Jeff Revell (from PhotoWalkPro) has been a professional photographer for 25 years.

His book "Canon 50D: From Snapshots to Great Shots", published earlier this year, is written specifically to teach Canon 50D owners how to take great photographs, and to learn how to use the camera's features in different situations.



This book is clearly targeted at people who own a Canon 50D. It focuses specifically on the features, functionality and controls of the 50D, and as a result, would not be of much use to anyone who doesn't own a 50D.



In the introduction of the book, Jeff sets the scene. The camera manual provides a good reference to tell you how to use a feature, or how to turn it on and off, but doesn't tell you why and when you should use a specific camera feature or setting. The aim of this book is to guide the reader through the basics of photography, learning about the different features of the Canon 50D, and how and when to use the different features and settings of the 50D to help your photography.

The book starts with the basics - a top ten list to make your shooting more productive right out of the box. This list is aimed at people who have just purchased a 50D, and covers things such as charging your battery before using it for the first time, as well as the more useful suggestion to turn off the "shoot without a card" setting.

In the next chapter, Jeff continues to look at some important basics, and provides an overview of memory cards, image formats, exposure, depth of field, and some other important concepts.

Once the basics are covered, the focus (pardon the pun) is on the basic shooting modes of the Canon 50D, namely the full auto mode, portrait mode, landscape mode, close-up mode, sports mode, night portrait mode, flash off mode, creative auto mode. After describing each of these modes, Jeff then goes on to say that you'll never want to use the basic modes again, as they are too limiting.

The creative zone provides shooting modes that offer the photographer greater control over their photography, and the author describes program mode, shutter priority, aperture priority, manual mode, and a-dep mode. In addition to describing how the camera operates in that mode, he also provides recommendations and information on when each of the various modes should be used.

The remaining chapters look at a variety of different shooting conditions, and the camera settings that should be used, including sports, different focus modes, continuous shooting modes, landscape photography, portraits and more. These chapters don't just cover the camera settings, but also describes guidelines and recommendations for composition, lighting, depth of field, viewpoint, and much more.

Throughout the book are lots of large photos, annotated with details of the camera settings used, and reasons why those settings were chosen (ie, small aperture for a large depth of field for a landscape photo, etc).



Jeff Revell has written a practical book that's very easy to read and easy to follow, with a lot of useful information in it. Each chapter has a few assignments that will allow you to practice what you have learnt in that chapter, and that is a great way to reinforce the content of that chapter.

A bonus chapter is available on the publisher's website, but you will need to register before you can get access to it. The bonus chapter is titled "Pimp My Ride", and looks at upgrades and accessories such as filters, tripods, cable releases and more.

I have had a Canon 50D for about 12 months before I bought this book, and the 50D isn't my first DSLR. As a result, I was familiar with the majority of the content in the book, but there were a few useful bits of wisdom that I encountered while reading the book.

I can definitely recommend this book for any new Canon 50D owners.