Customer Reviews

Magic Lantern Guides: Olympus E-P1

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

 

 

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.

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.

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.

I have taken a couple of classes on "how to take your camera off of auto mode", and this book compliments that perfectly. Evey camera has different features and different way to access them. With this book you can actually take advantage of the features the olympus has to offer. Well written, in plain english, helpful and a quick read. Strongly recommend

Now I know why this series exists. The manual that comes with your camera is written by Japanese tech guys and then translated into English. Ouch.

This guide makes the same information readable! And it includes quite a few tips, tricks, charts, and information that were not included in the original manual. If you own an E-P1, buy this.

Somehow, this book managed to reveal several features that this reviewer missed seeing in the Olympus manual. It is particularly good at explaining why particular options may be desirable and which are largely useless, rather than simply which control does what. It also explains some things not in the owner's manual, such as the difference (other than price) between Olympus' FL-36 and the FL-36R flash units. Probably all this information could be found through online fora, but the book will not only save time, but likely answer many questions that one would not think to ask, and thus would not even think to search for.

A particular strength is the advice for customizing the controls through the non-intuitive menus of settings. These settings allow some options that are not available otherwise, and which the average user would not trouble with without the encouragement of this book. For example, this reviewer found that mapping the image stabilization options onto the AF button on the main control dial provided much more convenient access to switch the IS off for use with a tripod as well as for changing the focal length when using different legacy lenses. Note that the book recommends setting this control to switching the LCD display off to conserve battery power, which this reviewer found inconvenient (due largely to confusion resulting from having forgotten that it had been so set); the author does make clear that the suggestions are based on personal preference.)

This reviewer found the book to be well worth the price, as it provides not only a wealth of information in a concise format, but also an essential upgrade of the performance of the camera in return for modest amount of time and effort spent setting the control options.

It's quite good and relevant for any of the PEN cameras. It needs a better index, but otherwise, well worth buying. Lots of hints and tips on digital photography too.

As I explained to my sister, for whom I purchased this guide, Magic Lantern books are written by people who know how to write rather than by people who know how to write manuals. Worth the money.

I guess we cannot expect anything more than it being better than manual. It still is painful to jump around the book to look for related stuff as the topics in book are indexed by the camera menu especially for a beginner to advanced dslr type cameras like me. If there were other books available, I would have looked @ them but at the time when I bought it, this was the only book available on the Olympus PEN series. I guess in a way it does the job.