Customer Reviews

Olympus PEN E-PL1 For Dummies (For Dummies (Lifestyles Paperback))

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The menu system of the Olympus PEN E-PL1 is many layered, complex and confusing. The manual Olympus provides is not the greatest. A friend recommended this book to me and I ordered it in the Kindle version for reading on my PC. It is the first Kindle book that I've ever used on the computer. I don't have a Kindle. The content is very well written and helpful and I like the fact that I can use the search function in the Kindle PC software to find answers to specific questions. This book is excellent and I highly recommend it for people who have this camera.

As an ebook this is not the way to go. I'm finding that reference materials do not make very good ebooks.

I would not advise buying this as a reference manual for the camera, unless it is purchased as a 'real' book.

Actually the contents of this is very good, it was just poor judgement on my part to purchase as an ebook

This is a "SIMPLY" wonderful book to have for the already WONDERFUL Olympus Pen E- PL1 camera! It is very well written and very understandable to follow! I'm not a super technical person, so this book has been an enormous help to me.... I highly recommend the camera AND the book!

i've never had a 'fancy' camera before (one that you can change the shutter speed, swap lenses, etc). so this book has been very helpful for me to understand. i am about half-way through the book, so i cannot state that it has everything i need - but so far i am not disappointed. i'm looking into purchasing other filters - which is not in this book. - but i think it is because the camera does not come with them. (plus the ones i am looking at are not olympus-brand)

from what i see so far, expect this book to teach about what comes with the camera (the 14-42mm lens, regular flash). all the extra features (flashes, lenses, adapters) you might need to learn more from the olympus website. but i will do that when the time comes - i need this book to learn how to work up to another/better lens/etc first.

recommended.

It's true that this book serves as a better option than the standard manual that comes with the E-PL1. However I was a bit disappointed by several aspects of this book. My main three gripes are:

1. The Amazon product description says the book "Explains how to work with lenses and shoot in auto mode." Whilst it does explain auto mode I was very disappointed to learn that the book explicitly chooses not to go into when and why to work with different types of lenses. The whole reason I bought a camera with interchangeable lenses was to, er, be able to change lenses. Coming from the point and shoot world what lenses to use when and why is completely new to me. That the book doesn't bother with any information on that is pretty lame I think.

2. In many ways I think the book is backwards. That is, the first seven chapters are all *how* to do certain things. The trouble is there's less *when* and *why* information than I wanted. It's only with chapter 8 ("Putting it all together") that you start to see whether the deductions you've made about changing settings from earlier hold true. And even then, "putting it all together" only really covers very superficial advice on portraits, landscapes and "action" (e.g. sports) shots. The level of advice offered is really no more than you can easily turn up with a quick search of the internet. The main benefit is that the advice is written specifically with instructions for your E-PL1 rather than more generally. You'll still be left wondering a lot about many of the super cool photographs you see elsewhere are created though.

3. It felt like there was a lot of repetition and overly dumbed down steps for tasks. Now I realize this is a "for Dummies" book, but it started to feel like page filler rather than really helpful detail.

Perhaps my expectations were off and I hoped for too much. The book is definitely worthwhile just as a "better" manual, but don't expect to learn a ton about photography and, how to take advantage of the interchangeable lens system or any useful post processing guidance.

What I think would have been really nice would have been if the book opened with an explanation of key photography concepts, then took you through when to apply these with different kinds of photos and backed that up with explicit steps for how to do it with the E-PL1.

One last thing: I bought the Kindle version. If you have an iPhone as well as a decent e-reader (you wouldn't want to read this on your phone) you have a really quite convenient portable manual.

After purchasing my Olympus E-PL1 and reading the included user guide several times over, as an experienced semi-pro photographer with a wide-range of camera experiences, ranging from the all-manual ones (circa 1956) through today's modern full-auto DSLR's (Canon 40D, etc.), I came away still having a few vague misgivings and uncertainties which left me uncomfortable.

Even though the manual is technical and not a tutorial, I felt that I should have been able to easily glean the most important necessary information on how to set up and customize the camera's menu system and understand and use the camera's subtleties effectively - in fact, I thought I had.

Nevertheless, I felt that there was a chance that I had overlooked or misunderstood some important menu settings, given the shear complexity and extensive customization the camera is capable of and so I ordered this book after seeing the excellent reviews and high opinions submitted by other readers.

After it arrived I immediately read it from cover to cover with camera in hand and was amazed and shocked as to the level and degree of misinformation I had come away with by only studying the user manual cold. I say shocked, because, with my level of experience and equipment understanding, one would naturally assume that even the most obtuse manual would not be that difficult for both basic and critical settings to be mastered. Was I wrong!

After reading this book for only a few minutes, it became obvious to me that I had completely overlooked many of the co-dependent and subtle modes of advanced operation the many menu settings can employ, none of which were clearly spelled out in the highly condensed manual. Although the author has rightfully (given the title) kept the discussion level geared toward beginners, she has at the same time remained so precise and complete in her explanations that I consider this book a model of technical writing clarity for both amateur and professional readers alike.

During my photographic years I have read hundreds of technical manuals and over 1,000 equipment user guides and this book ranks into the upper 1 percent for clarity, completeness, and engaging personal style, which is a welcome relief for such otherwise dry material.

In addition to the Olympus E-PL1 specific material, I consider this to be one of the very best summary introductions to photography in general, and modern digital cameras in particular, that I have ever come across. The author seems to have a real talent for focusing upon the important while clearly explaining the complex, and avoiding the usual tangents into the irrelevant and/or trivial details many technical writers commonly fall victim to.

The book is well-laid out with appropriate charts, tables, illustrations, and color photos and, with the author's personal suggestions, tips, and observations, the volume provides a wealth of succinct but not too brief material on both the camera and common photographic techniques.

In my opinion, this book is a "must have" for the Olympus E-PL1 owner and for owners of other cameras having similar capabilities - the later models such as the E-PL2, PL3, etc. Hopefully, the author will find the time to update and extend this book to include these later cameras.

I was a bit hesitant to buy this book. I knew much of the basics about depth of field, color temperature, etc. However, the book gave a lot of information that is simply not available in the Olympus user's manual. There was very good information about customizing the camera set up.

Overall I am very pleased with the book. The only topic that was not covered that I would like to see is a section on the use of manual lenses with this camera.

I like this book it starts out super simple, but then gets more and more complicated. It would have been a better dummies book if it really was more for dummies, more pictures more examples. Probably ok for those of you who can stay focused longer than 30 min. but for me it was well "complicated" I did not finish reading it.

This for Dummies Book is actually nicer than I expected - well written and lots of pictures in full color. Highly recommend....

If you got the camera, this is a must have. Lots of tricks and tips to help a novice or a more advanced user find out about the things this camera can do.