I have completed an e-book camera user’s guide for the Canon EOS 7D called Canon 7D Experience.
Like all my previous Full Stop camera guides, Canon 7D Experience explains not only the features, functions, settings, and controls of the camera, but also – and more importantly – when and why to use them in your photography. This includes metering modes, aperture and shutter priority modes (Av and Tv), advanced autofocus use, and more. It also describes all the Menu settings and Custom Function settings – with recommended settings. The guide also thoroughly explains the versatile and sophisticated autofocus system, which helps to make this such a unique and powerful camera.
Take control of your camera and the images you create!
My latest e-book, a user’s guide for the Nikon D5100 digital SLR, is called Nikon D5100 Experience – The Still Photographer’s Guide to Operation and Image Creation. This guide goes beyond the manuals to help you set up and learn the camera, plus more importantly when and why to use the various controls, features, and custom settings when photographing. As one reader has commented about my previous Nikon D7000 guide, “This book, together with the manual, is all you need to start discovering the camera’s full potential.”
This instant download Nikon D5100 e book is for those who wish to get more out of their camera and to go beyond Auto and Program modes and shoot in A mode and S mode. To get you started, it includes explanations and recommended settings for all Playback, Shooting, and Setup Menus, Custom Settings, and Movie Mode settings of the D5100. It covers basic dSLR camera functions and exposure concepts for those new to digital SLR photography, and explains more advanced camera controls and operation, such as using the various metering modes and exposure compensation for correct exposure of every image, controlling autofocus modes and focus points for sharp focus of still or moving subjects, and utilizing dramatic depth of field for professional looking photographs. This guide builds on the information provided in the manuals and explains essential settings and information to help you get out there shooting in the real world.
You can preview Nikon D5100 Experience at the following link. The preview shows the Table of Contents and Introduction, a sample D5100 Menu Settings page, a sample Custom Settings page, and a sample text page.
Nikon D5100 Experience not only covers the various settings, functions and controls of the Nikon D5100, but it also explains when and why to use them for your photography. The guide focuses on still-photography with a brief introduction to the movie menus and settings to get you up and running with video. Sections include:
Setting Up Your D5100 – All of the D5100 Custom Settings and Playback, Shooting, and Setup Menus, with brief descriptions and recommended settings for practical, everyday use. Set up and customize the advanced features of your dSLR to work best for the way you photograph.
Aperture Priority Mode (A) and Shutter Priority Mode (S) – How and when to use them to create dramatic depth of field or to freeze or express motion.
Auto Focusing Modes and Area Modes and Release (Drive) Modes – How they differ, how and when to use them to capture sharp images of both still and moving subjects. Also how and when to use focus lock.
Exposure Metering Modes of the Nikon D5100 – How they differ, how and when to use them for correct exposures in every situation. Also how to make use of exposure lock.
Histograms, Exposure Compensation, Bracketing, and White Balance – Understanding and using these features for adjusting to the proper exposure in challenging lighting situations, and setting custom white balance.
Composition – Brief tips, techniques, and explanations, including the creative use of depth of field.
The Image Taking Process – A descriptive tutorial for using the settings and controls you just learned to take photos.
Photography Accessories – The most useful accessories for day-to-day and travel photography including accessories specific to the D5100.
Introduction to Video Settings – Some basic settings to get you started
This digital guide to the Nikon D5100 is a 70 page, illustrated PDF document that expands upon the information found in the D5100 manuals, to help one begin to master their dSLR and learn to use the Nikon D5100 to its full capabilities! It is packed with helpful information applicable to the new and intermediate dSLR photographer – to begin to turn you into an advanced digital photographer!
Author: Douglas Klostermann
Format: PDF – Instant Download – read on your computer, print on your printer, transfer to your iPad, Android, or other tablet, transfer to your Kindle, Nook or other e-reader. Page Count: 70 pages, illustrated
Price: $10.99 (plus 6.25% sales tax for residents of Massachusetts) Secure payment with PayPal or Credit card
What Readers are Saying about Nikon D5100 Experience:
I read it from front to back in one sitting, playing with the camera as I went along, and I found it covered all the major things I was having trouble with. It left me much more confident about focusing and exposure issues particularly. If you are new to DSLRs or want to bypass hours of hunting through manuals, this is great. There are many sensible real-world suggestions for configuring the camera that are very helpful, the author writes clearly and concisely, and his approach is accessible and friendly. If you’re having trouble getting going with your new camera, I think this is well worth it. –Jay M.
Great manual! This book made it much easier to operate my new Nikon D5100. It basically expands on the manual that comes with the camera and tells you what each setting is and what you should set it at. It also gave me some great pointers on Aperture priority mode, Shutter and ISO. Highly recommended!
-GK
From beginners to experienced users: This guide is very useful for beginners to experienced users. When you buy this kind of camera you want to understand the best ways to freeze moments which is exactly explained in this book. This book is written in a human way by an experienced photographer who gives you the tips you need to create a beautiful picture – how to prepare your camera, create shortcuts, or activate such options to make you efficient in the field. I would recommend this e-book to every new Nikon D5100 buyer!
-Oliver
What Readers are Saying about Doug’s previous guide, Nikon D7000 Experience:
This book, together with the manual that came with your camera, is all you need to start discovering the full potential of the D7000.
-Max M.
It’s the first guide I’ve read which has taken me through all the settings in an understandable way. I now feel that I have control over the camera.
-Peter S.
I would recommend this to anyone who wants to get a quick start to using the D7000. Manuals are nice, but this eBook highlights the important information and gives a quick easy to understand explanation of most all of the functions and controls.
-Ray M.
I found the Nikon manual good for understanding how to set things up but not much on the why – this book really focuses on the “why.” I would like to thank you for saving me time – now I’m confident that my camera is well tuned!
-Benoit A.
This manual is a clearly written, concise and useful explanation of the rationale for the seemingly infinite and often confusing settings options for the D7000. Used in conjunction with the Nikon manual I feel a bit more confident in understanding how to at last proceed in getting better photographs.
-WLS
It’s clear, concise and gets to the heart of the camera’s multiple and often confusing options. Very highly recommended – for experienced user and beginner alike. As previous reviewers have remarked, the official manual is very good on what to do, but not so clear on why.
-GSA
Learn to use your D5100, quickly and competently, to create the types of images you want to capture. The Nikon D5100 is a sophisticated and customizable tool, and this guide explains how to start to use it to its full capability. It will help you begin to take control of your camera, the image taking process, and the photos you create.
I’ve spent a significant amount of time with the new Nikon D7000 as I was researching and writing my ebook user’s guide Nikon D7000 Experience. It has been interesting to contrast it with the recent Canon 60D, as they sit in a somewhat similar position in each brand’s current dSLR line-up.
They are both excellent cameras and are both highly customizable for you to set up for the way you shoot. But I have to say I’m incredibly impressed with the higher amount of customization options offered by the D7000. Nikon offers the opportunity for advanced shooters to fine-tune many settings of the D7000 – options that the 60D just doesn’t have.
Advanced settings of the Nikon D7000 include:
White Balance – many more fluorescent options and the ability to tweek any of the WB settings along the blue-amber and green-magenta axes – including the ability to make blue-amber adjustments on the fly without going into the menus by using the WB button. The 60D not only doesn’t offer this level of adjustment, it doesn’t even have a WB button on the body of the camera.
Frame Rate – The Continuous Low release (drive) mode can be set for between 1 to 5 fps. Canon only offers 3fps in Low Speed Continuous. This is not such a big deal on the 60D because High Speed Continuous is 5.3 fps. However with the Canon 7D, this would have been an incredibly helpful option. The 8 fps of High Speed is blazing fast, typically too fast for real life use as the scene barely changes from image to image yet the large files can quickly fill up a card. But then 3 fps is too slow for action use. I have long wished for a 5 or 6 fps option on the 7D.
Metering – With the D7000 you can change the size of the area metered in Center-Weighted Area metering mode if you wish for more or less precision or if you are working with a subject of a particular size. The camera can be set to meter a circle of various sizes: 6mm, 8mm, 10mm, 13mm, or even an average of the entire scene (Average will act like a very dumbed down Matrix (Evaluative) Metering and just average the entire frame and not take selected AF points into consideration). The 60D does not offer this ability but does offer Center Weighted metering mode and Partial metering mode (which meters a center circle that is 6.5% of the viewfinder). Both cameras offer Spot Metering for very precise metering.
Exposure – In the D7000 you can fine tune the default settings of each of the metering modes to slightly under- or over-expose. This is an adjustment done behind the scenes and not exposure compensation. This is something I would find very handy on my 50D because it always overexposes by about 1/3 a stop in Evaluative Metering mode. So instead of using -1/3 exposure compensation all the time, I finally settled on using Center Weighted Average metering. But with the D7000, you can fine tune the camera to always underexpose. For example if you were to have this slight overexposure problem in Matrix metering, you could fine-tune Matrix for -1/3 and then it would be fixed. You could use exposure compensation on top of that when necessary. You can also customize the controls for exposure compensation (EC) so that your EC adjustment applies to only the next photo taken or to all subsequent photos.
Autofocus – The D7000 offers AF Fine Tune (or AF Micro-Adjustment as Canon users may know it) to slightly fine tune the autofocus of multiple lenses if any of them are slightly back- or front-focusing. This feature was on the 50D but was disappointingly dropped from the 60D. The D7000 also allows you to choose from all the AF points or just 11 of them, which could be helpful to those just getting the hang of selecting their own AF point instead of allowing the camera to choose what it thinks you wish to focus on. (You should nearly always be choosing your own AF point!)
So as you can see, the D7000 offers many advanced customization and fine-tune options in the Menus and Custom Settings that the 60D just doesn’t offer. Keep in mind however that these are pretty advanced features, and if you are not going to be making use of them, don’t be swayed by them when choosing a camera.
If you would like to learn more about all the Menu and Custom Settings of the Nikon D7000 or the Menu items and Custom Functions of the Canon 60D, be sure to have a look at my ebook user’s guides for each of these cameras:
Your World 60D – The Still Photographer’s Guide to the Canon 60D
In these books I cover all of the menus and custom settings, along with their recommended settings for general photography and travel photography use. These kinds of settings are what make these cameras very powerful and precise tools that you can – and should – set up to work for the way you photograph. They are worth learning, understanding and making use of.
Your World 60D Menus and Custom Functions – A Mini-Guide to the Menu Settings, Movie Mode Menu Settings, and Custom Function Settings of the Canon EOS 60D is my new eBook guide for setting up the Menus, Movie Shooting Mode Menus, and Custom Function settings of the Canon EOS 60D.
Several weeks ago when the Canon 60D came out, I started to put together a blog post on explaining and setting up the 60D Custom Functions and Menu settings. I got a bit carried away because each item led to a more in-depth explanation of exposure or metering modes or auto focus points. So that post turned into a entire guide, which became my first eBook, Your World 60D (a bestseller on the Amazon Kindle store, also available in PDF format here on this blog or for the Barnes and Noble Nook e-reader).
But I realize that a lot of people are just interested in the Custom Functions (C.Fn) of the EOS 60D, and how to set up all the menus and options, and don’t necessarily want the entire guide. So I excerpted that part of the eBook right back out, and created a mini-guide – Your World 60D Menus and Custom Functions. It has over 15 text only pages of the Menu Settings, Movie / Video Mode Menu Settings, and Custom Function Settings, with brief explanations of what they are, what they do, and recommended settings for general and travel photography.
Format: PDF – Instant Download
Page Count: 20
Price: $4.99now on Sale: $2.99 (plus 6.25% sales tax for residents of Massachusetts) Secure payment with PayPal or Credit card
or
This text only guide will help you set up your EOS 60D, quickly and competently, and is intended for those new to digital SLR cameras as well as intermediate users. As you have figured out by now, the Canon 60D is an advanced tool, and this mini-guide explains how to set it up in order to begin to use it to its full potential. Taking control of its settings will help you to take control of your camera, the image taking process, and the photos you create.
It is an instant download eBook mini-guide which consists of an important section taken from the full version of Your World 60D. It contains every Menu setting and Custom Function setting, with brief descriptions and recommended settings to get you up and running quickly, and includes Movie Mode menu settings and My Menu.
The Canon EOS 60D Custom Functions (C.Fn) and Menu settings are a big part of what make it such a powerful digital SLR camera. This guide can save you time and help you better understand and control your camera as you set up and customize the Canon EOS 60D to work best for the way you photograph.
Your World 60D Menus and Custom Functions is a text-only PDF document that builds upon the information found in the Canon 60D manual, to help you begin to master your dSLR and learn to use the Canon EOS 60D to its full capabilities!
If you decide to purchase the full version of Your World 60D after reading this mini-guide, you can buy it at a $4 discount using the Coupon Code you will receive when you order and download the mini-guide.
Looking for a Canon EOS 60D book or tutorial to help you learn and begin to master your new dSLR? I’ve written an eBook user’s guide for the Canon 60D, called Your World 60D – The Still Photographer’s Guide to Operation and Image Creation. Learn to use the Canon 60D quickly and competently, and improve your photography and capture better images. The 60D is an advanced tool, and this guide explains how to start to use it to its full potential. Begin to take control of your camera, the image taking process, and the photos you create.
This instant download eBook guide is for those who wish to get more out of their 60D, and go beyond Auto or Program mode and shoot in Aperture Priority (Av) mode and Shutter Priority (Tv) mode. It covers basic dSLR camera functions and exposure concepts for those new to digital SLR photography, plus it also explains more advanced camera controls and operation, such as using the various metering modes and exposure compensation for correct exposure of every image, controlling autofocus modes and focus points for sharp focus of still or moving subjects, and creating dramatic depth of field for professional looking photographs. Learning to get the most out of a dSLR can involve a steep learning curve, and I believe my book can help you speed up that process.
See below for how to purchase. You can preview Your World 60D at the following link. The preview shows the Table of Contents, Introduction, a sample Menu Settings page, a sample Custom Functions Settings page, and a sample text page.
Your World 60D is a text-only PDF guide that builds upon the information offered by the camera’s manual and focuses on the essential functions and settings for real world 60D use. In addition to covering the various settings, functions and controls of the Canon 60D, its lessons explain when and why to use them. It also describes everyMenu setting and Custom Function setting, with recommended settings, including Movie Mode menus. Note that it focuses on still photography and not video except for a brief introduction to menus and important video settings to get you started.
Sections include:
Setting Up Your 60D – All of the Menu settings and Custom Function (C.Fn) settings, including movie mode menus, with brief descriptions and recommended settings for practical, everyday use. Set up and customize the advanced features of the 60D to work best for the way you photograph.
Aperture Priority Mode (Av) and Shutter Priority Mode (Tv) – How and when to use them to create dramatic depth of field or to freeze or express motion.
Auto Focusing Modes and Drive Modes – How they differ, how and when to use them to capture sharp images of both still and moving subjects. Also how and when to use focus lock and back-button focusing.
Exposure Metering Modes – How they differ, how and when to use them for correct exposures in every situation. Also how to make use of exposure lock.
Histograms, Exposure Compensation, Bracketing, and White Balance – Understanding and using these features for adjusting to the proper exposure in challenging lighting situations.
Composition – Brief tips, techniques, and explanations, including the creative use of depth of field.
The Image Taking Process – A descriptive tutorial for using the settings and controls you just learned to take photos.
Photography Accessories – The most useful accessories for day-to-day and travel photography
Introduction to Video Settings – Some basic settings to get you started
This digital field guide to the Canon EOS 60D is a 40 page, PDF format text-only document, full of helpful information applicable to the new and intermediate dSLR photographer – to turn you into an advanced digital photographer! Begin to master your Canon 60D and start to use it to its full capabilities.
Purchase Your World 60D through PayPal here! (or click the PayPal or Credit card check-out button below)
This version is in PDF format, text-only, 8.5″x11″, which can be read on your computer screen, printed on your printer, taken with you on your laptop, and can also be read on the iPad.
Format: PDF – Instant Download
Page Count: 45
Price: $9.99 (plus 6.25% sales tax for residents of Massachusetts) Secure payment with PayPal or Credit card
What Readers are Saying about Doug Klostermann’s dSLR User’s Guides:
This book, together with the manual that came with your camera, is all you need to start discovering all the potential of this camera.
-Max M.
It’s the first guide I’ve read which has taken me through all the settings in an understandable way. I now feel that I have control over the camera.
-Peter S.
I would recommend this to anyone who wants to get a quick start to using their camera. Manuals are nice, but this eBook highlights the important information and gives a quick easy to understand explanation of most all of the functions and controls.
-Ray M.
I found the (camera’s) manual good for understanding how to set things up but not much on the why – this book really focuses on the “why.” Prior to reading the book I was setting up my metering on Spot Metering thinking it was much better than Matrix (Evaluative) – the guide helped me understand why to use specific settings for specific needs. The Custom Settings sections helps to make firm decisions on how to apply settings by understanding the usage of each in addition to knowing how to set them up. I would like to thank you for saving me time – now I’m confident that my camera is well tuned!
-Benoit A.
This manual is a clearly written, concise and useful explanation of the rationale for the seemingly infinite and often confusing settings options. Used in conjunction with the (camera’s) manual I feel a bit more confident in understanding how to at last proceed in getting better photographs.
–WLS
Your World 60D was originally, briefly titled Real World 60D. It is the same eBook. If you use the Canon Rebel T2i/EOS 550D, or Canon Rebel T3i/EOS 600D have a look at my eBooks for those camera, T2i Experience and Canon T3i Experience.
I have completed an eBook tutorial and user’s guide for the new Canon 60D, called Your World 60D – The Still Photographer’s Guide to Operation and Image Creation. Learn to use your 60D, quickly and competently, to create the types of images you want to capture. You can learn more about the Your World 60D eBook and how to purchase it here.
(The eBook was originally, briefly called Real World 60D – it is the same book.)
