Customer Reviews

A Short Course in Canon PowerShot S3 IS Photography book/ebook

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

 

 

I recently bought this item despite the negative reviews posted previously by two other purchasers. I think these two reviews were not fair to the book. First, it is not the case that the book discusses the RAW format, and second, an eBook was not included with my camera when I purchased it. In fact, both the book and the CD that come with the order are valuable and some of us (still) prefer books. In this case you can have your cake and eat it too. The book covers many key aspects of the features of the Canon 3S IS camera and I think that unless you enjoy reading the small manual that came with the camera, this book will definitely be an asset to you and will facilitate your learning how to use the camera and take better pictures. The illustrations are good and the text is clearly written.

So, if you own a Canon Powershot 3S IS I think you will NOT be disappointed by this book and CD. Yes, it is not cheap, true, but the CD alone is 20 dollars from their web site. The book is nicely done.

Nobody should ever write a technical manual without a thorough, alphabetical index at the end. If I want to find out about making movies with this camera, I should be able to find it in seconds by looking up the word Movie. No such luck here. The author includes what he calls an "index" on page vi, but it's actually just a table of contents, organized by page number. So, in order to answer my movie question, I have to scan through fifty entries until I come to "Capturing Movies". Dumb, dumb, dumb.

I was also irritated by the section on Image Stabilization, a feature of the camera that Canon thought important enough to include in the name of the camera (the IS part). The author tells us how to select one of the three settings for image stabilization, but gives us no clue why you would want one setting over another. I found out by reading the Canon supplied manual. Why did I buy this book again?

This manual does have some good sections and it contains many useful tips (if you can find them). However,for the whopping price of forty dollars, I would expect a much more detailed, professionally organized product than this. More of a glorified pamphlet than a user's manual.

A very good book that taught me a lot about not only the Powershot S3 IS but also about digital photography. Put in a very systematic way and an easy to grasp way. I love the CD and their animation web site although a bit slow.
I recommend this book highly because the original user guide only explains the functions of each option. This book however explains why and what to do with that function.

I was a bit hesitant to buy this book after reading the first review. There is no mention of RAW format in the book so that's good at least.

Otherwise, if you already own this camera (Canon PowerShot S3 IS) you most likely already have the eBook (I realized this after the fact as I thought it was a driver CD) and you can save yourself about $15 by buying the book alone if you really want it in print (Google the title, you'll find it).

Also, this book isn't in color - the eBook is. So why buy the book? For $40 I feel hugely disappointed.

For an amateur photographer who wants to improve photo-taking skills, this book is a great buy. I had originally planned to take a photography course at a local community college, but that didn't work out. This book turned out to be quite a bit cheaper and more effective for me since it is specific to my camera. I have read several other digital photography books, but since they weren't specific to my camera, I found it hard to put those concepts into practice. This book makes it easy to apply digital photography concepts.

As many have mentioned, this is a plain 8 1/2 x 11 black & white book. I purchased the book for the content, though, and that is very good. I don't need glossy color pages to make learning easier. Even in the first chapter I learned a lot about my camera that wasn't included in the manual. There are lots of good shortcuts and tips that are not at all obvious or easily understandable from the manual. My picture taking has already improved!

This is a great book if your goal is simply to understand your camera better so you can take better pictures.

I fully agree with L. Satin's review. The manual that comes lwith the camera is inadequate unless you are already familiar with digital cameras.

If you own the Canon S3 IS you need this this book

Holy moLy. I ordered the Canon Powershot S3 IS being a novice photography bug but just starting out. I was very excited when the camera arrived but soon became very disenchanted. The manual that came with the camera explained next to nothing about the camera and I had no idea what most of the functions were. I was lost and disappointed. I really wanted to learn to use this camera and gave it a last shot before returning the thing and ordered this book. What a relief! It is a great book that explains everything the manual didn't. I would not have been able to use the camera without this book! It starts from the beginning and explains every function and how to use it. Thank you Mr. Curtin, I have learned to use the camera from your book.

This book is very informational. Everything is great except for one thing as was mentioned earlier there is no index.

One;more thing. I purchased this one from amazon and it had a strong smell of some weird sort. It smelled up the room every time i opened it!

But I think this was worth the money spent.

This book presents it self as a self teach book, it is just another manual. I recommend not wast int you money.

Product description indicates the S3 has RAW capture. It does not. Makes you question how accurate the rest of the description is, so I wouldn't consider paying $ , which sounds too high anyway;.