Product Description

In the Canon EOS 40D, speed and reliability meet superior image quality and affordability. With this handy guide, youll learn how to work with color spaces and white balance, use Live View, set up the 40D for your shooting style, set and evaluate exposure, and more. Get helpful tips and advice on using and modifying Picture Styles, creating customized settings for the subjects you shoot most often, and working with natural light. Just picture the amazing photos youll take with your Canon EOS 40D!

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #42579 in Books
• Published on: 2008-04-07
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

From the Back Cover
Picture the images you'll capture with your 40D

In the Canon EOS 40D, speed and reliability meet superior image quality and affordability. And the more you know about your camera, the better your images will be. So don't wait another minute. Learn how to work with color spaces and white balance, use Live View, set up the 40D for your shooting style, set and evaluate exposure, and more. Get helpful tips and advice that you can use every time in this handy guide that goes wherever you take pictures.

• Discover how to use and modify Picture Styles, and why you should

• Create customized settings for the subjects you shoot most often

• Explore Canon lenses

• Work with natural light, onboard flash, and accessory Speedlites

• Understand when and why to use RAW capture

• Get insights for shooting action, events, weddings, stock shots, macro images, landscapes, and more

About the Author
Charlotte K. Lowrie is a freelance stock, editorial, and portrait photographer and award-winning writer. Her images have been featured on the Canon Digital Learning Center, in Microsoft publications, and in national magazines. Charlotte teaches BetterPhoto.com classes, and she is the author of eight books including the bestselling Canon EOS Digital Rebel XTi Digital Field Guide, Camera Raw Studio Skills, and several other Wiley titles. She is the coauthor of Exposure and Lighting for Digital Photographers Only, also from Wiley. Visit her Web site at wordsandphotos.org.

Customer Reviews

Best Book To Learn The Secrets of Canon 40D
The Digital Field Guide by Charlotte Lowrie is the best book to learn how to shoot the Canon 40 D at the highest and most efficient levels. Four months ago I took a big leap and went from a Kodak point and shoot camera to a Canon 40 D with four very good (and expensive) lenses. I was initially very disappointed with my images compared to ones I had shot with my Kodak camera; they weren't very sharp and the colors seemed washed out. So what did I do: I bought three books on the 40D, a DVD guide to the 40D, and took an on-line course with a professional instructor on the 40D. I bought the Digital Field Guide last, half-way through my on-line course, and only then did I really learn the secrets of the 40D.

Here is what the Digital Field Guide revealed to me: 1. The importance of Picture Styles and how/why each owner of a 40 D should explore modifying the default style settings. 2. A detailed review of the 40 D's Custom Functions with suggestions from an experienced 40 D user. 3. How to set up Camera User Settings (C1, C2, and C3 on the Mode dial). 4. Some real practical insights to using the 40 D in the field and some further insights to the 40 D and Canon lenses by listing the lenses and settings for the photos contained in the book.

The key is setting modified Picture Styles and then taking advantage of Camera User Settings. Lowrie says her modified preference is Neutral Picture Style with revised settings. That approach did not work for me, as I do not shoot in RAW, but I now have found revised Portrait, Faithful( Macro shots) and Landscape Styles for my C1-3 settings.

If this book is so good, why do I give it only a four star rating? The format and layout is confusing. In this regard, the Canon EOS 40 D Guide by David Busch is much better. His book is much easier read, but it does not get into customized Picture styles in enough detail and failed to discuss Camera User Settings at all. If you are buying just one book on the 40 D get Lowrie's, but I am glad that I have both. By the way, until I read one of the reviews posted here I did not pick-up on religious references in the book, still do not find anything that bothers me.

Some highs and some lows
Reading the other reviews of the guide gave me a little concern, in that several people took offense at the specifically Christian references in the text. I finally decided that I wouldn't be offended if the author had been specifically Jewish, Muslim, or Buddhist, so why get my panties in a bundle about Christian references. That's who she is.
And she is very technically savy about the EOS 40D. It's almost overkill in spots, more a technical manual than a field manual. I'm not an engineer or an IT specialist, so a lot of her material, frankly, went over my head. I was hoping for simple, down-to-earth, well-illustrated instructions on the many wonderful changes in the 40D compared to previous incarnations of the 10D series. I found her explanations too wordy and too poorly illustrated.
Which brings me to my main consideration and criticism. It would seem to me that someone as well versed in the operation of the camera would take the time to learn what makes a good photograph. The illustrations taken, one would suppose, from the author's own files, would not be so amateurish. There are lots of photographs of Christian Rock concerts, snap-shot portraits of folks around the church, and weddings. None are of a professional quality.
She is, however, a technical master and if your goal is complete technical mastery of the 40D, then this may be your book. Just go out and make your own photographs. I'll bet they'll be better than what's in the book

Great book
I bought the Canon 40D book from reading these reviews where everyone said it was a good book and I was hoping that it was. They were right, this book has helped me so much. I have learned so many new things from this book that I would have never gotten on my own, and I'm pretty good with camera's. The author Charlotte Lowrie really explains in detail everything she talks about. I have never been very good with reading a help book and then understanding it but I learned so much from this book. I highly recommend it.