David Buschs Canon EOS 5D Mark IV Guide to Digital SLR Photography

David Busch’s guides are always excellent and just what you need and this one’s no different. Why do I say he is excellent? Because he covers everything including the kitchen sink, but in a fashion that is understandable and also helpful. He doesn’t miss a thing. I love that the initial section is on quickstart tips so that you don’t have to wade through the entire guide before using your camera. We are far too excited to do that, right?

The author is correct that the roadmap he uses to show us all the controls is joyfully easy to understand because he uses an actual picture of the camera itself and labels everything. Typical of Busch, he not only tells us early on how to just exposure, he also tells us how to get a handle on selecting just the right exposure. So it’s not just a manual for the camera it’s also an excellent photography how-to book.

So amazing that I’ve already come across two entire chapters on autofocus! That’s probably, for me, the trickiest thing about this camera given all the zillion options on how to achieve focus. Nice to see that the author doesn’t skimp on information for this topic. He has a very useful section on the factory preset cases in the autofocus settings: which ones to use and when. I appreciat having such a full explanation of a tricky aspect of the camera software. And there is something else Busch covers that other camera manuals don’t necessarily talk about. He gives us lots of advice on which lenses you should have for this particular camera.

The author gives us two generous chapters on how and when to use flash which is in itself a bonus. Moreover, he covers not just the most recent kind of speed light but five models of speedlight so that you don’t have to have the newest and most expensive to get a lot out of this manual. Busch also includes quite a bit on working with wireless flash which I found helpful even though I have been working with that for a while. Obviously, I still have something to learn!

In this book we get four, count ‘em four, chapters on how to customize various menu items including the autofocus menus, playback menus, and many other options. A guide like this is indispensable for setting up your camera. In addition to explaining the buttons on the camera as to how to choose AF points and zones, he gives you step-by-step real-life examples – very helpful!

The author includes several chapters on customizing various menus including the autofocus menus – probably one of the most important menus for wildlife photographers – as well as customizing playback and set-up menus and having a set of custom functions selected for your own specific needs.

His section on shooting video is fairly brief but full of useful and easily understood information. Certainly enough to get me up and running and even includes sections on storyboards and scripts. I especially appreciated one of his final sections, which was on how to clean your sensor. That’s not been my strong point but he makes it clear why you want to and how to do it without harming the sensor. Thank you, David Busch.

This book was a pleasure to read because it’s written clearly and in an engaging fashion. It’s also one of the most complete manuals I have seen on my camera. I will be re-reading it and looking for his manuals on other cameras I use.