Magic Lantern Guides: Canon EOS Digital Rebel XT/EOS 350D [Paperback]

Regardless of your skill level. I know this is not a forum, but I must respectfully disagree with reviewer V. Carlson, and I must correct the record because he/she is spreading disinformation with this statement. . .

"I found this book to offer no extra info beyond the camera's original user manual. Good descriptions of the camera functions but no real tips or recommendations for how to use/setup camera."

This book is absolutely loaded with tips on setting up the camera and using the settings. For example, in the camera manual there are 3 small pages of bullet points on white balance. Mr. Guncheon has nine pages of rich text on white balance. Nine pages! Included are helpful tips such as the Shade or Cloudy WB setting will warm up sunrise and sunset pictures, with the Shade setting being more pronounced.

In the area on parameters, the manual says you can set three of your own. Mr. Guncheon has several pages on parameters, including three starting ideas for setting up your own parameters, one for cloudy day shooting, one for portraits, and one to give you the old Kodachrome look in your photos.

There are nearly 170 pages of detailed explanations of how things work, why they are important, and tips on how you might use the setting to produce better photos. I know V. Carlson is entitled to his/her opinion. . .but he/she is not entitled to their own facts. and the statement quoted above is simply false. If he/she didn't like the book, that's fine, but it goes waaaaaay beyond the camera manual. Way beyond.

I am a fairly experienced photographer in the technical sense, but new to the digital world. I think this book is invaluable for everyone, although if you've been shooting digital for years you may not get as much out of it as I did. But I think there will be a tip or an explanation here for everyone.

I'll say it again. If you own the Digital Rebel XT, you should own this book.

*** LATER EDIT *** I'm begining to understand why some folks are bashing this book. They obviously thought it was supposed to be MORE than an expanded manual, so they bought the wrong book. That's not the fault of the author. To those who are contemplating buying this book, those raters are correct, THIS IS JUST AN EXPANDED MANUAL, NOTHING MORE. However, that is not a knock. At a Canon forum I frequent most of the questions posted are about arcane technical details the manual doesn't explain well enough, or questions asking why would you use a certain setting. If you are looking for a treatise on digital photography in general, look elsewhere. If you are looking for a much better manual than came with your camera, this is still a 5-star book, in my opinion. I haven't looked at the camera manual since I bought this, it has become my de facto manual. And I answer questions on the forum from this book all the time. Frankly, I couldn't get all these answers out of the manual becuase I found it too brief or poorly written. Maybe I'm not as smart as the other raters (probably true!). This is JUST AN EXPANDED MANUAL, and absolutely nothing more. But it is a terrific expanded manual. If that's what you're looking for you'll give it 5 stars, too. If you are happy with the camera manual and expert with your camera already, you will be cranky if you buy this, so don't do it.

John Collins

[I've replaced my original review because I went from highly recommending this book to insisting you purchase it immediately.]

At the current price this is a no-brainer decision. Just get it.

I'm a geek. I read the manual. I used the camera for months. I read this book and I still learned a great deal.

Did you know that it's possible to dynamically tweak exposure in P mode? Why the Pros use aperture priority rather than shutter priority in most settings? How to optimize JPEG output with a zillion different context specific tweaks? When to use different focus options? How to use the histogram and special configuration settings together? What each 'basic' setting does and why some aren't so 'basic'? What's the difference between Flash, Shadow and Cloud white balance? (Two are the same, one is different). Why even pros can use JPG format with this camera, and when RAW is really better? (With newer software like Aperture and iPhoto 6 I personally use RAW, but for most people JPG will work better.)

I didn't think so. (Ok, if you knew all of the above the book may be wasted on you.)

Really, really good index.

Buy the book.

PS. The author is definitely a photographer and camera geek first, a software guy last. The clue is color profile: Adobe vs. sRGB. He doesn't talk about it. Basically if you can't make a very good case for using Adobe RGB you should use sRGB. If you really know why and when to use Adobe RGB you are a software geek or a pro.

BTW: The XT is an amazing camera. The more I use it, the more I like it. Congratulations on having made a very good choice.

This is the second Magic Lantern Guide I have purchased and they all do one thing pretty well - go thru every capability of the camera more thoroughly than the owners manual. The guide seems to be geared toward someone who likes to have a quick reference guide available to refresh one's memory of the many and ever increasing capabilities of today's cameras. The guide is not a how-to book on photographic techniques specific to the camera in the title. I think this guide may have been a little rushed to print as there is not a single color photo in the entire book - a major disappointment for a book about a highly sophisticated DSLR camera. Also, there is no data on the settings used to produce each of the photos (assuming they were actually produced using the XT.)