Nikon D50 Field Guide, and skipping the Magic Lantern Guide.
 This is the manual that should come with this camera January 3, 2007
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
This book is so much more in depth then the manual D50 comes with. Full of great info. and at a very good price too.
 Agree with Sloppy.. September 27, 2006
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
Worst introduction book on D50. This book is a copy of "instruction manual" that comes with the camera. Author has just added some of his descriptive paragraphs.
Average time to write books like this: 1 night.
Don't waste your money! I bought it and returned it back. Read manual, you will get the same information for free.
Sloppy June 6, 2006
42 out of 42 found this review helpful
I think the other reviewers don't understand the rating system - 1 star bad, 5 stars good.
Although there is some useful information in this book, overall it is full of errors, poorly organized, and doesn't provide much more than the manual considering the number of pages and the price ($20 list).
Here are a few problems:
- Black and white photos - that alone should tell you how much faith the publishers have in the book. They didn't want to invest a lot in it knowing how bad it was.
- Following the White Balance topic is White Balance Bracketing. The latter includes the steps for setting White Balancing but NOT Bracketing.
- In the chapter Quick Start-up guide he gives a couple of paragraphs on each of the Vari-Program modes. But the next chapter on Detail he goes right into White Balancing without mentioning which mode you can use. This is common through out the book.
- He constantly refers to the menu options by name. Why didn't they include the icons for designating the menu options as they do refering to non-menu items?
- Speaking of icons and errors, the icon is wrong on page 119 for selecting the histogram.
- He tried to fill pages with information that was already in the manual such as several pages on how to install the battery and the memory card.
- There are plenty of typos like you instead of your, repeated words, missing spaces, much, much more.
- page 90 shows a list of how many pictures can be in the buffer. On the left under quality it shows JPEG Large which should be Fine.
With the number of errors in the book I question the accuracy of the information and suggestions by the author. The topics are not organized well enough to be used as a reference. It's almost as if he sat and rambled into a recorder and gave it off to someone to type up. Not much thought was put into how the information was presented.
What I was really hoping for and what is drastically missing is how the different features could be used to affect the photos. Examples (which would have to be in color) of the same scene with different settings. What settings to use in different situations, etc. There are a lot of features in this camera but putting them to use can be overwhelming.
I gave it 2 stars as I did get a little out of it but I had to wade through a lot to find it.
 A worthwhile resource May 12, 2006
10 out of 12 found this review helpful
The Magic Lantern Guides are a whole series of books about specific cameras. I have just finished with the Nikon D50 book, but they have a large selection of books on cameras of various makes and models.
Going by the D50 book, the books are not guides to photography but to the specific camera involved. It holds pretty closely to the manual information and manufacturer's specifications - for good reason, of course. But it goes into much more detail than the manual does. For example, it explains in depth how each of the pre-set program modes actually works, such as Protrait, Closeup, etc. It also explains the various option settings and makes recommendations for which to use and which not to use. While not a photography guide, it does give good tips on best settings for different situations. It also has a surprisingly good section explaining depth of field and how it is affected by zoom, distance and aperture. The book also has detailed technical appendices with lists of settings, options, accessories, error codes, etc. The book lastly comes with a folding laminated card with key shortcut tips useful to have on hand in the field.
So, all in all, was it worth reading? I would have to say yes. It ain't like reading a novel, that's for sure. For a new owner of a camera, it would be perfect. Having a bit of experience with the D50 now, this was more of a review but still a worthwhile one for me. For an experienced user, it would more of a reference book to look up why certain settings or modes work certain ways. I did find several things going through it where I had to say, "wow, I didn't realize (or remember) that." For example, once in the options menus, you can rapidly move through the settings with the scroll wheel rather than just the navigation button going one line at a time. Another example, you don't have to go into the menu to adjust the flash level, you can press the flash button + exposure button + use scroll wheel. Now these aren't earth-shattering and they are probably in the manual somewhere, but these two tips alone will really be useful.
Drawbacks: this particular book is heavily in need of a good editing job. There were many noticeable errors in the book which is inexcusable for a technical publication. For example, there were two places I noticed where icons of buttons were missing and the text would say, "then press the (insert exposure control icon) button." Missing and repeated words were also noticeable. Also too much space was taken up by solely black and white photos that neither show the camera's full potential nor did the pictures well demonstrate specific features and uses mentioned in the text.
By the way, this particular book was written by Simon Stafford, a British chap who appears to have written several books in the Magic Lantern Guide series.
|
|
|
Copyright 2008 - RailroadBookstore.com
| |
