SkintBrit said:
Maybe this thread would be a good place for each of us to mention 1 thing we discovered our cameras did by accident, or that others might not know? Me, I recently discovered that the centre "confirm" button can be used to zoom in at a pre-set magnification of your choice, on the point of focus, and in combination with the rear command dial, the same magnification is applied to each photo on the card as you turn the dial.

On the D7000:

Custom Setting Menu -> d3 -> ISO Display and Adjustment -> Show ISO ->Easy ISO

This function allows you to change your ISO via the secondary command dial (the one on the front) while in P, S, and A modes. Makes it a lot easier to change than fiddling with the column of buttons on the left.

[....still waiting for Nikon to add ability to change ISO from the Fn button...]

An "upgrade manual" that tells you how to use only the new features on your camera sounds quite a good idea. I suppose the problem would be (in paper form at least) they wouldn't know what model you were upgrading from. Via a web site however this is entirely possible, select your old and new models, and it could show you just the different features.

We call this RTFM (Read the F*antastic Manual) :)

BTW, Nikon should provide two manuals, one for the ones that got their first Nikon DSLR and a second smaller one for ones know that Nikon does. I also expect Nikon to give a color manual and not a B&W one.

Hey SkinBrit,

Sounds like a terrific idea to me. Or a new thread, either way I'm in.

My best,

Mike

Rx4Photo said:
I also haphazardly discovered that pressing the center (OK) button brings that auto-fucus target back to dead center immediately instead of punching the wheel multiple times to re-center it.

Maybe this thread would be a good place for each of us to mention 1 thing we discovered our cameras did by accident, or that others might not know? Me, I recently discovered that the centre "confirm" button can be used to zoom in at a pre-set magnification of your choice, on the point of focus, and in combination with the rear command dial, the same magnification is applied to each photo on the card as you turn the dial.

Rx4Photo said:
My co-worker got his D300S 8 months before I got the D7000 and he never knew his camera could do that until I showed it to him. Needless to say he was amazed. I think his manual is still in the plastic wraper.

I also haphazardly discovered that pressing the center (OK) button brings that auto-fucus target back to dead center immediately instead of punching the wheel multiple times to re-center it.

Fortunately, the "OK" button works the same as the D90. But I sure didn't know how to 'turn off' full AF to AF S. I finally compared body to body and 'saw' the button and guessed that it was there for a reason. Page 95 has the information tucked away. I was referred, by other books and the manual itself to a half dozen other pages.

My best,

Mike

Mike Gunter said:

I finally found that you press the button on the AF/Manual switch and rotate the sub-commander switch to change the auto-focus targets for the P, A, S, and M modes. I currently happy.

My co-worker got his D300S 8 months before I got the D7000 and he never knew his camera could do that until I showed it to him. Needless to say he was amazed. I think his manual is still in the plastic wraper.

I also haphazardly discovered that pressing the center (OK) button brings that auto-fucus target back to dead center immediately instead of punching the wheel multiple times to re-center it.

Hi all,

I have waded through mine twice and my eyes bleed.

I finally found that you press the button on the AF/Manual switch and rotate the sub-commander switch to change the auto-focus targets for the P, A, S, and M modes. I currently happy.

Now to noodle the best rational use for U1 and U2, Slot2 strategy, and figure out why my older lenses are tack sharper than I've ever seen them where my newer lens will need to be fine tuned. Wonderment ain't it?

My best,

Mike

adamz said:
manual ... what's that? :)

Is that the paper thing that is inside the Gold cardboardy thing?

NikoDoby said:
I remember paper! I would set the pages of my F3's manual on fire to keep warm at night. Ahhh those were the good ol' days!

You had a room to heat......(starry eyed)........boy that would have been nice :-)

noxin said:
if everyone read the manual, Niko would only request a thread search about half as much as he does now!

Hahaha. Very true! They should make the manuals waterproof, I only read them on the loo or in the bath, (in that order)!

NSXType-R said:
That mechanical motor drive seems really cool!

I got it because it was the first motor drive for a non-SLR camera I ever saw. Just had to have it! It screwed onto the bottom and you wound it up with a large fold out key thing. There was a lock lever which once you flipped it into the on position, it wound the film on and armed the shutter. Then every time you pressed the shutter release, it whirred and wound the film on (slowly) and set the shutter again, one frame at a time. It only cost me about $80 in 30 year ago numbers as I got it at the same time as the camera, which was itself $130.

I remember my wife at the time thought it was pointless "You can just flip the lever out, can't you?" - silly woman! LOL! Actually she might have been right as that motor drive was no faster than doing it manually... :-)

bjrichus said:
Manuals these days are written to instruct the newbie and are more reference works already for those who know what they are doing.

I think I generally know what I'm doing and yet I compulsively read manuals cover to cover worrying that I will miss some amazing feature. I'm not complaining. It's something I love to do, but I know most people would be fine just knowing where the knobs are, as mentioned above.

Hey welcome to the forum. I have always enjoyed the Magic Lantern guides which I find are fantastic for additional information and tips. I bought one for my D40x, D80, D300, and then D700. When I bought my Leica M9 I made sure to go over the manual extensively. I wish magic lantern made a Leica guide actually.

bjrichus said:
Manuals these days are written to instruct the newbie and are more reference works already for those who know what they are doing.

Remember, my old FT3 came from a different era than cameras today. I wonder how many law suits were suffered by the likes of Nikon between then and now because some newbie or two did not feel the included paperwork was enough to make them into an Ansel Adams or David Baily?

Had a Ricoh compact 35mm film camera in the early 1980's that came with a clockwork motor drive. You wound it up and it auto wound on the film and set up the shutter at all of about 1fps. By the way it was not AUTO... you had to press the shutter release each time - manually. There are more than a few out there that would find that physically hard to do.... me included.

Not sure of the lawsuits- cameras weren't cheap back then, so those who could afford a camera probably had a better idea of what they were doing.

That mechanical motor drive seems really cool!

NSXType-R said:
It's funny you mention that- there's actually an explanation about depth of field within the manual.

[...]

I don't think they do that with the new manuals anymore. They just tell you to swing it into auto mode.

Manuals these days are written to instruct the newbie and are more reference works already for those who know what they are doing.

Remember, my old FT3 came from a different era than cameras today. I wonder how many law suits were suffered by the likes of Nikon between then and now because some newbie or two did not feel the included paperwork was enough to make them into an Ansel Adams or David Baily?

NSXType-R said:
Looking at the accessories for the FM2 in the back, I want a motor drive!

Had a Ricoh compact 35mm film camera in the early 1980's that came with a clockwork motor drive. You wound it up and it auto wound on the film and set up the shutter at all of about 1fps. By the way it was not AUTO... you had to press the shutter release each time - manually. There are more than a few out there that would find that physically hard to do.... me included.

noxin said:
if everyone read the manual, Niko would only request a thread search about half as much as he does now!

I couldn't find this web-site users manual... Where is it? :^)

if everyone read the manual, Niko would only request a thread search about half as much as he does now!

jonnyapple said:
...or at least have a manual for those who don't need that stuff you mention, bjrichus. It could be fairly short, especially with the context help you can get in the menus by pressing the "?" button.

I am not against manuals, just impressed how much 20 years ago, was crammed into so few pages.

The D700 manual is 444 pages and I am surely glad I had it. I found it to be a really good read after playing with the camera for a few weeks.

Forget about "Invaluable", without the manual, the SB-600 interface would be plainly impossible to comprehend. These press-button-combinations-for-a while, meaningless icons and acronyms interfaces are so cumbersome, idiotic, hard to remember and time waster. I can never remember which sequence does what. Nikon completely missed on the ergonomic of that one. I don’t see why we couldn’t forget the flash UI altogether and just use the camera to program the flash directly. Is the SB-700 any better?

My friend bought a Sigma flash for his D7000 and that thing is even worse. With the manual, it took the both of us hours to figure out how to remotely fire it with the D7000 in commanding mode and even then, we were not quite sure what it was doing, sometime over/under exposing apparently at random. For the longest time, the flash was firing but did not appear in the photo and after a while at being zapped at full power, we were getting completely blind. They should never let the engineers write the manuals and they should test their manuals with some public before release.

bjrichus said:
Yes. They assumed you knew what stuff like aperture means and just needed to know how to adjust it by turning a dial. All you needed was to know WHICH dial to turn. In those far off days everything was simpler; perhaps we just need to be simpler about explanations?

It's funny you mention that- there's actually an explanation about depth of field within the manual.

If I may, I will link to a FM2 manual.

http://www.butkus.org/chinon/nikon/nikon_fm2/nikon_fm2.htm

I don't think they do that with the new manuals anymore. They just tell you to swing it into auto mode.

Looking at the accessories for the FM2 in the back, I want a motor drive!

...or at least have a manual for those who don't need that stuff you mention, bjrichus. It could be fairly short, especially with the context help you can get in the menus by pressing the "?" button.

NSXType-R said:
It was great fun reading an old Nikon manual. I feel as if they were better written back then and the pictographs really helped.

Yes. They assumed you knew what stuff like aperture means and just needed to know how to adjust it by turning a dial. All you needed was to know WHICH dial to turn. In those far off days everything was simpler; perhaps we just need to be simpler about explanations?

I read my manual in the loo haha! Though I must say, the d90 and sb600 manuals were invaluable in finding out how to operate some functions on the camera/flash.

The manual, my experience is that its pretty boring when you don't need it, but when you do, it has the power to save you.

Im about 20 pages through on my d90 and sb900 manual. I'm going to take it on those long bus journeys & let people think I'm a right doughnut.

bjrichus said:
Just looked at my old FT3 manual - all 31 pages of it. Amazing how THAT much information was contained in so few pages.

Good luck and happy reading Mildot!

It was great fun reading an old Nikon manual. I feel as if they were better written back then and the pictographs really helped.

I made it about half way through my D7000 manual before I fell asleep. Now if I'm not sure about a feature I just cheat and look it up in the table of contents... =)