Customer Reviews

Magic Lantern Guides: Nikon D2H (A Lark Photography Book)

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This book makes ordinary instruction manuals look good -- really good. There is virtually nothing here which you cannot learn faster and more easily with the instruction manual (or just by "playing" with the menus on the camera). The author devotes most of the book to describing individual menu options without adding any insight. He does little to illuminate what a feature is good for, how it interacts with other features, strategies for best use, problems to avoid, etc. As for more general photographic issues such composition, lens selection, et al, there is nothing of value here. Other books are vastly better.

The Nikon D2H is a complex device. The individual features can be combined in a multitude of ways -- both good and bad. There is a real need for a guide book which explains how to combine menu options so the camera works optimally for the user's style of photography. It appears the author slapped this book together without giving any thought to his readers. Even someone purchasing the book as a way to evaluate buying a D2H will find less useful information than an ordinary Nikon brochure.

Both the author and publisher should be ashamed.

I had gone into a local camera shop so many times in deciding over the D70 or D2H that I was starting to feel bad knowing I would likely not buy from them because the savings were so great online. I had seen this book in the store but knew it was bad from the reviews here. However I had already ordered the D2H somewhere else but wanted some assurance on my lens choice. It was going to take a week for my D2H to arrive and the shop had been so nice and informative so I purchased this book from them. I'll get a camera bag from them later on too once I decide what style works best.

Anyways, I thought the book would at least be good to have to read while I waited for my camera to arrive. It was supposed to be a lot like the manual. I'm a rookie at digital SLR cameras so I thought the book would be a little more informative for someone like me. Like the other reviews read, this book is really bad. The online articles on the D2H and forums are much more informative. What gets annoying about this book is that it goes into detail about going into menus and submenus for all the basic functions of the camera. It would have helped to show images of those menus. Instead it's like reading typed out directions to a file on someone's computer. I wanted to chuck the book when Moose concludes the book with how he's writing the conclusion on the plane. I just pictured him cramming in the ending to kill some time on a flight like he seemed to do with the rest of the book.

I wish the book had some guidance on three or four different settings to try along with some actual photo examples to get an idea of how to duplicate those shots. It will be fun to experiment on my own, but this book isn't much of a guide.

To repeat what another reviewer wrote. This book is no more than a glorified manual. Even worse, some of the features such as saturation were not even explained because Moose does not use them. All photos are in black and white.

Definitely a waste of money.

The problem with this book is that pretty much the same info is available online for free these days. I definitely find it much less obtuse than a Nikon user manual, but was definitely put off by the B&W pictures in a manual for a camera that has no B&W photo capability.

All that being written; if you can pick it up for a couple of dollars these days its a good book to have and if nothing else you will be able to explain all the neat features of this excellent discontinued camera, that you can probably purchase for less that $500.