- Offers a tiltable 3-inch LCD that displays fastest possible autofocus in Live View mode due to phase detection AF system: a Sony exclusive!
- Peter K. Burian is a stock photographer who is represented by three agencies and has written more than a dozen Magic Lantern Guides
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Best option available, but definitely not perfect.,
By Tim Naff "Tim" (Huntsville, AL USA) - See all my reviews
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Magic Lantern Guides: Sony a500/a550 (Paperback)
If you have one of these cameras, you need this book. Period. The sooner you stop trying to dig answers out of the Sony manual, the happier you're going to be. Another reviewer said, "Don't throw away the manual," and he's right, however.
The Magic Lantern Guides are not as comprehensive as the books by Gary L. Friedman, but they are much more compact and affordable. As of this writing, Gary's book on these cameras is just out. My only complaint with it is that it's a little over-the-top with its Dick-and-Jane approach and tone. I like his book on the A850 and A900 much better. He thought he was writing for a more camera savy user for those cameras, I guess. I'm going to try something different here and rate the book from 1 to 10 by categories. I hope you find it useful. COMPREHENSIVE COVERAGE OF FEATURES AND OPERATION: 8 Considering the price and compact size of the book, it would be a 10, were it not for a few omissions, and one glaring error. On page 36, the author says the camera has the program shift feature. On page 164, he says "With flash photography, you cannot use the program shift feature." There is no program shift feature on either camera model. In fact, that is one of the few serious gripes I have with the cameras. (The cameras do have a thing called "manual shift," which is like program shift but, as the name would indicate, only works in manual mode. See page 135 in the book or page 68 in the owner's manual.) GENERAL EXPLANATIONS OF TECHNOLOGY AND HOW THINGS WORK: 10 On the back cover it says "This guide is ... not watered down general how-to text...." This is not a true statement; the book does include "general how-to text." Personally, I believe the "general how-to text" is mostly well done. (I wish more people who bash cameras in consumer reviews would read this "how-to" stuff so that they'd have an inkling of what they're talking about. Books like this will help stamp out photographic ignorance.) ORGANIZATION AND ACCESSIBILITY OF INFORMATION: 6 The problem is the index. There are about as many entries in the table of contents as in the index, and that is just plain laziness on the part of the author and publisher. (You guys need to get familiar with MS Word's index feature. It's almost as good as the automated table of contents generation.) We don't buy these books to read them like novels, cover-to-cover, and then permanently set them aside. The most important use is for quick reference. It's not quick when you have to search to find a subject. For example, DRO, D-range, and HDR should each be listed separately in the index. The only one of these listed is D-range. Even the owner's manual has "manual shift" listed in the index. This book does not. Every acronym should be in the index. Every button label on the camera should be in the index. The author should assign a set of key words to each menu item to help the reader find his way to the item. The index should second-guess the reader. As it is, the reader has to second-guess the index. STYLE OF WRITING: 10 The author has a crystal-clear, relaxed style. He doesn't gush. He goes straight to the point. He is a natural tutor. If you're new to this type of technology, this book will do a great job of getting you grounded quickly and painlessly. EDITORIAL QUALITY: 5 There are way too many grammatical errors, typos, and gaffs in this book. Such an otherwise beautiful, professionally produced document deserves a rigorous technical edit. I don't fault the author for this; he probably didn't major in English. I fault the publisher. For example, if I see a left parenthesis, I'd like the complementary right parenthesis included. The possessive pronoun "its" does not have an apostrophe AFTER THE S!!! (That's a first for me. Incorrectly placing an apostrophe before the s in the possessive form is bad enough!) In one place it says turn the dial right to increase something and turn it right (again) to decrease. The book even says that two-thirds is .77 instead of .67! If these kinds of errors were rare in the book, I could forgive them, but they aren't, and I can't. We all make mistakes like these; it's the responsibility of the publisher to clean them up. QUALITY OF BINDING, PAPER, AND FIGURES: 10+++ This is simply the highest quality paperback I've ever seen. From front cover to back, it's gorgeous. The pages are all in color. The paper is probably the best available. The colors in the pictures and figures are amazing. The technical figures are dynamite. The front cover is beautiful. The only way to fault the quality is to say that it's too good: the book undoubtedly weighs more because of the heavy stock used for the pages. If it is too heavy for you to carry around, you'll appreciate the foldable, plastic-coated, quick-reference card enclosed. I haven't had the book long enough to testify that the binding will hold together indefinitely; sometimes heavy stock pages like these are the first to loosen and fall out. So far, though, all I can say about the quality is "WOW"! In summary, in the areas that count the most, this book scores high. I'm giving it 5 stars because it's be best option out there. If you have, or are considering buying, one of these cameras, I hope you buy the book. It will be a very good investment and add to the pleasure you get from your camera.
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Worth getting, but don't throw away the owner's manual,
By
This review is from: Magic Lantern Guides: Sony a500/a550 (Paperback)
The Magic Lantern Guide for the Sony A500/A550 says on the back that "you can throw away the Sony owner's manual".
DON'T throw away the owner's manual. The Magic Lantern is a good guide and useful for helping learn many functions in these cameras, but it is incomplete and inaccurate. For example, the Manual Focus Check is mentioned in two different areas of the Magic Lantern guide. However they don't mention to use the '+' button (which the owner's guide does) to magnify the check image by 7x (first press) and 14x (second). This is very useful when doing manual focus. I still recommend the Magic Lantern guide as it is useful to have a different explanation of how to use a function than just the owners manual, and the Magic Lantern guide is much more rugged. It will last in your pocket or camera bag.
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Magic Lantern Guides -Sony a500 a550,
By
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Magic Lantern Guides: Sony a500/a550 (Paperback)
Excellent guide for the Sony DSLR a550. The owner's user guide provided with the camera is VERY basic. This book explains everything that I need to know to get the full use of my camera.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
|
|
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
|
|
