Canon EOS 40D¶
writer: russell j.t. dyer; posted: aug 2009; revised: oct 2017
Review of Canon EOS 40D
author: Artur Landt
edition: 1
published: 2008
publisher: Rocky Nook
isbn: 978-1-933952-33-8
pages: 200
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Although this is a book specifically on the Canon EOS 40D camera, I found it to be a very useful book on all Canon EOS digital cameras, as well as photography in general. I got a copy of this book and read it completely because I own a Canon EOS 40D. This wasn’t my first Canon EOS camera. So, I was surprised at how much I learned about Canon EOS features and settings in reading this book — things I hadn’t picked up on my own after a couple of years of using EOS cameras.
The book has some excellent diagrams and good screenshots of the camera’s menus. It has many photographs demonstrating various features, almost all of which were taken by the author, Dr. Artur Landt. I found myself circling and underlining a great deal of the book. Mingled between the main text are insets with tips on accomplishing common objectives or resolving common problems with an EOS camera. They’re quite useful suggestions. Many times I’ve scurried off to get my camera to try out camera setting changes that Landt suggests and have been impressed with the results. In the book, he also provides insets that are labeled Photo Basics, which contain more basic educational information so that he doesn’t lose beginner readers. If you’re more advanced than that, you can easily skip them.
Chapter Highlights
The book contains 187 pages, broken into eight chapters. It’s not a hefty book, but if you read it from cover to cover as I did, you’ll realize that you get plenty for your money in buying this book.
The first chapter explains some basics of photography. Landt assumes the reader has a decent understanding of photography; this isn’t a photography primer. However, he doesn’t assume too much. Instead, he provides some minimal tutorial comments with nice examples to help the reader understand the various camera settings. He teaches the reader to make their own decisions regarding menu settings. This includes choices like the camera’s custom settings, which I would imagine most people change rarely from the default because they think they are advanced choices beyond them or they’re worried that they may cause irreversible problems.
In Chapter Two, Landt covers autofocus and exposure settings. This involves setting autofocus points and locking temporarily the focus. He explains camera settings related to ISO sensitivity and shutter speed. He also gives some good information on the different meter settings. This is all partially educational with regards to digital photography, but always with specifics related to this particular Canon EOS model. Actually, many of these model specifics are easily transferable to all Canon EOS models.
In Chapter Three, Landt discusses the several camera modes available with an EOS model: aperture priority, shutter priority, and manual mode for what Canon calls the creative modes, as well as the various automated modes that the 40D has. He also includes explanations of depth-of-field and aperture settings, as well as shutter speed settings.
Let me pause from describing the chapters and say something about the content of sections of chapters in general, using this chapter as an example. In some ways the details of the text — albeit not overly lengthy or wordy in style — is tedious or redundant in some parts. You’ll notice this if you read the sections for each camera mode in Chapter Three. If you don’t read the book fully, you’ll never notice any tedium. It’s not an excessive amount of redundant text, but there is some here and there. This may just be Landt’s personal style, or it may be the influence of having written a bit for a German encyclopedia, or it may be just a Germanic style (he lives in Freiburg). However, there seems to be a desire to be complete and accurate that leads to occcasional redundancy. While some might find it unnecessary, if you just flip to the sections you need and don’t read all, you’ll appreciate the completeness of each section. They are very modular, allowing you to get the facts of what you need quickly without having to skim backwards to get lead-ins. Again, the repetition is not excessive or problematic and it can be beneficial to the reader, but I thought I should mention it in fairness.
Chapter Four is on using a flash. The author talks about the built-in flash, as well as the use of an external flash. He goes through the menu choices on the camera related to both types of flashes. He explains Canon’s TTL (through-the-lens) light metering and how different settings can affect the flash settings. He also explains how you can add compensation factors or easily do a bracket of test shots to get the best shot.
One of the primary advantages of a DSLR camera like the Canon EOS 40D is that you can change the camera’s lens easily. In the fifth chapter of this book, Landt goes over the various lenses available to this camera model. This chapter not only explains the advantage of each type of lens, but it’s a bit of a buying guide in that it explains the different designations of Canon lenses: AF vs. AF-S; gold, green, and red rings; USM, DO, IS, and other abbreviations which are particular to Canon lenses. These are things to consider when shopping for a lens, especially unassisted as one is usually when shopping on-line. The chapter also includes some comparison photos to show the results of different lens types.
In Chapter Six, Landt goes through the typical accessories you can buy for a Canon EOS 40D. This includes several different types of lens filters, a lens hood, as well as external media, camera bags, and other such items. This may be superfluous information for most, but it’s kind of nice to flip through the accessories specific to this camera model — kind of a mini wish list of gadgets.
The final chapter includes just a few pages on transferring data to a computer using the software provided with the camera. Thankfully, he doesn’t waste pages on what seems to be obligatory in many digital photography books: details on using Adobe Photoshop. I like the Photoshop, but I don’t think every photography book needs to explain how to use it to its readers. In this chapter, Landt also promotes Canon’s high-end printers designed specifically for printing photographs. It seems like a bit of an advertisement, but it’s not excessive and only a couple of pages that mostly relate to interfacing to their printers from the camera or the Canon utility software.
Conclusion
This is a good book to get when you first purchase a Canon EOS 40D, or even after you’ve had some time to try out your new camera. If you do get this book, I recommend reading it thoroughly and playing with the related settings on your camera while you read it. Think about the concepts Landt suggests as you read the book, of course. More importantly, though, think about them as you try out the setting changes he suggested — go out and take pictures with the new settings and see how you like the results. If you read this book completely and try to apply what you read to your camera and your photographing methods, you’ll gain a great deal from the process and you’ll get your money’s worth out of your camera.