Canon EOS 40D Guide to Digital Photography

I own a Canon G5 and puuchased this book to see if the 40D is what I actually wanted and to get a running start if it were. I have studied some of it, read some of it, skimmed some of it, and have yet to read the rest of it.

It is well-written: for the most part clear and readable. It has fine illustrations, both in color and black-and-white. Glossy easy-to-read pages. An excellent addition to the manual, which can be downloaded free from the Canon web site. I would liked to have seen a much bigger (and less confused) chapter on available lenses for the 40D, since I am considering a purchase. If your money is already spent, this is not an issue for you.

I took away one star because there is way too much space spent comparing this model to other cameras such as the 30D, not only in an appendix, which would be okay, but tediously included throughout the book. Who cares about the 30D? I doubt that many 30D owners are likely to purchase a 40D so soon. I want to know about THIS camera not another one. These comparisons are useless. This objection about the wasted space should in no way be construed as a suggestion to not purchase this book. It is otherwise an excellent book worthy of your consideration.

I really can't say enough good about this book. I have several of David Busch's books and they're all really easy to read with everyday, easy-to-understand terms. This book leaves no stone unturned as it explains every facet of the 40D and it's successful operation. I've gone from taking just average photos before reading this book, to taking outstanding ones by the time I was finished. It makes the 40D much more fun to operate and allows me to expand my creativity. It's so good, it should be purchased along with your 40D!

... you don't need this book. The canon controls are intuitive enough, doesnt need to be explained to you as if youre so dumb.

What should have been the focus is to teach the factors that came in to taking pictures, point to where the dial is (unique to the 40D), show the result (the picture), illustrate why that happened. We can always refer to the manual included in the camera if we get confused in the menu and lost where that input should be set.

I bought this book thinking that somehow it will fuse operation to result. For example, explaining saturation, perhaps Busch will show the differences it will make to a picture. And how exactly to make livelier pictures... starting from the dials to the result. What I got instead is a book with a rather biggish font (so publisher can increase number of pages?) and very minimal picture examples. Pictures that occupied bigger spaces are those of the camera dials!

Busch also wasted some ink and paper on something like "this is not a manual, manual shows you this, but I will make it like this, etc." almost on every chapter, instead of throwing away one sentence on this indulgence on the intro, then get on to the business.

A photog book should contain tons of photos, and explain it. Busch doesnt even illustrate f/stops, shutter spped, and ISO combination anywhere. I dont know if he held back so we should buy another book of his.

I think the audience for this one are those that truly cant read manuals. I think Busch wrote this one in two weeks. Didnt even bother to take pictures much with the 40D.

Not recommended. I think I should have bought the one by Lowrie. The "digital field guide" concept seems to be what Im looking for. Seems to recommend settings for each occassion/theme. And there are tons pictures actually taken by a 40D to illustrate the point (This is judging at least from the table of contents captured).

Also, I hate to be arrogant, but judging from the quality of the photos in this book, or comparing them to the photos of other guidebooks, David Busch might not be a very good photographer at all.

This book was very helpful to me.Since the 40d was the first DSLR that I have used, I found the owners manual somewhat awkward and confusing to use. You have to keep flipping back and forth between pages which can be a pain.
This was a well written, easy to follow,and concise guide to the 40d.When used in conjunction with the owners manual I found almost all of my questions answered.It has a good index and is arranged in a logial sequence.
The one short comming I found was not enough information on how to change focusing screens and set up the camera to use the newly installed screen. I found this step by step guide to changiing screens on the web here.. http://digitalphotographer.com.ph/forum/showthread.php?t=10566 . I feel I got good value for my money. Now, if someone would only publish a good guide on using the software that comes with the camera.

This book is well written and contains very helpful "how to" information from the basics to advanced operation of the Canon EOS 40D. It also explains how to use the accompanying software for downloading your photos to a computer, as well as editing and organizing your photos. There is also a lot of useful general digital photography information contained in the book.