burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

I don't know whose manuals you're reading, but the Nikon, Canon, and Panasonic Lumix manuals I'm familiar with ALL go to great lengths to define all terms, to illustrate their effects, and to describe their proper usage.

However, my Lumix GH4 Advanced Guide is 420 pages long! I can assure you, I didn't read it all in just in one sitting. I definitely can understand how some people who are not used to dealing with information overload on a daily basis might be intimidated by that, or assume that it is somehow incomprehensible.

But, for the newbies reading this: That does not mean you should skim a few pages and give up! If you study each page, and follow each linked reference and footnote to see where it goes, you WILL get a thorough overview.

The best way to read a camera manual these days is to download the PDF version of it from the camera manufacturer's web site. Keep the PDF on your computer, smartphone, tablet... READ it on one of those devices, because the way all pages are hyperlinked to related information is VERY useful! For instance, the Table of Contents in my GH4 Advanced Guide is nine pages long. Every PAGE NUMBER in the TOC is a hyperlink to that page. Click on the page number, and your PDF reader should take you to that page. Once there, you may find several hyperlinks to related information on other pages.

A camera is a VERY powerful tool. There are thousands of different ways a typical dSLR or mirrorless system can be used. With millions of users, it's understandable WHY there are so many choices! It behooves you to read enough of the manual to understand the functions you need. HOWEVER, the average person does NOT know what she or he needs until it is encountered and studied and understood... "Until we KNOW, we do not know what (or that) we do not know. We are innocently ignorant. But that should not abdicate us from responsibility."

That's why linear learning, perhaps with a few non-linear detours along the way, is so useful. Start at the beginning, and read it all, with your camera in front of you. Spend 30 minutes grasping one page, if you have to. The investment of time WILL pay off in efficiency when you're out using your camera.

Yes, good resources are available from third party sources. Chances are, Tony Northrup and others have made a video on your particular camera model, if it's a popular one. Go to YouTube and search. Also, if you are truly new to photography, read the latest edition of *Understanding Exposure by Bryan Petersen. Read Tony Northrup's book, *Stunning Digital Photography*. Take a community college course, being careful not to get trapped into the dogma of the professor. Join a camera club, if you're the joining type.

But take responsibility for your own education! We spend trillions of dollars on education. But the results are woefully inadequate because individuals fail to make their own investment in the topics taught. Try this method. (I have used it for training curriculum development and training. I know it works!)

Get an overview of the topic. Learn the scope of the topic.
Educate yourself. Read enough, watch enough, listen enough to be inspired to learn more.
Read procedures or step-by-step instructions. Read for detail!
Watch a demonstration of the procedures by an experienced instructor.
Try it yourself, preferably with feedback from a live instructor. (This is real training.)
Try it again, and again, and again...
Re-read, re-watch, re-listen for the details you missed.
Go do it! Practice makes muscle memories work for you.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

Reading a few good books on the art of love should be a requirement for getting a marriage license. It would end a lot of arguments and facilitate better bliss.

rcarol

"I don't know whose manuals you're reading, but the Nikon, Canon, and Panasonic Lumix manuals I'm familiar with ALL go to great lengths to define all terms, to illustrate their effects, and to describe their proper usage.

I broke out my manual for the Panasonic FZ-1000. Here is what it says about Aperture Priority Mode: "The shutter speed is automatically determined by the aperture you set." Sounds simple enough if you have a working knowledge of what aperture and shutter speed is. But if you don't know these basics, you're starting out behind the eight ball. The point that I'm trying to make is that the manuals are written with an assumption that all the readers have a fundamental understanding of the basics and often that is not the case. Hence we see questions on UHH that draw responses such as "read the manual".

SteveR Loc: Michigan

For those familiar with DSLR's, reading a manual may be the wise thing to do. For the first time DSLR user, however, the manual is full of many new and unfamiliar functions. Frankly, there is some much new technical jargon that most of it will not make sense WITHOUT actually using the camera. Just like a film camera, a digital camera can be used by knowing how to get proper exposure. Factory settings will suffice until, little by little, questions come up and, as the user works through the manual, knowledge is obtained.

My first DSLR was used right out of the box, set on program mode and I still remember the day. I got some nice pics of the family.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

Many cameras are shipped with Quick Reference Guides. In many cases, you actually have to download the real manual. Paper is expensive, heavy and bulky, in quantity, so camera companies don't want to print it and pack it and ship it. Here's what is said in the GH4 Advanced Guide: (See Attachment).

If you need more than that, you need a book on photography that explains aperture in much greater detail. But you still need to read the manual to understand how YOUR camera deals with the specific feature.
You need something like this from a book I'm writing:

"Attributes of aperture include:

The Lens’ Diaphragm:

• Is analogous to the iris of your eye (the muscles that adjust the pupil size)…
• Is a set of spring-loaded blades that open and close to control the flow of light through the lens aperture…
• Is activated electromechanically by the camera, just before exposure…
• Is adjusted electronically, via a dial on the camera body, or a setting in remote control software…
• Controls the look of “bokeh”— the out-of-focus pattern in the background of images shot with shallow depth of field — Usually, the more blades in the diaphragm, the more pleasing and subtle is the bokeh… Better lenses have diaphragm blades designed specifically to enhance bokeh by creating smoothly rounded overlapping circles in the out-of-focus background pattern.

The Lens’ Aperture:

• Is analogous to the pupil of your eye (the black “hole” in the iris)…
• Is created by, and controlled by the diaphragm…
• Controls the *volume of light* that reaches the sensor during an exposure…
• Is adjusted using a series of f/stops, usually measured in 1/3 stop increments*, with lower numbers letting in more light, and higher numbers letting in less light…
• Controls depth of field, or how much of a scene is in focus, from a near point to a far point within the scene. Depth of field is roughly distributed 1/3 in front of the point of focus and 2/3 behind it…
• Directly affects the sharpness of an image, due to the optical properties and limitations of both the particular lens and the particular camera sensor in use…
• Works in conjunction with Shutter Speed and ISO to control the exposure (the total amount of light energy used to make an image)…
• Can be calculated by an App on your smartphone, tablet, or computer

*The Aperture Scale most commonly includes *0.95,* 1.0, 1.2, *1.4,* 1.6, 1.8, *2,* 2.2, 2.4, *2.8,* 3.2, 3.5, *4,* 4.5, 5.0, *5.6,* 6.3, 7.1, *8,* 9, 10, *11,* 13, 14, *16,* 19, 20, *22*, … , with standard whole stops marked in asterisks here. Real photographers eventually memorize this scale and use it often!

The f/stop itself is expressed as the focal length of the lens divided by the number of times the aperture width will “fit into” the focal length of the lens (i.e.; f/8 at a focal length of 48 mm is 48/8 or 6mm wide; f/8 at a focal length of 96 mm is 96/8 or 12mm wide. Both “f/8 holes” let the same amount of light reach the sensor, which explains why f/stops are useful! f/stops are generally used as constants, regardless of the lens’ focal length or zoom setting. (Yes, the 12mm hole lets in four times as much light, but the focal length doubling from 48 to 96 mm magnifies and spreads that light intensity over a four times greater area, so the net result is the same exposure… Basic math and physics principles apply here.)

f/8 is a calculation! It is not an exact guarantee of light transmission. Two lenses set to f/8 may provide slightly different exposures, due to differences in construction, glass, coatings, groupings of elements, number of elements... Very high end lenses are calibrated in t/stops, indicating they meet stringent standards for light transmission calibration. The scale is the same as f/stops.

Most lenses are sharpest when used about one to three whole f/stops down from maximum aperture. (For example, if maximum aperture is f/2.8, the lens probably performs most sharply when stopped down to between f/4 and f/8.)

Although depth of field increases at progressively smaller apertures, such as f/11 or f/16, overall sharpness decreases at smaller apertures due to diffraction (scattering) of the light. When camera manufacturers add resolution to their sensors without making them bigger, diffraction is noticed at progressively wider, lower-numbered apertures. For example, the 15-megapixel APS-C sensor in a Canon EOS 50D just starts to show diffraction limiting of sharpness at f/7.1! Used at f/32, this camera yields very soft images, even with very good lenses. Used at f/5.6, this camera is amazingly sharp and generally reveals excellent detail from the same lenses. You can see examples of this by reading lens test reviews at http://www.dpreview.com."

If the camera manual explained everything that thoroughly, with illustrations, it would be 2500 pages long!

(Download)

SusanFromVermont Loc: Southwest corner of Vermont

You give very good advice! Just to add some comments of my own:

Improvements have been made in camera manuals. When I purchased my Nikon D810, I discovered that the manual was much better than the one for my D7000. It sounded a lot less like a translation from a foreign language... That makes it a bit easier to read but still won't comprehend it for you.

A newbie will NOT understand everything at first, but should keep reading anywayl. If there are terms you don't understand now, you can research them and then you will understand better when reading the manual the next time. Next time? Yes, a second reading with camera in hand is highly recommended! And do not be afraid to play with the menu items to see what they do. You can always go back to the default.

Anyone learning to use a new camera can benefit from the training pointers burkphoto shared!

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

Susan, you get it. But then, somewhere along the way, you learned the process. Many didn't, and they flounder when faced with many learning opportunities.

Patience, grasshoppers! Some of us have been at this for decades. It's okay to use a smartphone or set your camera on Ai, Ai+, A, or P. Just know that there's a vast sea of potential beyond that. Learning to use computers and digital cameras is a little like scratching your way through a brick facade with your fingernails and a bent spoon. It takes effort and time. But once you get through it, you're in a giant toy store with all the toys you ever wanted to play with!

hassighedgehog Loc: Corona, CA

A good manual will have an INDEX, which my Pentax K-50 does. But the manual for the Lumix ZS60 does not. A table of contents, yes, but no index. Too confusing to use even as a reference. It is in PDF on my tablet and computer, but needs a better search.

Sirius_one Loc: S.F. Bay Area

OOPS!!! The manuals confuse me completely, they are NOT user friendly for the average person.

traderjohn Loc: New York City

You do ramble on.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

Yeah, well I hope the guy who taught my heart surgeon learned from someone thorough...

newcamman

Why read the manuals where you can just look it up on Google... Honestly the first thing I did when I bought my camera was go out and get a DVD that would explain how to use it. Then as I used my camera over the next year or two I begin to understand what the DVD meant.

SusanFromVermont Loc: Southwest corner of Vermont

If you haven't read the manual, how do you know you are getting the right information? Reading the manual will not be exciting reading, but it will help you learn the functions on your camera. Then you will know fairly soon if a source you Googled is correct! Using the camera, you will be practicing the use of those functions, but it is more time consuming if you don't put in the effort to learn.

SusanFromVermont Loc: Southwest corner of Vermont

You are right, I had to learn, and it was a steep learning curve for a while. And I am still learning, still discovering more that I can do with the camera and editing programs!

SteveR Loc: Michigan

I use the manual and the book I bought explaining my camera about the way I did software manuals. Anytime I needed to know something I would look up what I needed to know in the manual. That's about what I do with camera manuals.