The good news is I have a very funny quote for you from the book. Wait for it...
The bad news is this is a review of The Nikon Guide to Digital Photography with the D40 Digital Camera.
Here's the quote in case you don't want to get to the end:
When operating the viewfinder diopter control with your eye to the viewfinder, care should be taken not to put your finger in your eye accidentally.
Thank you Nikon! I don't know what I would do without your sage advice.
The above quote appears not once, but twice in this dry read of a book. And without that quote, I don't think I could have made it through the rest of the book. "Why?" you ask did I read this. Because we just had a beautiful (I can say that, right?) baby and I would like to be able to take better pictures of her. In my quest for beautiful pictures I came across a blog series from October of last year about getting better photos. I have not completed the series, but the first assignment was to read the owner's manual for my camera.
The result? I know very little more about shooting better pictures than I did when I started, but I do have a working knowledge of each tiny part of my machine. Sadly, I did not understand half the stuff they talked about. This left me with the feeling that I should take a professional photog course at the the local community college; but as a new mom, I think I will work my way through the blog series instead.
Here's hoping I take some better shots in the future. Oh, and although my fellow photog blogger recommends reading the owner's manual - I can't recommend it the way I would other books. Maybe you could do a drinking game for every time the manual writer wrote a "this is common sense and you, reader would be an idiot to do what I just told you not to do but I am covering my butt for the legal department" sentence. Yeah, that would make it more fun.
Rating: 3 out of 7, but only because it is tabbed (I like a sense of order in my owner's manuals).
-L
