Customer Reviews

Mastering the Nikon D300: The Rocky Nook Manual

5 star:		(45)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I have been using a Nikon D300 since December 2007 (a couple months after they came out) and before I read this I was already pretty comfortable with the camera. I figured there were probably some tips and tricks that I might pick up from this book so I gave it a read. Holy cow. One third through the book I had already learned a ton.

Being about this particular camera, I was concerned that the book would read like an improved writing of the manual. But that is not the case. The author has an interesting writing style, mixing his one experiences and tips in with the technical information.

The author doesn't just talk about how to use the camera. He talks about why to use it this way. When should you use Programmed Auto mode? When should you do a custom white balance? And why might that custom white balance fail? In fact, his discussion on white balance is one of the best I've ever read. He doesn't just show you the different ways of setting it, he explains what WB is and why you should set it yourself, rather than leaving the camera on Auto WB.

He also gives a very detailed discussion of the histogram, contrast, and relates what you see on the camera to what you would see or do in post processing.

Autofocus is another topic that most SLR shooters don't know enough about. In this book the author clearly explains the different Autofocus modes and areas and when to use them.

I found his discussion of the shooting menu banks and custom settings banks to be very useful. One day I came home to find my wife trying to use my D300 to take a picture of my kids in the living room. She had no clue what she was doing and was trying to use my 200 mm lens! Well, this book taught me how to store my "pro" settings and the "wife" settings into these banks so that if my wife wants to use the camera I can put everything on full auto for her with a couple clicks without losing my settings - just by switching banks.

He ends the book with a chapter on Nikon's Creative Lighting System, which is a great lead into the next Nikonians Press book about that very topic.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to really understand their D300 camera.

"Mastering the Nikon D300" is a joint effort of the publisher, Rocky Nook and Nikonians, a web site and bulletin board for about 150,000 Nikon enthusiasts. In the interest of full disclosure I have been a member of Nikonians almost since its inception in 2000.

Because Nikon's "D300 User's Manual" is not the easiest book to read, many users have looked for some other information that will make the use of this very sophisticated piece of machinery easier. The author presents us with a summary of the features of the D300; explores the many modes of the metering, focus, and white balance systems; explains how to use the menus to select the approximately 300 options that configure the camera; and finishes with a brief explanation of the camera's use as a part of the Nikon Creative Lighting System (CLS).

I certainly thought that, after reading five other books on the D300, and using the camera for over a year, there was nothing that Darrell Young could teach me. But I was wrong. It was not so much that the author provided new information, as that his style was easy to read, and placed emphasis upon subjects in a way that made me pay attention to important features that I had missed. For example, I'm almost embarrassed to say, I had never clearly distinguished between shooting menu banks and custom settings banks. Young's organization of these two distinct functions into separate chapters made the difference clear to me and allowed me to make some changes to my D300 that have made life a lot easier.

I thought about saying that, being published more than a year after the camera was available, this book might be described as too little, too late. (I'll return to "too little".) It would have been good to have had this book earlier in the life cycle of my ownership. But because, despite its technical nature, it was easily accessible, I was able to go through it carefully and pick up on the use of some settings which I had either missed or not realized the importance of. It served me as a good second look at what I was doing.

The D300 book to which it bears the closest resemblance is Simon Stafford's "Magic Lantern Guides: Nikon D300 (Magic Lantern Guides)." Both look at the technical aspects of the camera, without much concern for art or photography fundamentals. (If you want a book with a broader view, consider David Busch's "David Busch's Nikon D300 Guide to Digital SLR Photography".) As such both are more aimed at experienced users who just want to optimize their camera for their kind of photography. Stafford seems a bit more willing to go out on a limb with recommendations, but he also seems more pedantic. Young seems to hold back just a bit on recommendations (there are some D300 features that I think are absurd and that he just tells you how to set up) but he's clearly user-friendly.

The book is not without its faults. At the "duh!" level, the author doesn't tell you that you access the menus by pressing the "Menu" button. When he explains that you can set up dynamic autofocus areas as 9, 21 or 51 points he doesn't explain why more is not better (sampling more points may slow down autofocus). When he discusses the CLS system he doesn't mention that you can solve the problem of subjects who squint from commander pre-flashes with an SG-31R IR panel as well as a much more expensive SU800.

Then there is the too little. The type in this book is so tiny that I could barely read it, even with my glasses. Come on, Rocky Nook. Make the type bigger!

Notwithstanding these petty comments, if you want a technical guide to setting up your Nikon D300, you can't do better then this.

This book does a good job of explaining how to use the controls of the Nikon D300. The section on use of Nikon electronic flash is especially stellar, and the illustrations are all very good, within the limitations of the small page size. I wish there was that much detail in the rest of the book, which has tiny print that I found difficult to read.

As Conrad Obregon noted in his review, the most comprehensive of the four guidebooks for the D300 is David Busch's Nikon D300 Guide to Digital SLR Photography. Its 450 pages long. The Busch book also shows you how to use the controls, with about 120 pages devoted just to the menus and why you would want to choose each particular option. But it has much more, including a 12 page section that offers recommended settings for each of the four Shooting Banks and Custom Setting Banks, for various different types of shooting situations, such as Landscapes, Portraits, etc. None of the other books have that. Large chapters deal with exposure, advanced shooting techniques, and there is one just on lenses, with evaluations of all the main Nikon lenses. This is the best and most complete Nikon D300 guide available.

I didn't like either of the other two books that are available as much as the Busch and Young books. If you don't want a comprehensive book on using the Nikon D300, the Magic Lantern D300 Guide is an acceptable choice, although it is another one of those pocket sized books and contains only black and white photos. I was surprised to see that the Nikon D300 Digital Field Guide is more of a general photography book with only a small proportion of information applying directly to the D300 itself. Most of the book is padded with simplified formulas for shooting very general photo categories, such as Landscapes or Portraits, and the example photos were mostly taken with non Nikon lenses.

Mastering the Nikon D300 would be my choice for a portable book with key information, and the David Busch book would be my choice for a printed book with complete coverage of the D300. For sheer technical detail, though, Thom Hogan's e-book is even more complete. You might even need all three of these.

I ordered this book based on Amazon reviewers. I'll never know how good the book is (or isn't) because I couldn't read it. The type was too small and the font used is way too thin. Yes, I use reading glasses but I do read other stuff extensively, from fiction to other owners manuals but this book was so bad I had to return it. David Busch's book is three times as big and I got tired of the constant comparisons to the D200 but at least I can read it under normal lighting conditions.

This is the best book on the Nikon D300 I have read.
It gave me the information I needed on how to operate the camera in a simple straight forward language.

It is an excellent supplement to the official Nikon D300 Users Manual. This book is NOT a course in photography or the history of cameras development. You do not have to wade through information you do not really need, as you find in other much thicker books on the D300.

It is a great "hands on" manual on how to use and take advantage of the so many benefits the Nikon D300 offers.

As others have noted, the typeface used is small and light so it is extremely difficult to read, even with glasses. In addition the type has been run all the way over towards the spine so you have to force the book flat to see all the words in the left page right column. This is a shame because Young's explanations are clear and his comments very helpful. But you get very frustrated trying to read the book. Hopefully the publisher (Nikonians Press) who are a Nikon user's group will get the message from all of us and re-do the book in a new edition. It really is the worst layout I have ever encountered. Bottom line, if you can get past the typeface and layout this is the best all around (less technical) book available on how to functionally and practically use all that the D300 has to offer.

I've bought several books and DVDs that cover the use and mastery of the D300, but I sure wish that I had found this one first. I learned more from its 200+ pages than the rest of the bunch combined. In some ways, I guess that's not so surprising, given that it's published by Nikonians, the premier Nikon users group on the web.

In concise and plain-spoken language, the author carefully explains how and why the various systems on your D300 work the way they do. Somehow, he manages to be detailed in a way that other books are not, and yet he's never too dense. The result is that you come away with much more than a knowledge of how to change settings on your camera--you truly understand the strengths and limitations of each one, as well as the real world photographic situations in which various settings might ideally be used.

In particular, I found the sections on the autofocus and metering systems--which are very advanced, powerful and yet somewhat complex on the D300--to be revelations in my understanding of how they worked. What I learned from those chapters alone immensely improved the photos I shot during a recent trip to Tanzania. But another reviewer here had similar accolades for the section on electronic flash, so I don't think you'll find a weak section in the book.

I believe that nearly everything in this book would also apply to the D300s, but of course there's nothing about the new tweaks and features, such as movie mode, which were new to that upgrade.

You've already made a big investment in your camera and lens--now spend $27 more to get the most out of them. You will not find a better book out there.

Thanks for taking the time to read this review, and please share your "Helpful" vote if it proved valuble in guiding your purchase decision.

This book just arrived and looks like a great text/resource to use with the D300. However, the font is so small it is bothersome to read. Too bad the publisher couldn't do a better job presenting this wonderful material. It is well illustrated and well written but the small font size is a real obstacle for me. At this price point, this book could have easily been sized larger. Or at least packed with a page-size magnifying glass!

It is fair to say I did achieve a few notable successes with my various Nikon F series cameras and, I swear, one of these days, either I am going frame my favourite combination of camera and underwater housing or find a suitable display cabinet by way of saying thank you to a range of products which served me well. Apart from illustrating my own articles and books, one of my photos of a Killer Whale taken with an already ancient F2 fitted inside an equally dated manually operated aluminium housing, went on to grace the cover of a National Geographic video. Loyalty demands I could never part with that equipment.

Photographic technology, however, has moved on and I must confess to finding the conversion to digital a very steep learning curve. But I say this in order to be helpful. Having purchased a great deal of new equipment in readiness for an extensive series of trips designed to take me to the world's greatest diveable shipwrecks, I spared no expense in attending all manner of courses and also purchased the latest books, CDs and DVDs in an attempt to pick up where I left off. Sadly, not all those products were worthy of the purchase price - in some cases, not even the postage cost. Furthermore, finding some of those inferior products given "5 Star reviews" by people who appear to be unable to give any item a lower rating is really confusing.

I came to this book, however, because I was instantly caught by the title to which my immediate, albeit silent, mental response was to say to myself "I wish." Yes, I wish I had mastered the Nikon D300 - but I am getting there! And the reason why I am getting there is because this is an easy-to-read, no nonsense book which tells me what I want to know.

If you are new to photography and the Nikon D300 is your very first camera, you will need to learn a few basic lessons such as, for example, the correlation between film speeds, shutter speeds and aperture settings - which really do need to be understood. But don't let that put you off because that won't take long at all. So having spent very little time on that problem, this book then becomes about as good as they get by teaching you all about the D300 and will serve the skilled photographer equally as well as the novice.

The book is laid out in a simple and straightforward manner and is of the right size to be taken wherever you go. Allowing the reader to build on each lesson as they progress, author Darrell Young provides a learning process which is easy-to-understand, easy to follow and, at the same time most thorough.

All the headings are there and within each of these the subject matter is expanded and broken down into the relevant component parts. The graphics are excellent and show the features exactly as they are found on the camera. All the reader has to do is pick up a camera and start at page 1. By the time you get to page 211, you will have gone a long way to "Mastering the Nikon D300.

Altogether a very proficient work.

NM

I have read two other books on the D300 but this one by Darrell Young is by far the best of the lot. If all you need to know is how to change the settings on the camera, the manual will be enough. But the author not only gives practical examples accompanied by many photos of the camera's deeply nested menu system, he also explains why you might choose different settings. This book has definitely helped facilitate the learning of the D300. Highly recommended!