Canon EOS 40D Guide to Digital Photography

[David D. Busch]

Product Description

As the new owner of Canon’s most advanced intermediate digital SLR, you want to get started taking professional-looking photographs using all of the exciting features at your fingertips. “Canon EOS 40D Guide to Digital SLR Photography” is a concise introduction and guide to your camera’s essential controls and functions, such as Live View, built-in dust reduction, and the blistering 6.5-frames-per-second continuous shooting mode that is an action photographer’s dream. The book provides detailed instructions showing you how, when, and why to make optimized settings with the Canon EOS 40D’s enhanced menus, which include a half-dozen versatile new custom functions. You’ll learn about the camera’s improved automatic focus, flash synchronization tricks, how to choose lenses that will provide the perspective and effects you want, and which exposure modes are ideal for each picture-taking opportunity. Packed with full-color images and examples that illustrate the recommended techniques and settings for your Canon EOS 40D, this book helps photographers of any skill level begin maximizing their equipment as soon as you open the cover!

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #428 in Books
• Published on: 2007-11-16
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 324 pages

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Editorial Reviews

About the Author
With more than a million books in print, David D. Busch is a best-selling author of books on digital photography and imaging technology, and the originator of popular series like “David Busch’s Pro Secrets” and “David Busch’s Quick Snap Guides.” He has written six hugely successful guidebooks for Nikon digital SLR models, and the most comprehensive manuals for dSLRs from Canon, Sony, and other vendors. His many other books devoted to digital photography include “David Busch’s Digital Infrared Pro Secrets” and “Mastering Digital SLR Photography.” As a roving photojournalist for more than 20 years, he has illustrated his books, magazine articles, and newspaper reports with award-winning images. Busch has operated his own commercial studio, suffocated in formal dress while shooting weddings-for-hire, and shot sports for a daily newspaper and upstate New York college. His photographs and articles have been published in magazines as diverse as “PhotoGraphic,” “Popular Photograph & Imaging,” “The Rangefinder,” and hundreds of other publications. He’s also reviewed digital cameras for CNet Networks and Computer Shopper.

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Customer Reviews

Canon EOS 40D guide to digital photography
This book will give you an easier path to learning your camera than the factory enclosed manual. I am only about two-tirds through the book, but so far I am impressed with it. I have upgraded from the 30D to the 40D withouth ever learning all the features of the 30D. I think with this book, I will probably learn more if not all of the features of the camera faster and easier.

An essential accessory
If you want to make the best use of the 40D additional information beyond the manual is essential. The manual won’t tell you why to make certain settings. This book has been a big help for me (new DSLR user) to become more familiar with the capabilities of the 40D.

Great general book for beginners and intermediates, but lacking on details for advanced usage.
I must admit that when I initially flipped through this book after receiving it and then started reading the first two chapters, I was expecting to eventually write a 3-star review for it. Overall, as an experienced EOS 30D user, I would probably still give it a rating of 3 or 3.5 stars, mainly because its target audience seems to be more oriented towards totally new to intermediate users of the 40D in specific, and also users new to DSLRs in general. But I selected this book because it does seem to be the best 40D book on the market right now. For a beginner/intermediate audience, I would easily give it 5 stars. But the book is thin on substance for advanced users, either for advanced users of film cameras switching to digital or advanced users of non-Canon cameras. One of the dilemmas in writing an instructional book like this, as is also the same problem found in some software books on how to use Photoshop, Excel, or how to program code for Web sites, is deciding on what to assume readers already know before reading the book and what readers hope to learn by the time that they finish reading the book. A definitive book on the 40D will let readers wade in from the shallow end as novice point-and-shoot camera users and emerge, by the time they finish the book, as 40D power users confidently swimming in the deep end of expertise and familiarity, and knowing how to efficiently use all of the camera’s settings under various shooting situations. But, alas, there is not a single 40D book out there that fits this bill.

Even though the author mentions several times in the book that he does not want to rehash the owner’s manual, a large part of the first four chapters does basically rehash the owner’s manual, albeit using larger text and photographs. This book is far easier to read than the owner’s manual, but due to weight/bulk considerations, I carry all of the owner’s manuals for my 30D/40D cameras and lenses in my Lowepro Slingshot while this book stays at home.

And so I give the book 4 stars instead of 5 because my wish list for the book includes: 1) more in-depth coverage of the all-important creative and manual mode shooting situations; 2) better descriptions of the nuances of the custom function settings as applied to various shooting situations (i.e. not just mainly describing what they do, but explaining more why/when/where a user would want to set a custom function); and 3) more in-depth coverage discussing how to use the supplied software utilities and applications (after all, there are tons of books on Photoshop, but no Canon photography book ever covers much about the included Canon software). I am surprised that guide books written about Canon’s EOS cameras do not spend a full long chapter discussing how to optimally and efficiently use the supplied software that is included with the camera since not everyone will have their own separate Photoshop or DPP software that they already use, and Canon’s DPP software is notably better than most “free with the camera” software that is supplied with other brands of cameras.

Overall, a great book that touches upon lots of topics beyond just pointing out all of the camera’s features, and also going into aperture, shutter speed, and exposure concepts that entire books have been written about. If you are a total DSLR beginner coming from the point-and-shoot camera world, this book will be very helpful in describing how to use all of its dials, buttons, and menus. But if you have reached the intermediate and beyond stage of expertise, the book will not progress you much into the advanced world of manually tweaking settings to get various desired effects and it will not teach you how to compose a great shot; for that, you will have to look elsewhere.