Customer Reviews

Magic Lantern Guides: Nikon D80

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(23)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I am an advanced amateur just trasitioning from film to digital. I bought the D-80 because I wanted a camera I could grow into rather than out of, and all opinions/reviews seem to agree this is such a a camera. However Nikon's operating manual did not enable me to feel I was ever going to be able to understand and learn to harness the camera's potential. I wanted something that would help me get organized and feel I was on a path that would enable me to understand and become confident with the camera. This book turned it all around. It provides an organized, logical, tutorial that clearly explains what the D-80 does; how to make it work for me; and supplements this with just the right amount additional information which promotes the feeling of not only how but why as well. I now feel I am going to be able to learn to use the camera and has enabled me to relax and look forward with confidence to using this remarkable tool. The little wallet-sized cheat sheet enclosed with this book is like training wheels that will prevent me from crashing and feeling I am never going to successfully master and fully enjoy this fine machine. The book's clarity and organization have enabled me to overcome my anxiety. It is "Just what I neededd". I think most new owners of the D-80 will agree it is just what is needed.

Some of the value of this book lies in Nikon's lousy D80 manual. Nikon's manual is ill organized and printed in gray on toilet paper. Okay, maybe it is recycled paper.

Stafford's Guide is full of well-organized information. It is well printed. I can even recognize the small icons in the text (not true of all camera books). I wish publishers would not shrink icons a second time to place them in tables. However, even these tiniest of icons are recognizable in this Guide.

The author, Simon Stafford, is an experienced photographer and author. His Scottish education and UK roots show through in his language but are not distracting. Unfortunately, poor editing diminishes Stafford's excellent writing and technical presentation. Lesser typographical errors are just distracting but some errors get in the way of understanding. "...offers the photographer total control overexposure, ..." stumps the eye until you realize it should have been "...over exposure".

That said, Magic Lantern/Lark Books printed the book on decent paper (except the covers curl) and with black ink. Vastly better than Nikon's manual. The photos, especially the super-close-up photos of the D80's anatomy, are very clear. The rich typography is excellent: headings are bold, bullets are well used to structure lists, captions are set off and readable, and on and on. Point being, the production folk have done about all that can be done to make the printed material easy to read and understand. It is as if this book was well conceived, well designed, well written, and well printed, but the publisher skipped the final steps of preprinting production: the editing and index are not up to the quality of the rest of the book. The index should be five times its skimpy two pages of large print. I go on about the index because we are reading this book not for pleasure but to learn something: to understand how to use the D80's features. Especially, I want to be able to quickly locate how to change camera settings. Fortunately, the Table of Contents is nine pages of compact, structured, easy-to-scan print and stands in for the unusable index.

I seldom find book glossaries useful. This book is an exception. The sixty-plus terms are well selected and the several-to-many-sentence descriptions contain just the right amount and level of information.

So why five stars after all the griping and groaning? You can get past the inadequate final editing and the printing keeps the content from turning to mush; in fact, the printing lifts Stafford's excellent writing up and makes its content quick and easy to understand and retain. The book is 334 pages not counting the index (and you should not count the index). I can't believe the low price. Content, printing, and price offset the editing. For its few flaws, it really is an excellent book.

I would give this book 5 stars for content and 0 stars for editing. Unfortunately, the poor editing spoils an otherwise great book. Others have commented on the poor index. Again, this is the fault of the publisher. Magic Lantern should be embarrassed to have done such a poor job in the editing and indexing department. They owe the author much more than an apology. In fact, in my opinion the author should look for a new publisher. He's much better than they are. I also agree with the comments of the other reviewers that the pictures should be in color. As far as the content is concerned, the book is fantastic. It is informative, helpful, and complete. The writing style would be easy to follow if it did not have so many errors. If you own the D80, this book will give you more information about how to use it. It is an excellent supplement to the manual. However, I would wait for the 2nd printing before buying it and hope that the errors will be corrected. Another good option would be the "Nikon D80 Digital Field Guide" by David Busch. It's in the same price range, is well written, has color pictures, and has been better edited.

this book seems to just paraphrase what the really poorly written owners manual states. this book will help you to understand your d80 better, which i guess would be your ultimate goal, but it is a serious time investment on the readers part.

the dvd is MUCH quicker and easier to understand as they go through everything step by step and are able to SHOW you how to use the D80 more effectively

Good, clearly written & understandable manual for the Nikon D80 Digital SLR camera body. I was very disatisfied with the manual provided by the manufacturer,(Nikon). Internet manuals are too laced with author's personal opinions & bias's. The Magic Lantern Guide is presented in a manner that genuinely helps the reader master the multiple settings required to sucessfully use this camera body. A digital SLR has many more adjustments for the user to master than does the equivalent film camera making fairly frequent referral to an understandable reference mandatory. This Guide definitely fills that need.

While I strongly disagree with those who so vehemently criticize Nikon's D80 manual (I actually think it is quite well written and very helpful, and refer to it often), I do think that this Magic Lantern guide is a must for D80 owners.

By the time I had finished my first reading of this book, I had a thorough and in-depth understanding of the workings of my Nikon D80 camera. The suggesions which accompany many of the sections were somewhat helpful, but nothing to write home (or even to Mr. Stafford) about.

Other than the many and annoying "typos" and poor editing (commented on by others, as well), the main shortcomings of this book (in order of importance) are: 1.) it provides little or no creative information about using the D80 or improving your photography with this camera generally (although, to be fair, that is not the reason I bought the book in the first place); 2.) there are not nearly enough illustrative pictures, and none are in color (which I understand is a printing cost-saving measure); and 3.) the index is much to meager - it could have been twice as long.

Still, I highly recommend this book to D80 owners (whether, like me, you have previously used a film or digital SLR, or you are completely new to SLR and/or digital photography). This is a valuable tool in learning your D80 and in making it more than just a "point and shoot" camera.

I'm gaining additional insight & understanding of my D80 with the use of this clearly-written book. It elaborates on some issues of which the manual is vague.

Redundant material can be rapidly scanned - dependant on the user's level. In sum, I know more useful facts about using my camera. If you seriously want to utilize your D80, than this book, as an additional reference, will help you attain that goal.

This is actually the manual Nikon should include with the D80. If this is your first Nikon DSRL you should read it from start to finish. Many parts will be boring because it covers subjects you already now from your SRL photography experience. However you will find all over the book interesting and useful things about the D80. The Nikon D80 manual coverage on the camera es to brief, and you need a lot of experimentation to discover how things work. The Magic Lantern book covers things in detail, with this book you should also experiment, but basically practice the acquired knowledge.

This book has a lot of extra info from the user manual. The book gives a lot of depth to all of many features of this camera and also gives some interesting back stories.

The author does not like auto features at all, but I found that the auto features work rather good on this camera. But he goes into the manual setting in great detail.

The index is rather poor but it is laid out so that you can find stuff okay.

I learned three or four solid things from the book so it was worth it.

The book is slightly bigger than the manual that came with the camera, but most of the content are simply paraphrasing what is in the original manual. i was looking forward to learning advanced skills or tricks that are not discussed in the camera manual, but i'm sorely disppointed, even the few sample pictures in the book are in black and white only. i personally don't find the book useful.