Canon EOS Digital Rebel XSi/450D for Dummies
Wiley Publishing and Julie Adair King bring the for Dummies book to your specific camera with the Canon EOS Digital Rebel XSi/450D for Dummies.
Ease of Use, Performance: 23/25,
Look & Feel: 23/25,
Features 23/25,
How much I enjoy 23/25
Total: 92/100
A camera like the Canon EOS Rebel XSi or model 450D is an expensive investment and knowing how to use it is important but the book that comes with the camera is small and highly detailed. So well detailed that an amateur photographer may not understand all that the manual is even talking about or how all the things tie into each other.
Having a book or even a website that goes step by step through all the settings and what each one does would be great but many are written either for the professional or amateur. Enter the For Dummies series written for the rest of us, not necessarily dummies but for the average person who does not know much, if anything about the product or topic and wants to learn.
The Canon EOS Digital Rebel XSi/450D for Dummies is a step by step book detailing not only what the camera settings do but what changing them does to your photo. This is what makes this book so special and so well worth the purchasing, it will show you on the exact camera you own what each setting does to your picture.
If you know nothing about photography and especially digital photography those settings can scare you but with a book like this you can rest assured the book has you covered. I have been learning so much about digital photography by reading but this book clearly states exactly what it has taken me a lot of internet searching and experimenting to find out.
Take for instance the section on ISO, f-stops and shutter speed called Getting Creative with Exposure and Lighting, the clear explanations of not only what each term is but pictures of the results. They have pictures of the camera and the buttons and dials on the camera showing where they are and clearly labeled what they are for.
Then they have pictures showing what each setting change does to a picture that clearly describes with and without words what each setting change has done for each picture. Each section also has helpful labels like Technical Stuff that is describing the fact that the section you are about to read has technical information that you may want to skip if you’re not interested in the internal mechanical stuff.
But I highly recommend you don’t skip anything as all the information is there to help you understand photography, digital photography and specifically your camera. That is what I truly enjoy about the For Dummies series, aside from the cartoons, they explain everything in such a way that you can see as well as understand what they are talking about.
A truly for Dummies book if there ever was one, but not to degrade or belittle you the reader, the books are for people who don’t know the subject and want to learn. The author of this particular For Dummies book is a returning For Dummies author with several previous books including Digital Photography for Dummies, Photo Retouching & Restoration for Dummies and Digital Photo Projects for Dummies.
The author has done a great job of explaining exactly what each setting will do for your picture or on your camera so you can see as well as really understand what is happening. When I took some film developing classes the teacher told my wife and I that the best way to learn how to use your camera was to take shots at different settings and see what the settings do on each picture.
With film cameras this entailed using a lot of film and the cost of developing was not very cost effective but today with a digital camera you can quickly and easily take practice shots and see what the settings do. The For Dummies book helps you through this process so you can see what each setting and task does from simply turning your camera on or attaching a lens to advanced menu settings.
Another great feature of the Canon XSi/450D For Dummies is the depth it goes into not only to use the various camera settings to get the pictures you want but help with accessories. The book shows how to use the Canon EOS programs to download and edit pictures for getting those digital files from your camera to the paper.