Most Helpful Customer Reviews
39 of 39 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent & Worthwhile Addition to the Users Manual, November 24, 2009
This review is from: Magic Lantern Guides: Olympus E-P1 (Paperback)
Because I write about photography and test a lot of cameras I have a whole shelf of Magic Lantern Guides and I find them all extremely useful and well written and this guide to the Olympus E-P1 is no exception. It's so much nicer and more enjoyable to read an illustrated book that has a human voice explaining camera settings and features. Manufacturer's manuals, even the better-written ones (and Olympus tends to do a pretty good job with their manuals), make my eyes glaze over after a few pages because they are just trying to impart a lot of technical information in as little space as possible. Frank Gallaugher's approach to the subject is a lot more readable and having photo examples to refer to relaxes the reading process a bit so that you forget what you're reading is essentially an expanded and better illustrated camera manual. For one, I understand the HD video modes a lot better since reading his explanantion. Also, it's great to see color shots of the menu screens, histograms, etc. It's also very helpful that the mode names are in bold type throughout the book so you can scan back across pages and find them quickly. It makes following the procedures (and the writer's train of thought) much easier. I teach a lot of photography classes and whenever I tell students that I want them to read their camera manuals, I get a collective groan. Then I hand them a Magic Lantern Guide and say, "...or you can read one of these if there's one for your camera." It's hard for me to get the MLG back from them, something just clicks. It's the same material, but with a different and better style of presentation and that's why they're so useful. The fact is that a camera--any camera--is a pretty sophisticated piece of electronics and engineering that's designed for creative work and it takes patience and some reading to get the most out of them. You won't get the most from any camera until using it is second nature. I really suggest reading the book with the camera in your lap and looking at each control or menu item as you read about it. This guide gave me a much better picture of what the E-P1 is about and why it's such a landmark camera.
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13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Reveals the power and secrets of the PEN, March 28, 2010
This review is from: Magic Lantern Guides: Olympus E-P1 (Paperback)
So glad I got this book! I bought an E-P2 camera and this was the only book I could find to help explain what it can do - the manual that comes with the camera is rather hard to follow. There are only a few extra things in the E-P2 that the E-P1 doesn't have, so this book is extreemly useful for both camera owners. It is set out in easy to follow chapters with many relevant colour images, I worked through the book and was soon quite familiar with the camera. What was particularly helpful was his chapter on the menu systems in setting up the camera to suit your own style of photography. He made links so clear and when I checked them in the manual it would have required hours of study to discover them (if at all). The PEN camera is incredibly powerful and has a goldmine of choices - this book is a brilliant tool to discover and use the gold.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Very useful supplement to Olympus' instruction book, May 21, 2010
This review is from: Magic Lantern Guides: Olympus E-P1 (Paperback)
This guide is very useful for the E-P2 as well as the E-P1 (most menus etc. are the same; differences are few). While the Olympus instruction book that comes with the camera is very good, this Magic Lantern Guide is a good supplement to it, as it explains the benefit of some of the options, and offers suggested menu settings, more explicitly than the Oly book does. I find I refer to both of them. The Oly book has good tables of each and every menu item. This guide is not expensive and is worth having to help one get the maximum out of these fine little cameras.
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