Mastering the Nikon D90

good

I got my Nikon D90 right before Christmas and quickly read the user manual. Ugg. Yes, it tells you what the buttons do, but why? Or when? I also got Darrell's Mastering the D90 book just a few days later, via Amazon, thank you very much, and just love it. Young's book is easy to read, well laid out, and it is easy to use later when trying to look up just one factor. This book really tells you what different options are and why you would want to use each of them. Of course it SHOWS you how to adjust the buttons/menus in order to apply each option. It is an especially good book to use over and over as you gradually acquire skills with the D90. And believe me, it does take time, as this camera is a complex camera with amazingly "pro" features. Each time I would go to the book and read about some function or feature,it would then be translated into much better camera skills on my part. I didn't know how good this camera was until reading this book. The book is particularly good for anyone who is relatively new to DSLRs and moving from the point and shoot world to the DSLR environment. I particularly liked the sections on focusing (how to and when to change the different focusing types: single point, matrix, etc...) Also the sections on white balancing and exposure are extremely helpful. My suggestion for a person new to the D90 is to: read the user manual, start reading Young's mastering book, and start shooting. You don't even have to finish the book before you start shooting. Why? Because when you encounter a shooting problem or mystery, just go to the book, look up the index, and then seriously read that section, then go shoot again. Even shoot your room, your foot, anything to practice making the settings and adjusting them and seeing what the different settings do to the photos on the LCD. That is the beauty of the digital camera: instant results. The author, Darrell Young, has been using digital cameras, and Nikon's in particularly, for a number of years. His writing style is easy to read and follow. He has close enough contacts with the official Nikon technical staff that he interacts with them to assist his learning of a camera. This pays off in the book with information that is NOT in the user manual and is not commonly known. Really neat stuff to know. The book covers not only the still photos aspects of the camera, but also the movie or motion picture capability.

This book doesn't set out to give you a masterclass in photography, it sets out to explain what all the buttons, menu options and information screens actually do far better than the manual you get with the camera. More importantly, it gives some good tips for which settings are important to get right and why. Also the book has introduced me to nikonians.org - an excellent website & resource for Nikon owners everywhere!

Al igual que otros libros del mismo auto sobre cámaras NIKON, es un libro muy útil y bien estructurado y ordenado. Lleno de muy útiles consejos y ejemplos, explicando las razones por las que es mejor utilizar determinadas opciones en vez de otras. Lo recomiendo a cualquiera que sea capaz de leer con fluidez en inglés y utilice la clásica D90 de Nikon.

Enjod this author's writing and more so, his comprehensive explanations delivered in well thought out sequence and with clarity. Author's recommendations are also appreciated.

They say that a dirty book is a good book. Well, this must be a good book because as I was reading it, due to laziness to go downstairs to find a highlighter, I put dog ears in some pages I thought at the time I need to remember. The next night, I went through the dog-eared pages and highlighted all the info I need to remember. Not only that, there are a lot of info here that I really,, really need to remember because of our next trip and our next event after our trip so I have to not only highlight the info I need but also put flags on them. Thank God my brain didn't fail me. On our trip last weekend, I remember to use the techniques in this book without referring to them. Nor did I had any time to even pick up this book during our event -- I remembered all of them. Of course, with the help of another photographer his technique reminded me of the technique the author used in this book even if this other photographer uses a Canon. This is a very easy to follow, very easy to remember technique book and I am glad to have bought it and learned from it.