Customer Reviews

Magic Lantern Guides: Nikon F100

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

 

 

I have several Magic Lantern Guides, and generally speaking, they are less than inspiring, usually little more than rehashes of the manufacturers' instruction booklets: a regurgitation of all the features, perhaps a little better organized, but not explaining what the features are actually best used for, or what circumstances they are best used in, or how to achieve specific goals given the functionality of the equipment being described.

This Nikon F100 book suffers from none of these liabilities. In fact, when I started reading it, I was initially confused by how much practical, general purpose information it contained. I thought to myself, buyers of the F100 are serious amateurs and pros. Why do these readers need all this discussion of basic photographic principles? I could get that from Kodak! But the book gets into the meat of F100 operations soon enough, and every feature is described within a solid context of photographic theory and principles. You will not lose your way in this book!

I thought I was in heaven when I read the section on autofocus tracking. The main reason I bought the F100 was because I was so disappointed in the performance of my N90 (not the N90s). It couldn't track my cockatoo on the wing worth beans! So when I read that the F100 had really fast tracking autofocus, I couldn't wait to put the money together to get one. Unfortunately, however, I couldn't make heads or tails out of the instruction manual that accompanied it, and I wasn't getting much better results than I got with my old N90.

Then this little book fell into my hands, and the fog lifted from my eyes! Their description of F100 autofocus is so CLEAR. I could finally see what I was doing wrong, and all the complexities of the F100 autofocus system crystallized into something that now seemed superbly designed and superbly thought out, and truly was light years ahead of that old N90 of mine. After reading this section of the book, I quickly mastered all of the intricacies of F100 autofocus and was able to perceive it as a system with a very logical structure, and I knew exactly how to set it up to accomplish my goals, and why I was doing it. And I did accomplish my goals.

The rest of the book is of equally high quality. Far more than a catalog of technical features, you are taught what they are all for, and how they can be used in the light of standard, good photographic principles.

Some pros may be annoyed by the "elementary" photographic principles that this book reviews. But I believe that there is a huge audience for books like this, for really serious amateurs who could use some good doses of sound photographic technique, highly integrated into a penetrating description of the technical features of a piece of photographic equipment. I'd love to see a book of this caliber on the advanced Metz or Quantum flashes, so I would be able to make an informed decision about whether it would be worth my while to make the sizeable monetary investment in one of those systems for the highly challenging task I've set myself, of photographing my pet cockatoo on the wing!

Bottom line. Do I recommend that you purchase this book? Yes. Do I like this book? No.

Magic Lantern Guides are simply infuriating. This one on the Ff100 is no exception. At least half of the book is drivel that can be found in any of a thousand books written for beginners in photography. Few, if any, people who purchase a Nikon F100 are beginners in photography. Statements like "Make sure to keep a variety of films on hand..." (page 51 appear under the heading The Well-Stocked Photographer) appear throughout the book. This useless information not only is a blatant effort to increase the page count of the book; but, more importantly, it makes the reader work hard to constantly sort the wheat from the chaff.

I come to the Nikon F100 from the N90s and had little trouble figuring out most of the controls on the F100. The Nikon's F100 instruction book was fine for the few controls that I had a question about, EXCEPT for the instruction book's explanation of the auto focus area mode. After reading through this section of the F100 instruction book several time, I still did not have a good idea of what each mode is used for. So.....I purchased the Magic Lantern F100 book. It's the only book that I could find on the F100.

The section I needed in the book is a scant four pages long starting on page 82 under the heading Focus Area and AF Mode Options. The explanation of the various AF options on these four pages is better than the explanation in the Nikon F100 manual. But, it would seem to me that this section should be twenty pages, not four. The explanations are crisp and concise, too crisp and concise. There ought to be examples of how each option could be used. There ought to be diagrams of the finder display correlated with these examples. There is, by the way, a misprint in a critical place on page 83 under the heading Dynamic AF Mode [+] with Continuous Servo AF (S). The "(S)" should be "(C)".

If you have questions after going through the F100 manual, this is the only book in town. But, it would have been much better from my perspective, if I were presented not with a book 224 pages long containing material that does not belong in the book, but with a book 100 pages long that was prepared for a correctly identified target audience.

Poorly written book with very poor pictures. I hoped to find there much more information than in very compact (but as I now could see much better written) manual of F100. Instead I found unclear "explanations", not finished desriptions and much less technical information than in the manual. (e.g. no errors description at all)
Don't buy it! Read carefully the manual, you will save some time and money.

I consider myself an advanced novice. I bought an F100 and was looking for a book with some depth. This one disappointed. Yeah, it explained the features to a point, but there was minimal guidance on how to effectively use those features.

One of the benefits of this book is that it describes the complete system (camera, flash, lenses, etc.) related to the F-100. The camera is a maravelous piece of equipment. IMHO the best camera Nikon has made.

The book does rehash the text in the camera's manual, but i like it because i can "highlight," write notes, and flag items--whereas I wouldn't make notes in the camera's manual.

Worth the money!

This book seems to be aimed at people who (want to) buy this camera because they can. It rehashes a whole lot of stuff that someone buying an F100 should already know, it's a pro-level camera after all. Then again, it is not entirely clear about some of the workings of the exposure system. I do recommend people buy this book before they buy the camera, it gives you a good idea of what you're buying.

INFORMATIVE BOOK ON ALL THE FEATURES OF THE NIKON F100. LISTS ALL THE FEATURES AND ACCESSORIES AND SOME KNOW HOW TECH TIPS.

Overall the Magic Latern guide for the Nikon F100 is a good book. It may have it's problems, but what book doesn't? The authors do a good job of exploring several aspects of the F100 in greater detail. One example of how the book helped me was with understanding the cameras autofocus system. I think the guide book does an excellent job of explaining this. This alone made the book worth the purchase price.

This book is basically a glorified instruction manual, but that is not a bad thing. The text is easy to understand, the photos are helpful, and the book will last much longer than the original manual. Worth buying, especially for the beginner.

This hastily and poorly written book adds no insights into the operation of the F100. It is a rehash of Nikon's poorly written manual.