Mastering the Nikon D810
Category: Books,Arts & Photography,Photography & Video
Mastering the Nikon D810 Details
From the Author Besides the published features we've all heard about, the Nikon D810 camera has a surprising number of new menu items and settings internally (compared to the D800 and D800E). You need to know about these new capabilities and my book covers them in full detail, with color graphics and illustrations. The Nikon D810 is certainly one powerful yet complex camera. Nikon has given the D810 sufficient features and robustness that it is capable of almost any type of photography. If I were limited to one camera, it would certainly be the Nikon D810. I hope my book helps you understand your amazing, medium-format HD-SLR camera more completely. Dig in deep because there are many things inside your new camera that I bet you don't even know about and that the manual does not fully cover. Thanks for considering my book! Read more About the Author Darrell Young (DigitalDarrell) is a full-time author and professional photographer with a background in information technology engineering. He has been an avid photographer since 1968 when his mother gave him a Brownie Hawkeye camera. Darrell has used Nikon cameras and Nikkor lenses since 1980. He has an incurable case of Nikon Acquisition Syndrome (NAS) and delights in working with Nikon's newest digital cameras. Living near Great Smoky Mountains National Park and the Blue Ridge Parkway has given him a real concern for the natural environment and a deep interest in nature photography. You'll often find Darrell standing behind a tripod in the beautiful mountains of Tennessee and North Carolina. He loves to write, as you can see in the Resources area of the Nikonians Online community (Nikonians.org) and at his Master Your Nikon blog (MasterYourNikon.com). He joined the Nikonians community in the year 2000, and his literary contributions led to his invitation to become the founding member of the Nikonians Writers Guild. Read more
Reviews
I have used Nikon SLRs since the 1960s - Nikkormat, FA, F90, a couple of Fs and F2s, F4, and F100. Most recently I have used the D300 and D700. Last summer I rented a D800 for two weeks of shooting on a trip to Dartmoor and Cornwall. The results with the large image sensor were spectacular and significantly increased my flexibility in editing. To learn about the new features of the D800 I printed out a copy of the how to guide by a photographer with a prominent on-line presence who publishes reviews, how to stuff, etc. After reading repeated claims of his that all of the other pros he knows don't bother with RAW, but just shoot jpeg, that small jpegs are just fine, the the "P" mode on the camera stands for "Pro mode" (whereas in fact it stand for "programmed", i.e. camera choses aperture and speed, etc etc. I concluded that I could not rely on this person for advice. So I ended up using my intuition and familiarity with the D300 and 700 models.When I decided to get the D810 I needed a reference to fill me in on details, on differences, and perhaps some not obvious features to take advantage of. I picked Young's book based on other reader comments. This was a GREAT choice! It's well written, in so far as a book about how to use a camera can be, good interactions of humor, certainly doesn't talk down to you, and is WAY better than the manual. AN example of the humor: in contrast to the aforementioned web personality who equates "P" mode with "professional", David Young equates it with "Party" which is quite apt. I am about half way through it but already have found it to be exceptionally useful in learning about the camera, especially its many improvements over the D300 and 700 (and more since I never read anything about these). For example there is a clear and thorough discussion of focus and exposure and flash modes. If you are already familiar with previous DSLRs by Nikon you can quickly skip over parts of many chapters, but make sure that there are no hidden gems in there. A highlighter is very useful while reading to mark the new (to me) and relevant info. Young gives cross references to pages in the Nikon Manuel for the camera but when I bothered to look at them I found that all I needed to know was stated in a much clearer fashion in his book.My only minor quibbles are the ordering of chapters ( for example, why have the one on the Playback menu at the beginning of the book - there is no need to follow the order of the Nikon menus!) and a few (very few actually) garbled sentences. Also, I question the need for illustrating so many steps on how to choose each of the menu items. The words he gives would probably have sufficed. And I wish there were an e-version so that I could pull out the things I have highlighted and kept them with me on trips. None of these detract from my 5 star rating. Overall, though, it is a highly useful book and is teaching me how to take advantage of all of the camera's features.Finally, I looked through the negative, ie. 1-3 star reviews. One person was REALLY upset by the order of chapters, as I noted about the Playback discussion. Seems to me you just need to read the book in a non-linear fashion. Doesn't detract in any way from its usefulness. There were complaints about the print size - hmm. The font size is comparable to or larger than that in most quality paperbacks. I wear glasses with pretty strong corrections and actually found the size of font to be very good. Ditto for the physical size of the book - a bit larger than the typical quality PB but not so large that I could hold it with one hand and the camera in the other (and no, I do not have large hands!). There also was a comment that the book did not improve upon the manual that comes with the camera. Really?? Also, this is definitely NOT a how to take good pictures book, 'tho it does contain many pointers on taking advantage of the many capabilities of the D810. Rather it is a book on how to use the camera. Also, the author assumes some familiarity with photographic terms such as RAW, RGB, sRGB, etc. My guess is that given the backgrounds of most people who would buy this camera, the assumption is a good one.
