7D books

Has anyone already purchased the "Canon EOS 7D Digital Field Guide" book by Charlotte K. Lowrie? I see that book is now available on Amazon.com and B&N. For around $15, seems reasonably priced but would like to hear from someone who's already purchased the book if it's worth picking up. It appears most other 7D books won't be available til February timeframe. One book I'll definitely buy is "David Busch's Canon EOS 7D Guide to Digital SLR Photography". I had his Canon 40D book and really found it useful. I hope we'll eventually see many of these books available in e-book format for the upcoming Apple tablet, whenever it finally becomes available. I've resisted the Kindle and new B&B Nook because they only display in grayscale. Grayscale might be fine for most other books, but photography is one genre of books you'd definitely want a color e-book reader.

--
http://desertsky.smugmug.com

I too am anxiously waiting a book/guide to 7D - here in UK they are later to publish I believe - I did buy the Canon 50D digital field guide from Charlotte L - it was most useful - but really like the Dummies range of books best - I find I just always need a little more help than the regular manual gives me!
--
Jayboo

Yes, I got the book and was very pleasantly surprised. Not another version of the Canon manual. Lots of goof stuff. It is going to take me a long time to absorb it. Amazing that such a well written book came out in such a short time. I highly recommend it.

I picked up Charlotte Lowrie's 7D book today at B&N, and it looks like it has a lot of good explanation that clarifies some things that have been baffling me... namely some of the CF III functions and multiple button function choices. I need to sit down with camera in hand and work some of these things out. Also need a cheat sheet

I've only had my 7D since Christmas Eve, and the past few days have't been the best time to fool with a new camera when you are the mommy / grandmother / chief in the kitchen !). I had set all the Menu items and CF's I was comfortable with that are the same as, or similar to my four xxD cameras (10D thru 50D).

Someone could do the world a favor by publishing a concise little reference of which combos of buttons control what functions, as this is the most confusing part of the 7D IMHO. Anyone ???

carolyn
--
Ranger a.k.a chammett
http://www.pbase.com/chammett

'elegance is simplicity'

I got it a few days ago. I like it. A lot of the content is "applied photography", e.g. exposure and how to use the metering system in the 7D to get it right. Including a color checker card.
Overall i think it is a well written book.

John Telleria said:

Has anyone already purchased the "Canon EOS 7D Digital Field Guide" book by Charlotte K. Lowrie? I see that book is now available on Amazon.com and B&N. For around $15, seems reasonably priced but would like to hear from someone who's already purchased the book if it's worth picking up. It appears most other 7D books won't be available til February timeframe. One book I'll definitely buy is "David Busch's Canon EOS 7D Guide to Digital SLR Photography". I had his Canon 40D book and really found it useful. I hope we'll eventually see many of these books available in e-book format for the upcoming Apple tablet, whenever it finally becomes available. I've resisted the Kindle and new B&B Nook because they only display in grayscale. Grayscale might be fine for most other books, but photography is one genre of books you'd definitely want a color e-book reader.

--
http://desertsky.smugmug.com

Click to expand...

c.hammett said:

Someone could do the world a favor by publishing a concise little reference of which combos of buttons control what functions, as this is the most confusing part of the 7D IMHO. Anyone ???

Click to expand...

You mean something like this "Canon EOS 7D Cheat Sheet" ?
http://www.adorama.com/BKCHCA7D.html

It would be nice to have something like this to fold up and have in my photo bag, but $11 seems a bit overpriced for one laminated sheet when a few more dollars gets you the entire Lowrie digital field guide book. Now what would really be cool is a 7D cheat sheet iphone app. If someone could create one and sell it in the App Store for $5 or less, I'll be all over it.

--
http://desertsky.smugmug.com

i got this book last week..its well writen has a lot of practical infos ..i would recommend this book to learn about how to use the camera and some basic photography tips

Re: C.Lowrie's Canon field guide for 7D. Got this last week and found it is very useful, and has additional insights which will make you make better use of the 7D both as a still and video user. I wish I had this at the outset. There is a lot of content in the book and will take me some time to go through all of it. It has quite advanced concepts and will make the most of your 7D. I like the gray and colour card that comes with it.

I find her recommendation of the Adobe RGB colour space slightly confusing though and slightly controversial. I had been using sRGB up to now.

I think the reason that it could come out so quickly is that 75% is boilerplate stuff on exposure, canon lenses, etc.

I'm only halfway through book and have so far found it semi-useful. (I'm a newbie to DSLRs). A lot of it seemed to be a better written version of the owners manual with helpful detail of why you'd use certain functions. I found this very useful since a lot of this is new to me. It also does an especially good job explaining the
features in the custom function menu.

On the down side, it focuses a lot of JPEG specific settings including how to these impact printing directly from the CF card. (Is that why you bought this camera?) Hence, it isn't always clear that many (most?) of these functions do nothing if you're shooting RAW. And some of the book it goes into silly levels of detail, for example, explaining how to start the picture style editor software on both a PC and a Mac (On a PC select Start - All programs - Canon Utilities... On a Mac select applications-canon utilities...)

Where I found it most dissappointing, was in that area of 7D real world specifics. For example, you think that there would be some detail on the focus issues that we keep hearing about. There was one tantalizing morsel about the manually selected AF point "may not be the AF point that acheives final sharp focus." But that was all the detail provided. Or perhaps some discussion of whether higher shutter speeds are needed because of the pixel density and resolution, but all she gives us is that shutter speed > 1/focal length. I guess I was expecting to "Learn to get the most from your EOS 7D", rather than learn how to use more or less any Canon DSLR.

So if you're new to DSLRs, or a upgrading from either a much lower model camera to the 7D, this book is probably worth the $13.59 and the four hours to read it. If you already own a 50D or something like that, my sense is that you'd find very little new in this book.

John Telleria said:

c.hammett said:

Someone could do the world a favor by publishing a concise little reference of which combos of buttons control what functions, as this is the most confusing part of the 7D IMHO. Anyone ???

Click to expand...

You mean something like this "Canon EOS 7D Cheat Sheet" ?
http://www.adorama.com/BKCHCA7D.html

It would be nice to have something like this to fold up and have in my photo bag, but $11 seems a bit overpriced for one laminated sheet when a few more dollars gets you the entire Lowrie digital field guide book. Now what would really be cool is a 7D cheat sheet iphone app. If someone could create one and sell it in the App Store for $5 or less, I'll be all over it.

--
http://desertsky.smugmug.com

Click to expand...

Thanks for the cheat sheet reference. B&H has it for $9.95. Of course by the time you pay shipping..... If it is good, then it's worth it. A lot easier to carry around than any of the books.

carolyn
--
Ranger a.k.a chammett
http://www.pbase.com/chammett

'elegance is simplicity'

I found it a pleasant and informative companion on a couple of long flights last week. It's much better than I expected for the price. I was expecting a cursory treatment and lots of boilerplate, but it's much better than that. Ms. Lowrie seems to have spent considerable time with the 7D.

As has been mentioned I was somewhat surprised at her strong recommendation for Adobe RGB but I didn't find her explanation confusing.

Overall there is something here for everyone and it is well worth the price.

I also purchased the Introduction to the Canon 7D - Volume 1: Basic Controls DVD from Amazon and I really enjoyed that also. It's full of video illustrations of the effects of different controls and settings and it's much less "basic" than the name implies. I also recommend it highly.

http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Canon-7D-Basic-Controls/dp/B002TN2680/ref=pd_bxgy_d_text_b
--
Gary