Mastering the Nikon D850 by Darrell Young

When you get this book, don’t throw away your original D850 Nikon manual. Contrary to Darrell Young’s suggestion, carry the original manual with you rather then this book, unless you are very strong. That’s because the manual is a lot lighter than Young’s book. That’s not Young’s fault. It’s because the author gives far more useful detail about the operation of the Nikon D850.

Young’s book goes through every function in laborious detail, using screen shots of every menu, and telling you exactly how to set particular functions. Given the many excellent functions of this complex camera that means there is a lot of material, but in almost all cases Young will tell you exactly what to do, as well as tell you the settings he recommends and the reason why.

Young points out that this is not a book about how to take pictures. It is a book about how to use the Nikon D850.

Given the density of the material it is almost impossible to sit down and just read through the book. As a long time user of the brand, I had a pretty good idea of Nikon’s general approach so it was easy for me to first read just selective sections where there was a new function, or skip those that I would not use. For example, I like processing my images in Lightroom and Photoshop, so I haven’t bothered to read the section on the D850’s Retouch function. On the other hand, I do a lot of movie making with my D850, so I read every word of the Moving Shooting Menu and Movie Live View Chapters.

I’d like to make a radical suggestion. If this is your first DSLR or even, Nikon camera, you probably shouldn’t start with the D850. Use a less sophisticated Nikon DSLR for a while before moving up to this camera. Young has probably already written a book about how to use the simpler Nikon DSLRs that you can read.

Some of the more complex material is not included in the book. Young has provided documents on the Rocky Nook website, which are referenced in the book. It was there I found a document that provided useful information about hooking up an external monitor to the D850.

I don’t mean to suggest that Young has covered everything that I wanted to know about the D850. For example, the D850 provides the video options of using zebra stripes to identify overexposure and focus peaking for accurate manual focus. I wish Young had identified that this was an either/or proposition. Of course, that would have made the volume even thicker.

My only major dissatisfaction is that Young took so long to come out with this book. It would have saved me a lot of time surfing the internet. But even now, I still found that I had unanswered question about the D850 that Young answered. I can’t imagine even an experienced D850 owner not buying this book.

Note: The publisher provided me with a review copy of this book at no charge.