The Canon EOS Digital Rebel XS/1000D Companion; by Ben Long; published by O’Reilly
Posted by Kathleen Maher on January 9th 2009 | Discuss
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The Canon Digital Rebel is the most popular digital SLR camera on the market. In fact, it’s fair to say that Canon has created the entry-level dSLR market—Nikon and its fans may disagree, but Canon has built the field, taken the ball, and run with it.
Ben Long’s detailed manual for the Rebel XS/1000D is a necessary accessory. Long combines information about the camera with basic photography lessons, as well as lessons in digital photography. Now, for those of you who know all about photography and digital photography and think you are way too smart for this book, let me say that Long’s easy-to-understand explanations are very likely to teach you something you do not know. He doesn’t take a lot of words to explain things but he doesn’t gloss over the details. As an example, Long provides a really nice explanation of crop factor—the comparison of digital sensors to 35 mm film and how that affects lenses. It’s the sort of thing that most camera fans sort of understand but Long makes it completely obvious and practical—you’ll know how to buy lenses for your camera instead of just knowing why you’re disappointed with what you have bought. In fact, one of Long’s points of orientation is to compare digital photography to film so that people who have invested energy in understanding film photography can take their skills to digital.
If you have any Canon EOS Rebel, look for the Ben Long companion book. He goes over the specific features of your camera and gives hints for putting them to creative use. Sure, you can figure this stuff out for yourself, but it will take a lot longer. I’ve had cameras for years and suddenly found some amazingly cool feature that improves my pictures or makes getting hard shots easier. The trick to photography, after all, is knowing how to adapt to a situation fast and the more information you have, the better you are able to figure out how to compensate for conditions on the ground.
If you do not have a one of the cameras that Long writes about specifically but you’re interested in becoming a better photographer, you might want to take a look at his Complete Digital Photography book.
