Customer Reviews

David Busch's Nikon D300 Guide to Digital SLR Photography

5 star:		(73)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I've been shooting Nikon cameras since 1960. When I look at the collection of buttons, dials, switches, screens and menus on Nikon's D300 digital SLR, I wonder if I would have become a photographer back then if faced with so many choices.

All these choices are good. They let you customize the D300 to be used exactly the way you would want. And the embarrassment of riches means that one camera can do many things, for many different photographers, so that ultimately a highly sophisticated machine can be delivered more cheaply to photographers whose styles vary markedly.

Some of the choices seem really important. Do you want to set up focus so that you are better able to capture a sitting portrait subject or a flying bird? Other choices seem more trivial. Would you rather review the last image you captured by pressing on the left side or the top of a multi-selector switch?

To deal with all these choices, Nikon provides a manual of several hundred pages that explains the options that are offered with some very small, sketchy illustrations, but without explanation of which options might be better for a particular type of photographer.

David Busch set out to bring a little more clarity to the bewildering field of choices, and does a relatively good job of it. Unfortunately, that means going through each menu and selection step by step. The illustrations are larger than the manual and in color, and Busch actually makes recommendations about items to select. For example the D300 allows you to elect to have either 51 or 11 focus points available (which is different then selecting a focus point, once you've made the choice). My first instinct after reading the manual was to ask why everyone wouldn't select the maximum number of focus points, but the author pointed out that 11 points is faster for selecting a focus point for large subject matter, like photographing some sports.

After going through all of the options, Busch returns to several key subjects that usually require the integration of several choices, like getting the right exposure or the best focusing for particular kinds of photography. There's a chapter on lenses that experienced photographers can skip, but that any beginner bold enough to purchase a D300 for his first digital single lens reflex will find useful. The chapter on lighting contained a good explanation of Nikon's Creative Lighting System that allows for an integration of electronic flash in a more useful way then ever before. I only wish Busch had been able to convey the joy of being able to dance around the subject without any kind of tether while your flashes responded. It's easy to feel like David Hemmings with Veruschka in "Blow Up", without all that hot continuous lighting.

The book finishes up with a quick glance at the software available for post processing, which, other than listing the names of software, really didn't provide much help in making a choice, and then covers some maintenance issues like updating firmware and cleaning the camera's sensor.

By its nature this is not an exciting book, since the author eschews any effort at telling us about the artistry possible with the camera, but that's the nature of manuals. One should also note that occasionally Busch falls from grace in small ways, as when he suggests that the D300 can control up to four groups of lights in CLS, when what he probably means to say is that you can transmit your signals on four separate channels, or that four groups can be controlled if you use an external flash. These errors are small and quickly identifiable to anyone trying to use the menus. On the other hand there are a few subjects on which I would have liked to see more material, like AF Fine Tune, where a discussion of the use of targets to select the tuning would have been useful. And I was sorry the chapter on lenses didn't mention the use of focal length to control perspective, especially since there was a set of full page illustrations that showed this so well.

All in all, this is an excellent introduction to the options that are available to photographers with the D300. Although early adopters may already have figured out most of the possibilities, there is probably still something for an experienced user to learn, and, if you've just picked up a D300, this is lot easier to use then the Nikon manual.

I purchased my Nikon D300 in December and at that time bought the Nikon D200 Digital Field Guide because nothing else was available for my camera. I went with the same author, David Busch, for my first D300 book, and I am glad I did! As good as the D200 Digital Field Guide was, the approach taken in this book is much, much better.

Compared to the Digital Field Guides, this book has much more depth and a lot more information on how to use the camera. It's a 450-page full size book with roughly twice the content of a Digital Field Guide, and it features large color illustrations rather than postage stamp sized pictures. To give you the idea of the depth of coverage, this book devotes 117 pages just to menus and setup options, with exhaustive descriptions of how each menu entry works, and why you'd want to select a particular setting. And that doesn't even count a half dozen pages in a later chapter with tables that provide recommended Shooting Menu Bank and Custom Setting Menu Bank settings for particular types of photography.

I particularly enjoyed the 40 pages devoted to lenses, including reviews of all the key lenses available for my Nikon D300. There are another 40 pages on working with light and using the confusing Nikon Creative Lighting System.

Is there anything left out? This time, Busch does not devote a third of the pages to checklist recipes for common shooting situations, as he did with his D200 Digital Field Guide. I think that the owner of a camera this advanced probably doesn't need a couple pages of summaries on how to take photos of seascapes or sunsets. I'd rather have the solid information in this book, which equipped me to go out and take any kind of picture I want to.

I received the book of David Busch a few days ago. I hadn't the patience to read the manual that came with the Nikon D300 because of its format and the lack of color in it. I had read on the Internet that this book is very well written. Well, I'm not disappointed at all ! It's a great book (432 pages, 190 full-colour pictures, a lot of tables) that explains every single button and feature of the D300. Beside the detailed explanation, there are also a lot of shooting tips. There are also chapters on getting the right exposure, choosing the right lenses, the lighting basics, useful softwares, cleaning the sensor etc.

I think it's iniquitous to write, as one reviewer did, that this book is a ripp-off because there are a lot of pictures that had been used in the Canon 40D book. The controls and features of the Nikon D300 are very well explained in David Busch's book, with numerous pictures of the buttons of this very camera. If there are some landscape pictures or some paragraphs on the lighting basics that were used in another book, it doesn't not prevent this book from being one of the best tool to learn quite all the capabilities of the Nikon D300 ! I thank David Busch for his great work !!!

I received my D300 in December 2007 and as of the end of April 2008, I've shot 15,600 photos. This book is the perect guide for any D300 owner. Some of the menu options are different from D200 or D80 and the author does a very good job explaining what is different and why.

The book covers all the camera features and gives you ideas about how to best use the features. The book is over 400 pages and larger in size than previous guides of this type. It makes it easier to read. The book is full of color examples.

There is a great section on lenses, flashes. advanced shooting tips, etc.

The manual that comes with the camera is okay to a point, but it has no dicussion. David's book dicusses why you should do something a certain way rather than just listing the options and letting you figure it out.

I learned a lot and will keep reading it to learn everything I can to improve my photography.

By far the best book on the Nikon D300. Whereas most competing books do a quick overview of the options and then launch into generic how to take pictures advice (which is likely too simplistic and therefore not useful to someone who shells out major bucks for the D300), Busch's book concentrates almost exclusively on the various (and seemingly infinite) options for the D300. The book is clear and absolutely essential for those who have bought (or want to buy) a D300. I actually bought the book before buying the camera, and reading it convinced me to buy. The documentation that comes with the camera is clear but doesn't help decide when the various options might be useful. Most of the other books on the D300 are not much of an improvement in that regard. Busch's book is. Also the Busch book is extremely helpful on various accessories; the Nikon site is useless in deciding which of various versions of some accessories are important to buy. Several minor errors, a result of rush to publication, but not troublesome.

I just traded all my old Nikons for a D300 and knowing that the factory manual would be almost unintelligible both because of the language as well as its physical size, I automatically searched for but was unsuccessful in finding my old stand-by - the Magic Lantern Guide to (you name the camera). Fortunately, I came upon this book and based solely on the recommendations of others on this site, I purchased it. Physically larger than the Magic Lantern series, his book is much easier to read and the information is so very clearly presented that it is a pleasure to read. The illustrations are very clear, well-labeled and informative.In comparison to the Magic Lantern series which I had for my other Nikons, this book is far and away superior. If you have D300 and do not have extensive experience with advanced digital SLR's, this is the best guide that I have seen so far. Buy it!,

I bought the D300 the day it was released last November. I read and re-read and re-read the included manual. It is a typical Nikon user guide, poorly written and difficult to absorb. I've recently read David's book and am ASTOUNDED at how simple everything really is to understand and use! I flagged and highlighted the things I use most often for quick reference. This book will travel with me everywhere my camera goes. It has a nice, safe, and permanent place among my other gear. It's invaluable and AMAZINGLY written in comprehendable sentences. It's written for a real life photographer like myself. I'm grateful to have gotten this book. It's opened up all the possibilities of my camera to me. Possibilities I missed in the technobabble of the D300 user manual. I no longer carry the user manual with me. It's a nice dust collector on my desk now.

I have found the Amazon reviews to be very useful most recently in selecting books and other items, so I felt obligated to try to write something about this book that has not already been said. Mr. Busch starts out by stating that his book is additive to the very extensive manual in that it not only will describe all the functions but how you should use them, when and why. To some degree he partially succeeded for some functions but not without providing the following stumbling blocks:
(1) Instead of taking a subject and completing it fully in one place with pictures that are easily seen on the same page, he defers to describing something later in another chapter....which then refers to another chapter.....(and in at least one case the reference was entirely wrong.) In other cases the circular reference gets you back to the starting point without all the necessary information. I am talking about big subjects like focusing, exposure, bracketing. Even though it appears that there is a portion of a chapter related, it takes bouncing around from one place to another to get it all.
(2) There are not only multiple typos but there are outright errors that will throw anybody off the track. When someone takes the time to read these books it would seem the auther and/or publisher would welcome corrections.

(3) What irks me more than anything is the arrogance of the author and publisher in sending this book in our direction without any means of us to notify anybody of substantive errors, typos, suggestions and yes, even quesions. .....whatever. There is no address for finding David Busch. His blog does not allow comments from us commoners as far as I can tell and there is no way for us to get an errata sheet showing any subsequent corrections. I wrote every company listed in the book as being responsible for the publishing and printing of the book and received no answer in over 2 months. It doesn't have to be this way. There is are publishers that not only provides a website to update any book, but admonishes its customers to go to the website before starting. The also provide a continuous errata sheet so that the book remains useful.
In the future, I will try to avoid books in which a customer service contact is not provided for the purpose of corrections, suggestions, questions, etc.

This is indeed the best book I have found on the D300. Although I am an amateur, I have owned a D100, a D200 and now the D300. I use a D40X as a backup. I use Photoshop to review and enhance images. So I'm not new to digital photography.

In general, all DSLR cameras have the same functions. Manufacturers develop similar operating system software, they integrate similar controls, the displays all appear with similar information. From 15 feet, one can't tell one camera from another, and I'll bet few of us could discern the difference between a Canon- and a Nikon-created digital photo, given similar quality lenses.

With this said, without experience with the device, the many functions of a DSLR camera are not easy to use effectively. If you pick up the Nikon D300 manual, it describes the functions of the D300 camera very well, but not WHY one ought to use each of them. David Busch's book does it, and does it very well. Yep, there are a few reiterations from previous publications, but that's because many functions are the same as on previous cameras!

"If it ain't broke, don't fix it".

I picked up four different "how to use the D300" manuals, five, counting this one; the graphics in this book are clearer, the images are higher quality, the language is well stated and technical points are made so even I can understand them. Plus the quality of this book rates a 10. If you buy this book, you don't need any others.

This book is exactly what I was looking for. I have read the negative reviews, frankly the reviewer's opinion of the author is useless to me. What I wanted to know is does the book meet my needs, should I spend my money on it or not?

What I needed for my camera is a comprehensive guide that explaines the purpose and function of every one of the D300's controls, how I should use them in specific situations, and why.

Mr Busch does all of that plus provide helpful insights as to how settings which work well in one environment will actually degrade my work in a different environment (e.g., using D lighting set to high). I was also looking for tips for improving my photographic skills and techniques using the specific features of this camera. The author taps into his knowledge gained throughout his career and does that as well. Mr. Busch writes in a very readable fashion with a degree of humor. His explanations are clear and the pictures supporting the various explanations are accurate and very helpful (especailly in color - something else the owner's guide did not do). Therefore the book does meet my needs.

While it is true that the author does make repeated comments about why he is not covering this point or that point, I found those explanations helpful rather than a hinderance. They removed the guess work about why something was not mentioned or only covered in very limited detail. These are judgment calls by the Author and were necessary unless he wanted to produce an 800 page tome. In addition, since the vast majority of pictures in the book were photos of a D300 (making it a true Nikon D300 Book), of it's switches and menus and its various screens, showing how and where to find the functions being described, the fact (or possibility) that a few of the actual photographs may have been used in another of Mr. Busch's books, or may have been taken with another camera was completely irrelevant to the value of the book as a 'camera specific' guide to producing great work with the D300.

This is a great instruction book on using the D300 to produce great photographs, and it was worth every penny I paid for it.

EHF
Raleigh, NC