Customer Reviews

David Busch's Canon EOS 7D Guide to Digital SLR Photography

5 star:		(28)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

"David Busch's Canon EOS 7D Guide to Digital SLR Photography" has at least twice as much useful information as any of the compact guidebooks, as befits this advanced camera -- Canon's most affordable "pro/semi-pro" model. The two full chapters on lighting, which includes one chapter dedicated just to this camera's new built-in wireless flash capabilities, are worth the cost of the book alone.

Quite simply, this book, like his other guides, doesn't fit in the cookie-cutter mold of the other books on the shelves. Those typically re-hash the material you find in the booklet stuffed in the box with the camera, providing slightly longer and easier-to-understand explanations of the basic controls and menu settings, plus add some generic photography advice. That's a viable approach, but not particularly satisfying for someone who really wants to master a new camera like the Canon 7D.

Busch recognizes that each camera is unique, and although the explanations of basic concepts like exposure, shutter speeds, and apertures are similar across all models in all his books, the Canon 7D deserves detailed coverage. In this book, he manages to do that while still tailoring his explanations to suit beginners who have purchased a Canon 7D as their first D-SLR, intermediate photographers looking to improve their skills, and advanced shooters who want a fast way to learn the camera and gain some tips. You can't do that with a cookie-cutter book.

Including the introductory material, I counted more than 500 pages, all well-organized so that any photographer of any level can quickly locate what they need to know. For example, there's a "Getting Started" chapter, which, the author acknowledges, will likely be read only after the reader has already taken a few hundred photos. It provides the kind of pre-flight checklist you wish you had when you bought your first digital SLR. Next comes a Quick Start chapter that leads you through the essential features of the camera, with just the basics and none of the mind-numbing detail, allowing you to immediately go out and shoot your best pictures, ever. The third chapter is a "roadmap" guide that carefully explains each of the controls on the camera, with many photos and the right amount of information. The thick, but small-format book that comes with the 7D has many cross-references that send you darting around. Busch gives you the nitty gritty here.

Then, in a welcome departure from the organization of other guidebooks, Busch leaves the discussion of detailed menus and setup options for later in the book. Instead, he gives you three "Beyond the Basics" chapters devoted to Understanding Exposure, Mastering the Mysteries of Autofocus, and Advanced Shooting,Live View, and Movie-Making. Each of these are detailed tutorials on using the 7D's sophisticated features. Even Canon veterans may be mystified by the 7D's new autofocus options, which allow you to set up, for example, different autofocus zones for vertical and horizontal shooting orientations. Busch explains all these options, as well as the underlying technology behind autofocus, clearly and completely. The lengthy, tip-filled movie-making section was excellent, too, and appropriate given the 7D's full HD capabilities.

The author does devote several long chapters to explaining every menu option and, more importantly, why you should use each setting. Most other guides just list the menu item choices, and don't give you detailed examples of when to use a particular setting. The other books simply don't have room for this kind of depth. Highly recommended.

Finally, I understand how to use my EOS 7D! I eagerly anticipated this book, because none of the other references I checked fully explained some of the best new features of the camera, especially the powerful autofocus features, and the ability to use the camera's flash as a master for wireless flash. I really needed to learn these, too. Busch has always produced the very best of the digital camera guides for Canon, and seems to understand that sophisticated cameras need, on the one hand, explanations that are simple enough for someone who isn't yet an expert to grasp, yet with enough depth to answer all your questions as you grow with the camera.

This one has 13 very meaty chapters that cover all the bases. Chapters 1-3 get you started setting up and using the camera, with sufficient information on all the controls and features, but not so much that you get lost. Chapters 4-6 explain exposure, the new autofocus features, and advanced shooting techniques. I particularly liked the section on movie shooting, as it described how to use the 7D's movies making, but then added specific shooting tips you can apply to your 7D in movie mode. Chapters 7 and 8 explains every single menu choice, and rather than just running through the options, Busch gives examples of situations he's encountered where each setting has proved useful. There's a whole chapter on lenses, including a chart and instructions you can use for adjusting for front or back focus. Since I purchased two 580EX II flash units, I found the two chapters on flash to be especially helpful in getting the most out of multiple flash situations. The last two chapters tell you about maintaining your camera, and your software options, without padding the book with how-to-use-Photoshop information. (If I want to know how to use specific software, I'll buy a book for that software.

All in all, this was an excellent book, and clearly the best for Canon 7D owners who want to master their cameras.

I upgraded to the Canon EOS 7D from the Rebel T1i, and really needed some help in learning to use the features of this semi-professional camera. Although I already knew the basics of using a digital camera, I really wanted to sharpen my skills as I learned how to use the much more advanced 7D. This book gave me exactly what I needed. It includes plenty of introductory information that showed me how to operate my camera, which is especially helpful because the menu system of the 7D has so many more options than the T1i. The author explains each of these confusing settings, tells why you'd want to use each one, and gives examples of the kind of photography where that feature would come in handy. This book also has a great deal of useful information on exposure, autofocus (which always confused me, particularly because the 7D has many more focus settings than my old camera.) And now that I have this advanced camera, I am ready to add to my kit of lenses, and this book helped me there, too. There is a chapter that explains how to choose a "first" lens, and then what lenses you might want to add after that. The author concentrates on the large number of Canon lenses available, but the information helped me when I chose an equivalent Tamron lens instead. Finally, the troubleshooting chapter eased my fears about the necessary maintenance that all cameras require. I am very satisfied with the completeness of this book. It should have been sold with the camera, because it answers all the questions that the manual that came with my 7D did not.

The book is usefull for entry-level DSLR users. Having a 3-year experience with XTi, I learned very little compared to what I picked up from the manual. One third of the book is not 7D-related (chapters 9, 10, 12, 13), and is applicable to any DSLR (which is not bad if this is your first camera). I found very dissapointing the author copied some text from his other DSLR books which is wrong (in some cases misleading) for 7D, examples on pages 102 ("ISO 3200 is disabled by default", while actually it is ISO 12800), 142, 144 (had to use the manual for "Quick mode" in LiveView as the description of step 3 on this page is wrong), 204 (wrong RAW modes), 259 (again wrong value for disabled ISO), 342 (mentions 9 focus points while the camera prides itself on 19 points), etc....Didn't find specific information I was looking for, e.g., advise on choosing correct frame rate for movies, specific tips for using "hidden" 7D capabilities, like the one described at [...].
Bottom line: the book is less informative than the manual; web is a better source on 7D features (do not miss YouTube presentations on 7D).

Simply put: if you are going to get one book on the Canon 7D, this one should be it.

I ended up trying almost every 7D book out there and this is by far the best. Other books either come off as being a very generic source of info that could have been written for any camera or, on the other extreme, simply a rehash of the user manual. David Busch's book is right where you want a book like this to be. It does a great job of teaching you how to use the advanced functions you find on the 7D to better your pictures. Where other books get stuck on teaching you about aperture and shutter speed, this book assumes you know the basics and teaches you about the sophisticated new auto-focusing system present in the 7D. Finally, a book that is written specifically for the 7D, but goes beyond what you find in the user manual.

The book starts with several basic chapters to get you acquainted with the camera, including a quick start guide. It then moves into "beyond the basics" chapters to teach you about the metering modes and how to attain a good exposure from your 7D, mastering the autofocus modes, and shooting movies. The book then goes into customizing your camera so that you are ready to shoot exactly how you want to shoot, a good chapter on lenses, and how to work with light (continuous vs flash, and using the new wireless flash controller). It then ends on a couple of "Enhancing your experience" chapters that go into downloading, editing, and printing and then a chapter on troubleshooting and preventing problems that might arise with your 7D.

Overall, it's very good and well-worth the read for anyone who has a 7D.

Synopsis
I've owned this book for a little over two weeks now and I have to say that it's nothing short of excellent!

Overview
I replaced my trusty 20D with the EOS 7D about four months ago. I'm an electrical engineer who's been a pretty serious photographer for about 45 years and have been using fairly complex cameras for about that long; so I'm no stranger to photography or technology. I've read the Canon EOS 7D Operator's Guide through a couple of times while I've waited to see what third-party books would be published that would supplement and flesh-out Canon's pocket compendium on this camera.

If you really want to get to know the 7D and become familiar with it's many capabilities, you won't do better than David Busch's book! This guide to the 7D is complete and well organized. It will help you to quickly get an overview of this camera and then to drill-down into the features that are most important to you. This knowledge will help turn your passion for photography into much better photographs.

Pro
The book is well-written and illustrated. It's both pleasing to the eye and easy on the eyes with it's larger print (for those of us who wear bi-focals). If you're only going to buy one book to supplement the Canon Operator's Guide, this should be it.

Con
If you're looking for a field-guide to take with your camera on a photographic safari, this is not the best book for that role. Although the size format is fairly reasonable, it's still too big (especially too thick) and heavy to take into the field.

While awaiting my pre-order to be published I ordered the Magic Lantern book on the 7D, which I found to be disappointing. Not so with David Busch's new book which is loaded with detailed and thorough explainations and clearly annotated with well defined charts, graphics and photos. As a DSLR amature I needed a book that explained things in layman's terms and this book filled the bill nicely.

You definitely need as book that goes beyond Canon's little guide, and this books seems the best. Not perfect.
Throughout there's button this or selection wheel that. Certainly if you haven't the camera in front of you, you wonder where that button is - top, rear?. A fold-out page that you can keep open, showing and naming all these buttons and dials would be handy. Now you have to leaf through the book to find it on various pages.

On page 92 we are told to press the Quick Control button. There is a quick control DIAL, whown on page 58, but no such button. It has a button in the middle, but that's called the SET button. Is that what you mean?

Cross-references cannot be avoided in a book like this. We are referred to a chapter, not to a certain page. So the book now has many pencil marks added, showing what page.
On page 91 we are referred to table 4.1 - which is not the same as figure 4.1 - what we're looking for is actually on page 76. Now is that so hard to mention?

Some things still puzzle me. Why and when should be use the Program mode, for instance, rather than the creative auto mode? This gets relatively little attention on page 28, again on page 76 and 91. More pencil marks!
I could go on: selecting a focal point is discussed on page 33, also on page 121.
You will not be surprised that there are now pencil marks on both pages, referring to the other - since "go to chapter 8" still means leafing through lots of pages.

Concluding: the book helps you along auite well, but you need an extra roadmap to find it all. Or a pencil.

For Canon 7D users, this is the reference book to have. The 7D is the industry's first pro quality APS-C size sensor DSLR camera. I upgraded from a Canon 20D 5 months ago and couldn't get the information I needed to maximize the capabilities of this camera from the owners manual. Dave Busch's book gives me the information I needed. Whether you're upgrading within the Canon line or using the 7D camera after using other manufacturer's cameras, this book gives you the information you will need in an easy to read, very understandable style with extensive use of full color information. The 7D takes amazingly beautiful pictures if you understand and use its extensive capabilities correctly. The 7D's new professional quality focus system is thoroughly described along with live view. The book covers taking HD movies and the extensive menue options built into the camera. I rated this book a 5 star because of it's easy to understand style and it's the best camera operating book I've ever used.

Very easy to follow for the nontechnical person. Great step by step instructions. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who just got a Canon 7D.