Nikon D50 Digital Field Guide
by David D. Busch
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Book Reviews of Nikon D50 Digital Field Guide
Book Review: Read the Manual
Summary: 3 Stars
The D50 is the Nikon Camera Company's entry level digital single lens reflex camera (DSLR) and will appeal to folks wanting to upgrade from a point-and-shoot camera. Unfortunately, the number of controls on the camera can be daunting and the 100 plus-page, black and white instruction book can be equally daunting. It is to appeal to people intimidated by the manual that the "Nikon D50 Digital Field Guide" with its plentiful color graphics and generous use of white space is designed.
The book is divided into two parts. In the first part Busch describes the camera and various functions. The second part gives some instruction in photography basics, including a discussion of exposure, lenses and the downloading and editing of pictures. There is a chapter entitled "Photo Subjects" that is almost half of the pages in the book and that presents a variety of subjects from "Abstract Photography" to "Zoo and Animal Photography". Each of these sections gives a few general tips on photographing the particular subject matter and then presents one of the author's pictures with a discussion of the author's considerations with regard to setup, lighting, lens, camera settings, exposure and accessories. While the discussion doesn't go into great depth, it might be useful to a beginner encountering a new subject.
With regard to exposure, I was particularly pleased to see the explanation of histograms, since I consider this the most distinct advantage of photographing with a DSLR.
However most of the discussions of the camera were less than adequate. When the author discusses the program, shutter priority, aperture priority and manual modes he never tells the reader when each of these might be appropriate. The D50 offers the user a number of options in setup that are never even mentioned. The author also makes several references to the RAW format but never really suggests why or when it might be a useful format.
His discussion of technique is cursory and disjointed. For example, his discussion of how aperture adjustments affect depth of field comes several pages before any explanation of depth of field. He tells you how to set white balance many pages before explaining the function of white balance.
What particularly surprised me is that Busch has written a much better book on DSLR's called "Digital SLR Cameras and Photography for Dummies." .
You can read the "Nikon D50 Digital Field Guide" if you want a nicely designed book that lures you into reading just enough about the camera and photography to be able to capture a few pictures. For the serious new D50 owner, I would recommend reading the manual that comes with the camera, no matter how intimidating it might appear, and then reading Busch's "For Dummies" book.
Book Review: Best of the D50 Guides
Summary: 5 Stars
I've been dissatisfied with the DVDs that claim to teach you how to use this camera, and have found most of the other guidebooks lacking, too. However, there are quite a few things I like about this small, but information-filled guide to using the Nikon D50 digital camera. It really is head and shoulders above the rest.
* It's perfect for use in the field. Like other reviewers, I bought this book specifically because it was a small format book I could take along with me for guidance when I am out taking pictures. When I am unsure what menu settings to make, I take this book out of my backpack, look up the options, and make them quickly. When I see a photo opportunity, I can look up that kind of picture and read three or four pages of advice, illustrated with full color pictures.
* It doesn't cover software. Obviously, I don't take my laptop with me when I take pictures, so I don't really need lots of pages about Photoshop or Elements or Picture Project or Nikon Capture. It's silly to expect a photography field guide to waste 20-25 percent of its pages on software. This one does not.
* All the important information is there. It does include all the settings you need for the practice photos, including aperture, shutter speed, ISO setting, saturation boost (if used), etc. Plus the lens used is listed, although most of the shots were made with the same two or three inexpensive lenses, affordable by any D50 owner.
* This book was written for someone like me. The Nikon D50 Digital Field Guide is definitely not intended for the advanced photographer. The how-to sections are best suited for novice and intermediate photographers who need some ideas and tips. Very advanced photographers won't be looking for definitive photography tutorials in a 250-page field guide, I would guess.
This is a great book for D50 owners, and far superior to the other D50 guides on the market. The advantages are the full color pictures (not black-and-white as in other guides), in-depth coverage, and accuracy. Of course the brief introduction to basic features in the first chapter doesn't mention that the flash doesn't pop up in some modes -- it's a quick start. That information is provided later in the book. All in all I found this book to have exactly the right information.
Book Review: Poor effort to quickly crank out a book for the D50
Summary: 2 Stars
Intended as a more approachable supplement to the manual, including full-color pictures, glossy pages, large, readable print. As other readers have noted, this book is an obviously warmed-over copy-and-paste, probably from the D70 field guide, and it shows. It is only more friendly than the manual if you read the manual first and know to skip over the blatant errors:
Page 1(!): "set the camera's program dial to ... A (full automatic)"
Page 33: "Select ... by holding down the metering mode button."
Page 56: "press the multi selector button left or right ... until the histogram appears." (This confusion between left/right and up/down appears inconsistently throughout the book.)
I also found it annoying that the DVP modes are explained in detail on page 3 and then repeated again on page 35. It really makes the book look like a quick copy/paste hack with little or no proofreading.
There are also bizarre technical gaffes like the explanation of inverse square law on page 64, where a "photographer" knows that "an object 4 feet from the lens receives 16 times as much illumination as one that is twice as far at 8 feet." (Hint: 2² = 4, not 16.)
This book does have value specific to the D50 in its explanations of Nikon lens designations, and helping the reader understand how these lenses are specifically compatible with the D50, and what Nikon flashes implement full compatibility.
The information on photography basics may be useful for the beginner, however this type of information is covered equally well, if not better, in other books.
You could argue that the instructional errors are easily corrected by the user by cross-referencing the manual, and that the technical errors are probably irrelevant to most users, but this combination of sloppy writing and proofreading calls into question any detail in the book, as we are all only capable of identifying errors when we already know the answer, and if we already knew all the answers then we wouldn't be buying this book in the first place.
In my opinion you'd be better off buying a general guide to dSLR photography and learning to apply the concepts to the D50 via the included instruction manual.
Book Review: Excellent field guide for the D50
Summary: 5 Stars
This is what this book is, and is not:
* It's a FIELD GUIDE. I bought it specifically because it was a small format book that I could take along with me for guidance when I am out taking pictures. When I am unsure what menu settings to make, I take this book out of my backpack, look up the options, and make them quickly. When I see a photo opportunity, I can look up that kind of photo and read three or four pages of advice, illustrated with full color pictures.
* It doesn't duplicate the user's manual -- it expands on the information in the user's manual and provides more detail about the things you really need to know about the D50's controls.
* It's not a software manual. I don't take my laptop with me when I take pictures, so I don't really need lots of pages about Photoshop or Elements or Picture Project or Nikon Capture. It's silly to expect a photography field guide to waste 20-25 percent of its pages on software.
* It includes all the settings you need for the practice photos if you look carefully, including f/stop, shutter speed, ISO setting, saturation boost (if used), etc. Plus the lens used is listed, although most of the shots were made with the same two or three inexpensive lenses.
* This book is definitely NOT written for the advanced photographer. This book is cheap enough that the controls and functions part would be useful for any new owner of a D50, regarless of expertise level. I would have bought it just for that. The how-to sections are better suited for novice and intermediate photographers who need some ideas and tips. Sharp advanced photographers won't be looking for definitive photography tutorials in a 250-page field guide, in any case.
Overall, I liked this book a lot. I'm on the verge of graduating from intermediate to advanced photographer, but there was still a lot in this small book for me to learn from. It could have benefited from more coverage of VR, but nothing is perfect.
Book Review: Excellent D50 Guidebook
Summary: 5 Stars
I found this to be an excellent D50 guidebook for beginning and intermediate photographers. It has all I need to get started using my new camera, with lots of illustrations showing the location of each control and component, advise on setting up the camera, and when to use and not to use each adjustment.
The first part of the book is a Quick Tour that tells you just what you neeed to know to begin shooting with your camera, including the individual program modes. It is short, only 10 pages, and can be read quickly before you go out and begin shooting. Then, the first chapter covers the same material in much more depth, and goes beyond that to describe things like using the flash, metering modes and so forth. There is also a chapter on setting up your D50 with suggested settings. These introductory chapters on the camera are only about 25% of the book.
The real meat is in the remaining 75% that tells you exactly how to use your D50 camera to take good pictures. Two brief chapters tell you how to use the flash and lenses. Then there is a huge 110 page chapter with descriptions of how to take different types of pictures. For eacxh type, there are several examples, including one with many details about how the photo was taken, what lens, settings, and so forth. There is also advise on how you can go beyond that to shoot in these situations yourself creatively. The types of photography include sports, business, candid, child, flowers and plants, group portraits, indoor portraits, landsacpe, close-ups, night photography, panoramas, seascape, street life, sunsets, travel, weather, and animals.
This book is better than the Nikon manual in getting you started, and the chapters on shooting various kinds of pictures make it worth buying all by themselves.