People who know me, know that I like to dabble with cameras. From this they assume (the fools) that I actually know something useful and can help them with their photographic problems. Well, I do try and help and sometimes I can; but I refuse to become involved too far with a conversation that starts along the lines of:
*My shots are all blurry. Have you tried increasing the shutter speed? How do I do that? (staring dumbly at camera)? RTFM. What’s that mean? Read the manual. (Pause) What does the F stand for? (Pause) Oh. *
It’s a fact of modern life that most of us can’t be arsed to read the manual that comes with a product. It’s shiny! It’s new! It’s got buttons, let’s press them in random order! Oh, it’s broken.
But with something as complex as a camera, it might be a good idea to do some reading before twiddling knobs and spitting on the sensor. In fact, the quite excellent Pattaya Days Photography Guide™ kicks off on the first page by suggesting reading the manual twice before venturing any further. Wise words which I personally ignore every time a new photographic toy arrives in my eager, sweaty hands. The main reason for my lack of interest in the manual is because it is likely to be crap.
There are exceptions. Casio apparently provide fine manuals. Given that the manual for my simple Casio watch is 184 pages, I assume their camera manuals extend to several volumes and come complete with instructional DVDs. But as nobody buys Casio cameras any more they are probably not a very good role model. My Canon 1D manual was actually pretty useful and I read it several times before deciding it was all too complicated and I just looked things up on the web instead. I still have no idea how to use the camera other than to point it at horses.
The problem with modern cameras is that they often offer a bewildering range of options, which can be employed in even more bewildering combinations to set up the camera the way you want to use it. It is impossible for a camera manual to discuss all the possibilities; even if the camera maker wanted to, which they don’t. Furthermore, the manual is inevitably crammed with sections on aspects of the camera that don’t interest you. Video perhaps, or printing, or producing JPEGs; but you have to negotiate around all the fluff you don’t need to find the stuff that you do. Then when you find what you are looking for on page 35, it cross-refers you to pages 77 and 86; and by the time you have been there you have forgotten that you started on page 35. It’s round about this time that you start swearing.
Having said that, I found the Panasonic GX1 (and the GF1 before it) pretty easy to set up. This was not because the manual was anything special, but because the camera interface was reasonably simple and there were not that many options to consider. Took me a couple of hours to figure it out and set it up; then I stuck the manual in a drawer and never looked at it again. Now I am wishing I could remember which drawer I put it in, in case I want to sell it.
But the OM-D was going to be something a little more challenging. Reviews and owners seemed to be unanimous in their warnings; this camera is awash with options and it’s a bugger of a job to understand them all and set it up. Furthermore, the manual in the box is inadequate and you have to extract the full manual from the enclosed disk; but it’s not much help and everything is too hard and it just makes you want to cry.
I had no desire to start weeping over a new OM-D, even if it is splash proof, so in December I built a page of OM-D links.
First, there were links to a selection of reviews. These were intended to help convince me I was about to do the right thing, and I would refer to these often to help stoke the fires of camera lust.
These were followed by links to articles related to setting up the camera, or to pages which contained further pages of links. Finally, there was a link to the manual and a page showing the status of firmware updates.
Having set up my OM-D fixation page, I read everything; even if most of it went over my head. It’s hard to learn how to configure a camera without holding it in your hands.
Last of all, I dropped $15.99 on David Busch’s Olympus OM-D E-M5 Guide to Digital Photography which I now see has increased in price to $20.99. At either price it is not very good value, I learned nothing from its 753 well-padded pages that I had not already learned on-line.
Still, I was fully prepared and just needed clearance from the bank of me to release the necessary funds. As you may know, expenditure approval was received last week and I took my shiny new toy home to grapple with its complexities.
First surprise was that there was a 131 page manual in the box. I assumed this to be a 10 page quick start manual in a variety of languages, with English tucked between German and Turkish and with French being placed annoyingly first. But no, it was 131 pages of Her Majesty’s English; albeit with some annoying Americanisation (it’s stabilisation, not stabilization, please note Olympus).
So I settled down with the camera on my lap, the manual on the table, and my page of links in front of me; supplemented by several forays courtesy of Mr. Google. A couple of hours on the first afternoon followed by a couple more on the following morning and I had substantially cracked it.
And it is not a fraction as difficult as the internet worriers would have you believe. Yes, it is a very complex camera, and there are so many options that it would be hard to work out how everything hangs together if all you did was RTFM. But with a little help from the wide wide world of web and some hands-on time; it’s easy enough to understand.
By the end of the second day I had the camera configured to my liking and with a suitably ceremonial flourish I placed the manual in a safe place for storage. Of course by next week I will have forgotten most of the features, and forgotten the location of the safe place.
Comments 🔗
2013-01-29| Wolfgang Lonien saysHehe good one. I have an advantage, should I ever get the gas attack: I have some E-520 and E-PL1 already. I guess I would even be able to switch on the SCP without the manual. But then, who knows? I’ve read them all, and I will read another one as well.
2013-01-29| Grant saysIf only we had a manual for Life…