Nikon D80 Digital Field Guide

I love this guide! I got this guide just before a trip to Alaska and by the time I got back home, it was well used with many "dog-earred" pages. It is now THE guide which goes with me and my D80. I am a novice, but I knew enough about photography to be concerned about the huge amount of bright light and over abundance of white from glaciers. From reading the guide and learning more about exposure, lighting and white balance, I was able to shoot with auto ISO, f11 and/or f13 at 1/200. The glacier photos were beautiful and successful shots. Busch's D80 is much better than Nikon's manual which comes with the camera, or the Magic Lantern guide which both left me confused and still with unanswered questions. The Table of Contents and Index is precise and detailed, making it easy to find the information one needs. The glossary is written in language that a beginner like myself can understand. While it teaches specific D80 functions, it also teaches general photography using the D80. A favorite addition is Chapter 7: Photo Subjects. He describes different subjects and concerns one may need for a specific photo. He presents a "Table" describing set-up, lighting, lens, camera settings, exposure, and accessories one may need such as a tripod. This section provides the photographer with opportunites to "practice" specific shooting circumstances and be successful with the photo. This D80 guide is a real MUST HAVE guide.

This book manages to pack an enormous amount of information about the Nikon D80 into its compact, portable 250 pages. A full two-thirds of the book deals directly with the camera, its components, and features, and how to use the D80's features in much more detail than you'll find in the manual. Rather than just restating the information supplied with the thin, poorly-organized guide packed in the box with the camera, this book provides lucid descriptions of each control, including when and why you might want to use a particular setting. Full color illustrations of each view of the camera makes finding the controls easy and fast, absent the mind-numbing cross references that clutter other books. Should information you need be located somewhere else in the guide, a helpful icon note helps you find it. After a "Quick Start" chapter that gets you rolling, a chapter on key features and one on setting up various options follows. Particularly useful are the chapters on general photography, which are all very D80-specific. Busch doesn't just explain exposure essentials, using lenses, or working with light. He shows you how to get the best exposures using the tools built into the D80, how to select and work with Nikon lenses, and how to use both available light and Nikon flash. I wish there were more about Nikon flash here, but that topic deserves a book of its own, and there is a Digital Field Guide that covers the essentials: Nikon Creative Lighting System Digital Field Guide Even the 70 pages on Photo Subjects is highly oriented towards the D80. There are nearly two dozen typical subjects, such as fireworks, lighthouses, events, each accompanied by suggestions for which Nikon lenses might be best-suited (with a few non-Nikon lenses sprinkled it), along with the settings used on the D80 to take the example photos. Obviously a great deal of effort was made in making these handy subject guides specific to this camera. I've reviewed several of this author's Field Guides, and like the others, this one is highly readable, surprisingly comprehensive, full of information about the camera that you won't find in the manual, and technically accurate. (I was unable to find any of the "errors" mentioned earlier, either in the text or illustrations.) I've seen the alternative D80 guidebooks, including DVDs, e-books, and bound books (most plagued by black-and-white illustrations.) This one is by far the best.

I would definitely recommend this guide to any new user of the Nikon D80 camera. It is easy to follow and looking up information is much easier than the owner's manual.

Busch's field guide provides all of the essential information one needs to fully operate and appreciate the D80's features. In addition Busch provides several chapters that help you get the most out of your camera. I'm an advanced amateur who is new to digital photography. I've read a couple of other books on the D80 but this was the best.

I recently purchased a Nikon D80 as a backup to my Nikon D200, and have been more than happy with it. It offers many of the features and all of the image quality at a lower price. I was also very happy with this author's Digital Field Guide for the D200, and decided to check this book out. I was not disappointed. The occasional typo or misstep didn't bother me. I'm more interested in the kind of information a book can provide me, and this one delivers. It combines detailed information on using the D80, in much more depth than the tiny black and white manual that comes with the camera. The first third of the book leads you through a quick tour and roadmap with large, full color photos that make it easy to find, understand, and use each control as well as chapters on using each of the features and menu choices. It tells you how to select settings, and why, in a much clearer form. The next part explains the fundamentals of exposure, using lenses, and working with all forms of light, using the capabilities of the D80 camera to their fullest extent. As with the D200 book, my favorite part was the large chapter that described several dozen typical photo taking opportunities and how to capture them using the D80 and its available lenses and accessories. Quite useful and specific! I enjoy the Field Guide concept, and like having all the essential information I need to operate my D80 in one book, whether I am traveling light and using my D80 as my only camera, or whether I am using it together with other cameras (it's nice to have settings information at hand, because other models use different settings and have different controls.) I didn't like the other D80 guides, particularly those that had only black-and-white photos, and those that were e-books or DVDs that I couldn't take with me in the field unless I also took along a laptop. This book goes everywhere!