Customer Reviews

Canon EOS Digital Rebel XTi/400D Digital Field Guide

5 star:		(71)
4 star:		(21)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Digital Rebel XTi/400D is the latest of the Digital Field Guide series that provides the reader an in-depth guide to maximizing the use of digital gadgets from cameras to iPods. The Canon Digital Rebel XTi/400D is the newest prosumer single lens reflex camera from Canon that debuted a little less than a year ago. I got mine in December 2006.

The first two chapters are specific to gaining a good understanding of the Rebel XTi/400D camera. The manual that came with my Digital Rebel is woeful: its small size makes it very user unfriendly. The Digital Field Guide series features attractive two-column, all-color design. I agree with the jacket that this is a book that you'll want to take along with you as you get familiarized with your new camera.

Chapter 1 explains how to set up and operate the Digital Rebel XTi and Chapter 2 covers using the camera. Interespersed throughout the book are colored icons indicating a Cross-Reference, Note, Tip, or Caution. These inserts provide concise advice for the newbie. The Digital Rebel XTi sports many features and I particularly appreciated layouts that showed the same photo using different styles or settings. For example there is a layout showing a home that was taken with the 6 different picture styles the camera has from Standard to Portrait to Monochrome. You can visually see the difference using each style. The quality of the photographic reproductions shows subtle differences.

Chapter 7, Techniques for Great Photos, is where this Digital Field Guide shines. Initially I thought that this was a generic section with minor tweaks and photos to adapt it to the Canon Digital Rebel XTi camera. A quick trip to a bookstore where I checked out other Digital Field Guides for popular cameras like the Nikon D80 showed that I was wrong. Digital Field Guides have a similar sequence of chapters but each has a different author and is written for the specific camera. In this chapter it explains in great detail, including equipment, settings and other criteria, to take superb photos of pets, street scenes, sunrise and other applications. The author, Charlotte Lowerie, provides excellent photographs with clear explanations on what Canon equipment and the specific techniques and camera settings that were employed.

Buying a single lens reflex digital camera is a major investment and the promise of producing stunning photographs is enticing. But a camera is just a piece of equipment; it is how you use it that will produce quality photos. Wiley Books' Digital Field Guide for the Canon EOS Digital Rebel XTi is a must-have book. There is a wealth of information and the high quality photographs support the advice provided. I agree with the book's jacket that this is the one book that will accompany my camera on major photographic treks. I highly recommend it for Digital Rebel XTi owners. For that matter, I recommend the entire Digital Field Guide series!

This book is a blend of specific info on the Canon Rebel XTi (about 40%)and general photography (about 60%). It is generally well written and clear, but does have some odd oversights (e.g., on one page it mentions JPEG photo files as being "lossy" without explaining the term, and most people have no clue, but then later on the same page explains non-lossy under a different type of file). Once in a while, the author inserts a little humor and vitality, usually via parenthetical remarks, which I enjoyed, more would be better. The book is useful for explaining how to use the XTi and its features, but it's more about general technique. For someone new to digital photography or digital SLRs, it would be very useful. I would recommend it to people who are moderately experienced amateurs. Pure beginners might find it handy but a little confusing, while advanced would find it interesting but a bit old hat and less helpful.

I'm new to the world of dSLRs, and when I got an XTi for Christmas, I went into a panic because there was so much I just didn't understand, right down to standard terminology. I was afraid I would use the camera in auto mode forever.

I bought this book a week ago, and I have learned *so much*. It is exactly what I was looking for...poking through other photography books they would make suggestions for the best settings for certain types of photography, but this book tells me EXACTLY how to do it using the XTi's buttons and menus. The day I found the page that explained settings for photographing snow and rain (i.e. do you want to see the drops stopped or blurred? Here's how to do both) I was in heaven. Great investment!

I bought the canon rebel xti as a way of "going to the next level" in my photography.I have always owned point and shoot cameras and wanted to have more control over what the camera and I was doing.The truth of the matter is; there is definetly a learning curve to getting real professional results.I bought different books,borrowed a dozen or so books from the library,they all had some good points and I gleamed some important knowledge from them but I have to admit the buck stopped when I purchased this book.The book not only explains the different functions on this particular camera in a way that is easy to understand but goes way beyond the owners manual.Because of her insight and suggestions,my photos are miles ahead of anything I have done before.If you own this camera you owe it to yourself to get this book. Charlotte Lowrie is an artist!(check out her web sight and links)

I purchased this book just after buying the Rebel XTi. It has been extremely helpful. It provides a ton of information that you don't get from the manual. I highly recommend this guide to the beginner in digital SLR photography. This book should come with the camera!!

the book is good in terms of illustraion. the auother covered most, if not all, of the ways you can use the camera with. BUT what I missed in this book was how to deal with any frequent problems with using the camera, like the under exposure issue, esp. when using the flash. this topic was not discussed in the book, which why I wanted to buy the book for. Other then that, the book is well written and organized, and it gives so many examples and hints.
conclusion: recommended

I bought this and the magic lantern guide. Between the 2 I found this one easier to use and liked the fact that it had color pictures while the Magic Lantern guide was all black and white. Great reference guide for the camera

With its low starting price and consumer orientation, the Canon Digital Rebel series is the entry into DSLRs for lots of people, and this is a good book for learning about digital SLR photography as well as this camera in particular. In addition to covering the camera with more explanation than the manual, it also offers advice on composition, shooting technique, lenses and flashes, and so on. What it isn't: a "field" guide. It's fairly chunky.

In my opinion, it covers everything in the manual but gives you additional topics like the basics of exposure, how to shoot certain scenes, etc.

To me, this book would be excellent if it gave more explanations on when to use each function instead of just describing them; it does in some cases but not for most funtions.

Nevertheless the descriptions of each feature/function are much better explained here than in the manual.

I was looking forward to learning about the use of the Canon Speedlite flashes and their interaction with the camera, but the book barely touches on flash photography. I would have liked a whole chapter devoted to flash photography.

Overall I'd very much reccomend this book. For 13 bucks you get a much better manual and an introduction to dSLR photography.

I purchased this book along with my new Rebel XTI. I am SO glad I did. I like to think of it as an "upgrade" of the manual. All the information in the book is helpful and I love that examples are given of different lighting situations. I would be LOST without this book!! I just wish it were smaller so I could keep it in my camera bag!!