I just got mine and the first thing I noticed was there was no User's Manual ... actually when I looked a bit closer, there WAS a User's manual ... more like a pamphlet. The User's Manual is 70 pages and the first 15 pages are "Notices"; things like the battery may get hot, before taking important pictures, take a test shot " ... to insure that the camera is functioning normally" / "Do not use while walking or using a vehicle". The usual crap that is always written and never actually read. So now we're down to 55 pages. There are 5 pages showing the parts of the camera with no references to what page will give more detailed information (because there are none). Following the parts of the camera are such items as ATTACHING THE STRAP / CHARGING THE BATTERY / INSERTING THE BATTERY / REMOVING THE BATTERY / INSERTING MEMORY CARDS / REMOVING MEMORY CARDS / ATTACHING A LENS .
At page 36, we get to SET UP; at page 38 SET UP is finished. Now we come to "Basic Photography and Playback".
I think I've made my point. I grant that anyone owning the Z9 (myself included) should have a pretty good understanding of setting up a camera BUT with all of the bells and whistles that this camera offers and for the price that is paid, an owner's manual should have been included. In fairness to Nikon, there is a 914 page Reference Guide ON LINE, which is really an Owner's Manual. That's 914 pages ALL IN ENGLISH! Unless you print it, it would be difficult to take on a trip with you. I'm going to guess that there will be "Third Party" manuals soon ... I certainly hope so!! Excuse me, I have to attempt to set the camera up. Please don't write about how lucky I am to have the camera, I know it and that doesn't change the fact that this camera came with virtually no instructions (when compared to say, the D810 or D850).

I just got mine and the first thing I noticed was there was no User's Manual ... actually when I looked a bit closer, there WAS a User's manual ... more like a pamphlet. The User's Manual is 70 pages and the first 15 pages are "Notices"; things like the battery may get hot, before taking important pictures, take a test shot " ... to insure that the camera is functioning normally" / "Do not use while walking or using a vehicle". The usual crap that is always written and never actually read. So now we're down to 55 pages. There are 5 pages showing the parts of the camera with no references to what page will give more detailed information (because there are none). Following the parts of the camera are such items as ATTACHING THE STRAP / CHARGING THE BATTERY / INSERTING THE BATTERY / REMOVING THE BATTERY / INSERTING MEMORY CARDS / REMOVING MEMORY CARDS / ATTACHING A LENS .
At page 36, we get to SET UP; at page 38 SET UP is finished. Now we come to "Basic Photography and Playback".
I think I've made my point. I grant that anyone owning the Z9 (myself included) should have a pretty good understanding of setting up a camera BUT with all of the bells and whistles that this camera offers and for the price that is paid, an owner's manual should have been included. In fairness to Nikon, there is a 914 page Reference Guide ON LINE, which is really an Owner's Manual. That's 914 pages ALL IN ENGLISH! Unless you print it, it would be difficult to take on a trip with you. I'm going to guess that there will be "Third Party" manuals soon ... I certainly hope so!! Excuse me, I have to attempt to set the camera up. Please don't write about how lucky I am to have the camera, I know it and that doesn't change the fact that this camera came with virtually no instructions (when compared to say, the D810 or D850).

I just got mine and the first thing I noticed was there was no User's Manual ... actually when I looked a bit closer, there WAS a User's manual ... more like a pamphlet. The User's Manual is 70 pages and the first 15 pages are "Notices"; things like the battery may get hot, before taking important pictures, take a test shot " ... to insure that the camera is functioning normally" / "Do not use while walking or using a vehicle". The usual crap that is always written and never actually read. So now we're down to 55 pages. There are 5 pages showing the parts of the camera with no references to what page will give more detailed information (because there are none). Following the parts of the camera are such items as ATTACHING THE STRAP / CHARGING THE BATTERY / INSERTING THE BATTERY / REMOVING THE BATTERY / INSERTING MEMORY CARDS / REMOVING MEMORY CARDS / ATTACHING A LENS .
At page 36, we get to SET UP; at page 38 SET UP is finished. Now we come to "Basic Photography and Playback".
I think I've made my point. I grant that anyone owning the Z9 (myself included) should have a pretty good understanding of setting up a camera BUT with all of the bells and whistles that this camera offers and for the price that is paid, an owner's manual should have been included. In fairness to Nikon, there is a 914 page Reference Guide ON LINE, which is really an Owner's Manual. That's 914 pages ALL IN ENGLISH! Unless you print it, it would be difficult to take on a trip with you. I'm going to guess that there will be "Third Party" manuals soon ... I certainly hope so!! Excuse me, I have to attempt to set the camera up. Please don't write about how lucky I am to have the camera, I know it and that doesn't change the fact that this camera came with virtually no instructions (when compared to say, the D810 or D850).

I just got mine and the first thing I noticed was there was no User's Manual ... actually when I looked a bit closer, there WAS a User's manual ... more like a pamphlet. The User's Manual is 70 pages and the first 15 pages are "Notices"; things like the battery may get hot, before taking important pictures, take a test shot " ... to insure that the camera is functioning normally" / "Do not use while walking or using a vehicle". The usual crap that is always written and never actually read. So now we're down to 55 pages. There are 5 pages showing the parts of the camera with no references to what page will give more detailed information (because there are none). Following the parts of the camera are such items as ATTACHING THE STRAP / CHARGING THE BATTERY / INSERTING THE BATTERY / REMOVING THE BATTERY / INSERTING MEMORY CARDS / REMOVING MEMORY CARDS / ATTACHING A LENS .
At page 36, we get to SET UP; at page 38 SET UP is finished. Now we come to "Basic Photography and Playback".
I think I've made my point. I grant that anyone owning the Z9 (myself included) should have a pretty good understanding of setting up a camera BUT with all of the bells and whistles that this camera offers and for the price that is paid, an owner's manual should have been included. In fairness to Nikon, there is a 914 page Reference Guide ON LINE, which is really an Owner's Manual. That's 914 pages ALL IN ENGLISH! Unless you print it, it would be difficult to take on a trip with you. I'm going to guess that there will be "Third Party" manuals soon ... I certainly hope so!! Excuse me, I have to attempt to set the camera up. Please don't write about how lucky I am to have the camera, I know it and that doesn't change the fact that this camera came with virtually no instructions (when compared to say, the D810 or D850).

I just got mine and the first thing I noticed was there was no User's Manual ... actually when I looked a bit closer, there WAS a User's manual ... more like a pamphlet. The User's Manual is 70 pages and the first 15 pages are "Notices"; things like the battery may get hot, before taking important pictures, take a test shot " ... to insure that the camera is functioning normally" / "Do not use while walking or using a vehicle". The usual crap that is always written and never actually read. So now we're down to 55 pages. There are 5 pages showing the parts of the camera with no references to what page will give more detailed information (because there are none). Following the parts of the camera are such items as ATTACHING THE STRAP / CHARGING THE BATTERY / INSERTING THE BATTERY / REMOVING THE BATTERY / INSERTING MEMORY CARDS / REMOVING MEMORY CARDS / ATTACHING A LENS .
At page 36, we get to SET UP; at page 38 SET UP is finished. Now we come to "Basic Photography and Playback".
I think I've made my point. I grant that anyone owning the Z9 (myself included) should have a pretty good understanding of setting up a camera BUT with all of the bells and whistles that this camera offers and for the price that is paid, an owner's manual should have been included. In fairness to Nikon, there is a 914 page Reference Guide ON LINE, which is really an Owner's Manual. That's 914 pages ALL IN ENGLISH! Unless you print it, it would be difficult to take on a trip with you. I'm going to guess that there will be "Third Party" manuals soon ... I certainly hope so!! Excuse me, I have to attempt to set the camera up. Please don't write about how lucky I am to have the camera, I know it and that doesn't change the fact that this camera came with virtually no instructions (when compared to say, the D810 or D850).

Always a good move to get the 3rd party book. I bought the Busch book about a year before buying my Z6.

If the book had revealed that I’d better forget the Z, then $25 for that warning is better than $1000+ blown on the wrong camera. Having bought the Z, the book becomes a useful aid.

I wanted the Z6 for two specific reasons. All else about it merely had to be “just OK” as long as those two functions were going to meet my needs.

Concerning Nikon’s “manual viewer app” that you mention, isn’t the downloadable manual a normal standard PDF ? If Nikon has dropped PDF for some proprietary file type that would indeed suck much ! Is it a PDF, or something else ???