where there’s smoke there’s forum fire
I just purchased a new D7000 with a MB-D11, 70-300 and 35 1.8 lens and I am actually going to read the owners manual before I put the battery in the camera, what a concept.
Over the last 35+ years I have owned Minolta, Nikon and Canon SLR's and DSLR's, I am hoping this model lives up to some of the good reviews I have read about it on this forum, looking forward to learning some things from all of you.
No old.. just smart! :) I always check out those Magic Lantern guides too.. those are fantastic..
manual ... what's that? :)
It is true that manuals have grown into tomes. I've looked at a FM2's manual- I believe it barely even breaks 30 pages. That's awesome even when you compare it to a D40's manual- I believe it's easily over 100 pages.
If anything you should read the manual while the battery is charging. :D
Congrats on the purchase.
NSXType-R said:
It is true that manuals have grown into tomes. I've looked at a FM2's manual- I believe it barely even breaks 30 pages. That's awesome even when you compare it to a D40's manual- I believe it's easily over 100 pages.If anything you should read the manual while the battery is charging. :D
Congrats on the purchase.
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!
Hi all,
The D7K's over 300 pages, and worse you have to understand it.
my humble best...
Mike
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... =)
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.
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.
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.
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?
...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.
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!
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.
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.
if everyone read the manual, Niko would only request a thread search about half as much as he does now!
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.
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!
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.
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.
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... :-)
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