Photographer's Guide to the Canon PowerShot S95: Getting the Most from Canon's Pocketable Digital Camera
Category: Books,Arts & Photography,Photography & Video
Photographer's Guide to the Canon PowerShot S95: Getting the Most from Canon's Pocketable Digital Camera Details
This book, a complete guide to the operation and features of the Canon PowerShot S95, is a follow-up to the author's earlier guides to advanced compact digital cameras, including the Leica D-Lux 4 and D-Lux 5, and the Panasonic Lumix LX3 and LX5. The new book, like the earlier ones, explains all operations, features, menus, and controls of the camera in clear language, providing guidance not only about how to accomplish things with the camera, but when and why to use certain features. The book does not assume any specialized knowledge by the reader, but adopts a patient and helpful tone in explaining topics such as autofocus, manual focus, depth of field, aperture priority, shutter priority, HDR (High Dynamic Range) photography, and RAW files. The book's more than 170 color photographs provide illustrations of the camera's controls and menus, and also include examples of the various types of photographs that can be taken using the many creative settings of the camera, including the My Colors settings, which let the photographer alter the color processing of images; the Scene mode, with settings that are optimized for various subjects, including landscapes, portraits, and underwater shots; and special features such as the Smart Shutter and Miniature Effect options. In addition, the book goes beyond the realm of everyday photography, and provides introductions to more advanced topics such as infrared photography, street photography, macro photography and creating 3D (three-dimensional) images that can be viewed with conventional red and blue 3D glasses. The book also includes a full discussion of the video recording abilities of the PowerShot S95, which can record high-definition (HD) video with stereo sound. In three appendices, the book provides information about accessories available for the camera, sets forth a list of useful web sites and other resources for further information, and includes a section with helpful "quick tips" that give particular insights into how to take advantage of the camera's advanced features in the most efficient ways possible. The book includes a detailed Table of Contents and a full Index, so the reader can quickly find needed information about any particular feature or aspect of the camera.
Reviews
I've had my Canon S-95 for 7 years, since 2010, and until I purchased Mr. White's book a few weeks ago, I never fully understood the capabilities of it. Canon's manual is sketchy at best. This is actually the second of Mr. White's wonderful Photographer Guides that I've purchased, and they are truly indispensable and a gold mine of information you can get nowhere else. I acquired both guides in the last couple of months, but wish I'd known about them much earlier. I bought the Fujifilm X-30 over a year ago, and printed up the Fuji 277 page manual in an effort to learn how to fully use my X-30. Despite all those pages (lots of wasted space with very modest content), that manual was only mildly useful at best. I figured there was enough similarity between the X10 (that book) and my X-30, so I got it in the hopes it would be useful with my later model Fuji (there was no guide for the X-30, unfortunately). The X-10 guide has been enormously helpful both as a learning tool and a reference (instead of that blasted manual), so I'm glad I purchased both guides. Mr. White has an impressive ability to explain and illustrate the various functions of whatever digital camera he is covering, and he has done guides for quite a few other digital cameras. Each book is detailed and comprehensive, with good and relevant photo illustrations where warranted, but overall each guide is extremely clear and digestible for any reader, even beginners—perhaps more so for beginners. I came out of 35+ years of using film cameras (two Nikon F3's and various other Nikons, Canons and their lenses), and while some of the traditional concepts translate to the digital world, I could never get a firm handle on the increasingly complex digital camera version of photography. I never totally understood what new new digital cameras could actually do, and I didn't entirely understand their various limitations when compared to a film camera. As a result, I mostly used Auto settings because when difficult photo situations arose, I couldn't adequately dip into the other possibilities contained within my digital cameras and since I didn't understand what what possible, and I couldn't remember what little detail I might glean here or there. I might read about a function in the camera manual, but then forget about it later, mostly because I didn't fully understand what was going on in the first place with that function. If you understand the concept and learn how to set the camera for it, you tend to remember the information better.White's books explain the camera he is focusing own in an extremely user friendly manner. His books are for "the rest of us" without being overly simplistic. His information is clear, concise, thoroughly explained and illustrated, very comprehensive, and as a result, I finally understand how my digital cameras work and what each one can or cannot do. This more complete understanding has made me able to finally get the most out of my digital cameras as showing me what to look for when I buy a new camera. Prior to this guide for the S-95, I bought White's book for my Fujifilm X-30, which after 14 months of ownership I still couldn't properly use (not much beyond Auto). Given the pathetic state of the camera "manual" you get from virtually any camera manufacturers these days, I find Mr. White's books to be an absolute necessity in understanding a camera and well worth the hefty price. I recommend his books to everyone, and if you are fortunate enough to have a camera for which he has written a guide I'd recommend that you get it immediately. I'm contemplating getting yet another camera (Panasonic this time), and I guarantee I will be purchasing Mr. White's book for that one too.
