Canon 5D Mark III Experience - The Still Photography Guide to Operation and Image Creation with the Canon EOS 5D Mark III

This book clearly and practically walks the reader through every step of setting up and using the 5D3 for the first time. A wonderfully well-organized book, it explains every feature and setting on the camera with recommendations on optimal setup choices and the reasoning behind each recommendation. Well-selected photos taken with the 5D3 make each concept crystal clear with no room for ambiguity or confusion. For such a short book, it is remarkable to me how the author manages not only to explain the complex feature set of the camera in an easy-to-follow manner, but actually teaches the fundamentals of exposure, composition and efficient use of the camera in a totally compelling and effective manner. Whether you are a novice or experienced photographer, this book will impart a huge amount of information quickly and you will save yourself weeks on the learning curve in just a few hours. The book is designed to read with the camera in your lap. As it takes you through each set of menus, you pick up the camera and press all the buttons which reinforces the information in a literally hands-on fashion that will stay with you when you're done. Though I had the camera for almost two months before getting this book, I was still muddled about where to locate settings when I needed them, or which settings I should alter. Choices between multiple metering and focusing modes, white balance issues and ISO control were giving me significant heartburn. Navigation of the menu structure and various controls still seemed fairly daunting. However, having now spent two evenings reading the book and playing with the camera, I feel that every setting is at my fingertips whenever I will need it in the future and I can easily and competently correct any issue that arises. For a camera as feature-rich as the 5D3, this is a major accomplishment. At less than $10 for the Kindle edition, this is the lowest cost, highest value accessory I could have purchased. Beyond merely teaching me the camera, it reinforced and tied together all the basic concepts of photography and actually made me a better photographer. This book makes you feel smarter and more in control with every page from start to finish. It's the best how-to book I've ever read.

If you've purchased the 5D Mark iii, the chances are you already have some familiarity with camera concepts and basic functionality. Either that, or you have way too much money to spend and a propensity to jump into the deep end of the pool. Even so, and in either case, do yourself a favor and get this book. Klostermann does a superb job of first giving you an easily comprehensible view of each function from 500 feet, and then delves down just enough to give you what you need to get going. This contrasts with the User's Manual which is, as usual, impenetrable. Hemingway once said that the trick to writing a novel was "knowing what to leave out", and the same is true of an "overview" camera primer. The author could have gone into much greater detail, but it would then have become a different and less valuable book.Here's my suggestion: With camera in hand, sit down and go through Klostermann's explanations, one by one, from start to finish, fiddling with your camera as you go along. Then go out and take some pictures. Try things. You will find, over and over, that you can't quite figure out how to do something, but you know it can be done--because you read about it in Klostermann's book. You know it sounded easy, but you... just... can't... quite... remember.Now go through the book a second time, start to finish. It doesn't take that long. By the time you're done that second time, you'll start to be taking real control over the things that, after all, you paid all that money for.In fact, now you'll actually be able to get something out of the manual, other than a headache.I have the Kindle version, which I really like--but not on a Kindle. I use the Kindle App on my Samsung 10.1 Tablet which has great graphics that display Klostermann's illustrations nicely. Plus it's easier to hold both the camera and the tablet at the same time.By the way, I have no dog in this fight and don't know the author. I just like the masterful de-mystification of a complicated subject executed in the book. A lot. You will too.

I have the electronic version of this book on my Windows 8 PC using the Kindle reader program for the Metro interface. The reader works very well and is easy to use and read on my Surface Pro tablet.The book has been a big help learning about everything that the 5D Mark III can do and how to make it do those things. If you are moving up to the 5D III from anything that isn't already similar, you will want this as a reference. Having it on my tablet PC makes it even better because I always have my tablet as part of my camera kit.The book does a very good job of going through the entire menu system and every possible setting on the camera -- which is a lot. It does a good job of making recommendations of what settings to use when you first get the camera and why. It also explains how the settings work and interact with other settings and how you may want to adjust them over time and apply them to specific shooting situations.Overall it is clear, comprehensive, and concise. It is easy to read and understand and clearly identifies the authors preferences as well as different opinions about how and when to use various settings. You actually learn about the camera as well as about photography and how best to use the extensive set of features that are part of the 5D III.I fully recommend it. It helped me learn the camera and get more out of it much quicker than I would have without it. I plan to read it again in a couple of months. I'm sure there is still a lot there that I didn't get the first time I read it. An easy and obvious 5 stars. Having it on my tablet with me all the time adds a 6th star.

Having just upgraded my camera from a Canon 5D Mk I to a Mk III, I found the Canon handbook of little help in getting me familiar with the new camera. No stranger to photographic technology I found the Canon handbook full of information but distributed and organised in such an unstructured manner that I struggled to see a way of getting the best from my new very expensive acquisition. I looked at the available additional material for sale and based on the preview of the Kindle version of this guide, I ordered it. It has proved to be a most valuable and rewarding purchase. the author clearly knows what he is writing about. He has simplified the very complex set of camera menu options and user interface choices into an understandable and digestible reference manual. Not at all a repeat of the distributed handbook as many such documents are but a very well delivered explanation of each menu choice with reasoned and understandable advice on each choice of option. At each menu option the author has provided a basis for the option to exist, a description of each choice in a way that makes it easy to understand the pros and cons of each choice and finally a recommendation with a convincing and understandable reason for the recommended choice. Following the many option/choice section of the book is the clearest and most revealing explanation of how to use the focussing facilities that the camera offers. This is the section that most convinces me that the author really does understand his subject, for the first time I can say I really understand how the complex autofocus system works. I can now see how to make choices and decisions on how to choose the best settings and options for the various photographic situations I am familiar with. The author knows well the misconceptions and the pitfalls in the way of users and has reiterated the significant lessons and key points clearly and in context several times in the text This steers the reader out of the woods and into a crisp understanding as the text is followed. Overall a most excellent guide. For me it has not only given excellent value in the sense that for a £3000 camera, the £8 paid for this book has ensured I gain a much enhanced capability to use the expensive instrument to its full potential but it has also provided a much needed tutorial on how autofocus and exposure evaluation systems work in principal. Highly recommended as an essential learning aid and reference manual for a very capable camera in the hands of the enlightened. So much better than the average generic thinly disguised rewrite of the usually awful manufacturers handbook.

The "Expanded Camera Guide" and a video I bought on the Canon 5D MKIII were all very good at saying in bigger letters what that camera setting were and the menu options and paths. As I serious use of the camera it was this e-book that so far has proved the winner.You se the thing is I am a Landscape Photographer with a military aerospace background. So I want to be able to take very carefully composed shots, pics and snap shots and taking photos of flying aircraft from the ground as well as from the aircraft flying alongside.The 5D MKIII is an ideal camera for all of this, if that is you know what specific modes are best for focus, focus tracking and exposure etc...The Experience Book explains in more and far better detail not just how to set the camera up for such diverse situations but also how to register and keep the very different configurations to be re-used latter.

I like books like this. They are an immediate purchase whenever I change cameras, because the camera manual just tells you how to switch functions on and off. But they don’t help you to understand whether the option should be on or off (for a given shooting scenario); and that’s where books like this are useful.And this book is useful, but only to a limited extent. It is pretty short (yes, the Amazon listing says it is 200+ pages, but there isn’t a lot on the pages, between large text and diagrams). And the book skips over some essential functions and options, such as the specific ISO 50(L) setting on this Canon (I had to go searching on the internet to understand the pros and cons of this feature.So in summary, what is is in the book is very helpful and well written. But the book is not comprehensive enough.

I bought the Kindle 'Paperwhite' version of this book. Although it lacks the colour needed to enhance the excellent (when viewed on a pc etc) photographs, I found it to be a thorough and useful manual covering all the important aspects of the camera in a hands-on user-friendly way. The electroniv version proved very accessible and had the benefit that I could read it in bed, in total darkness, into the wee small hours, without complaint from my wife!All aspects of the new, complex AF system are explained in full as are other features that are likely to be a requirement of experienced digital photographers. The more obscure options are addressed by cross-reference to the (rather 'sterile') Canon manual that comes with the camera.A good buy for anyone lucky enough to own one of these excellent cameras but still feeling daunted by the overwhelming options available.

With a lot of complex new features, my Canon 5DIII has a manual to match. Doug Klosterman does his best to explain the most tangled areas in plain English. He adds many of his personal preferences for setting up the camera which are most usefull. My only complaint is that is hardly a camera someone starting in photography will choose but Doug does add some very basic stuff in there. I would rather he had kept to either a book for beginners or one for experienced photographers rather that trying cover everyone's needs and falling a bit short in areas.