The Complete Guide to Fujifilm's X-Pro2 (B&W Edition)

I'm afraid I didn't like this book. Not the author's fault, but it just wasn't what I was looking for.There's no doubt that it is well written and very detailed, and so lives up to the title "The Complete Guide", but in my view it fails as a practical tool.Firstly it is a substantial tome: it weighs 0.9 kgs. That's more than my camera and lens weigh.It measures 9 x 6 x 1.5 inches, so you are not looking at a handy guide, one that you might want to take on a trip.For something that cost £32 it's annoyingly poorly produced.The paperback cover curls immediately.The paper is buff not white, which detracts from the quality of the photographs.There are hundreds of photographs intended to illustrate the author's discussion. They might have done that if they were in colour and larger, but they are all in B&W and most no more than an inch or two square. As a result the vast majority of them fail to reveal what the author is describing.So discussions of the different film simulations, colour casts, colour filters, white balance, etc. are rendered meaningless in the illustrative photos. There's little point in a monochrome picture that bears the comment "Velvia "pops" this candy apple pink muscle car, even in the rain", when neither the colour nor the rain can be seen in the photo. On another photo the author helpfully explains, "I can tell you, on a big screen, it is actually an interesting effect" talking of vignetting and colour cast, of which of course nothing can be seen of the latter in his photo. I exaggerate not: there must be upward of hundreds of photos in this book that completely fail to illustrate the point.Even where colour is not in issue, photograph after photograph is simply too small for the intended point to be seen.The book is written in an easy-going, chatty style, which is fine and not unpleasant if what you wanted to do was have a one-sided discussion with the author about the camera. But whole pages are devoted to anecdotal material about how he used to shoot this or that back in the old days, and the merits of different makes of film, even of film itself.The end product is an immense discussion about the camera veering off into comparisons with other models and practices, which is all very interesting, but tends to obscure what (I guess) most people want in a guide. If you are looking for an expanded user manual this book is far too complicated. Personally I don't need to know about algorithms, RAW compression, pixel mapping and the like. Another example of one of the author's Tips: "Rather annoyingly, even Fujifilm's RAW Converter EX software does not display NR settings in the EXIF information - though the camera does. But if you want access to this kind of info, you will find EXIFtoolGUI by Bogdan Hrastnik (based on EXIFtool by Phil Harvey) to be your friend." And so the Tip goes on.The book veers from the most intricate detail to material that seems to be addressed towards imbeciles. On the subject of the ISO dial the author says, " While I love the concept of an ISO dial, it is likely to be the most problematic for users, requiring a lift-turn motion to use." Come on! If you are unable to rotate a dial while lifting it (hardly an unusual concept in a camera) I doubt you would even be looking at a camera of this sophistication; you'd be using your phone.My view is that if you were writing a post-graduate degree thesis on the comparative strengths and weaknesses of the X-Pro2, this would be a great study. But the detail is almost ferocious in its intensity, such that the book becomes rather daunting and off-putting. The failure of the photographs to illustrate the text is a horrible failing in a book of this price. That combined with the size and sheer complexity means that this is not in my view a useful working guide, more an academic treatise.

I can't praise the author enough for this book as it's taught me more in the last 10 days than i've learnt in the last two years.I am not a professional photographer and i'm not a beginner either, i was looking for a book to teach me professional tips as i find some of the other books for the X-Pro2 are just not challenging enough. This book tells you literally everything you can do with your X-Pro2 (which is a lot more than the manual can)I've learnt how to set my own white balance in difficult light situations and learnt how to use the AF-L back button to auto focus in manual mode and much, much more in just over a week.When you buy the book you can then email the author with a copy of your receipt to get a free colour copy of the book in PDF format, a list of the author's personal camera settings and also a free colour PDF file of "Mastering Flash With Fuji X Series Cameras"A great, great book and highly recommended!

Very comprehensive in its information but it requires a bigger format. It is not just the pictures being black and white that is the problem. Many of the pictures are too small to be useful. I constantly feel that I’m looking at a one third scale product. A potentially great manual sabotaged by poor publishing.

Wonderful book!

an interesting book essential for x-pro2 users