My (short) Review of David Busch's "Sony a7CR/a7CII Guide To Digital Photography"

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THE PREVIOUS post here was an in-depth review of Gary Friedmans's "Guide to The Sony's A7CII and A7CR." In that post, I acknowledged the David Busch guidebook series, and particularly, his own guide covering these two Sony models. I noted that wanted to read it and would either review it separately or come back to the prior post and comment. This is not really a full review, but I thought it was long enough that it would probably be best to give it it's own post and link them back and forth. You may, like I have, end up with both books. But if I were to recommend only one of them, it would be the Friedman Guide.

ON A positive note, at the very least, the title is not completely misleading. I mentioned in my recent review of Gary Friedman's book on the a7CR and II, that my personal criteria for a camera model guide means it tells us about the particular model, how it works, and how to configure it. For a "manual" like these, I do not really want a lot of what I think of as extraneous "how to" information. So when a book says its a "Camera Guide" for a particular model, I immediately find that disingenous and a bit offputting. But in Busch's case, he labels it: "[name your model] Guide To Digital Photography." At least that is calling it what it is. It is in reality yet another "how to" photography book.

THE BOOK presents itself as a "Sony alpha a7CR/a7CII guidebook." The series are basically formulaic, and he has written hundreds of them, with virtually every major manufacturer and the vast majority of their offered models (particularly for DSLR and Mirrorless cameras) including Canon, Sony, Nikon, Olympus, Panasonic, and Pentax. If you are going to do that, and have some consistency, they are going to be formulaic, and I am not criticizing that by any means. I am just saying that it doesn't fit my personal criteria of a camera manual/guidebook.

It is in reality yet another "how to" photography book

I AM not saying it isn't a good book. It is well-written with basically clear explanations. Where it does so, it gives good information about the named camera model. What it also does is mixes in a substantial amount of general photographic and digital "how to" information. I would judge that around 50% (perhaps more) of the book contains information and explanations about features that you find every digital camera, how they work, and the mechanics behind them. Again, that is not a bad thing. It is just not what I am looking for in a camera-specific "guide." I want to get into the nitty gritty of how (in this case the Sony A7C series) the camera works, how its menu system works, what special features it has, and how to configure )and eventually troubleshoot) it!

ONE THING I have to say about that here is that when it comes down to the explanations of the camera features themselves - especially as he goes through the menu items step by step, the Busch book does a notably better job of illustrating and explaining (in most cases) each setting. If you are willing to wade through all the other stuff, it may be worth getting this book. I have found a handful of things in it that I didn't get from the Friedman book, and didn't know. So there's that. 😊

THE MORE sophisticated and "high end" the camera is (and lets be honest, this one is a very sophisticated tool), the more compelling this approach is to me. Why? Because I assume the vast majority of photographers who have moved to a camera like the a7CR/a7CII cameras are already reasonably sophisticated users and already have a good, fundamental understanding of how digital cameras and sensors, and things like exposure adjustments, autofocus, lens crop factor, flash and the like work!

I want to get into the nitty gritty of how (in this case the Sony A7C series) the camera works, how its menu system works, what special features it has, and how to configure )and eventually troubleshoot) it!

I LIKE books. This one will stay on my shelf. But the Friedman book will remain my "go - to" and recommended book for the Sony A7C series unless and until something better comes along. If, like me, you like books, I would certainly suggest you take look at this one as a supplementary work.

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