For all. Why no manuals
May 28, 2019 08:52:49 #
JDG3 wrote:
A plant engineer responsible for a plant would often have a whole room dedicated to keeping the manuals for every piece of equipment in his plant. Now he or she can keep them all on his laptop or tablet.
I understand this point well. While I still have the whole room of manuals I also have them on the company server. I would print out the pages I need for a particular problems with the machines and bring them out to the production floor. Doing this will prevent damaging the paper manuals.
May 28, 2019 09:02:43 #
geebear
Loc: Southeast Iowa
latebloomer wrote:
I just purchased a new Olympus E-M1-II. As my Pen F it had no include a full manual with it. My Nikons do.
Why can't a manufacture produce an included manual with such an expensive product? I know there manuals are not perfect; yet, they are very useful and can't cost that much to produce. Are the makers just that greedy and selfish? I find it absurd.
Why can't a manufacture produce an included manual with such an expensive product? I know there manuals are not perfect; yet, they are very useful and can't cost that much to produce. Are the makers just that greedy and selfish? I find it absurd.
All my manuals are on my phone and usualy my phone is with me at all time's but if I lose it or it craps out i can always go download it again
May 28, 2019 09:05:55 #
I think you will find that only "seasoned" citizens are looking for a printed manual from camera manufacturers. The younger generation will Google problems, or read the downloaded message. Worse still, they are using their cell phones to make all of their photo memories. They aren't purchasing cameras in the first place.
We are the ancients in this society and it isn't worth the cost of producing, printing and shipping a printed manual with each camera when most won't read it. The great thing about a manual being online is, changes (or corrections) can be made instantly. Why download it when you can just read it when you need it. I've downloaded every user manual into my Camera Manuals file. Easy to find and accessible when I want it. When I get rid of a camera, if I ever do this, I will delete the user manual.
We need to accept that things constantly change and change can be good. At least we can pretend we believe it is so.
We are the ancients in this society and it isn't worth the cost of producing, printing and shipping a printed manual with each camera when most won't read it. The great thing about a manual being online is, changes (or corrections) can be made instantly. Why download it when you can just read it when you need it. I've downloaded every user manual into my Camera Manuals file. Easy to find and accessible when I want it. When I get rid of a camera, if I ever do this, I will delete the user manual.
We need to accept that things constantly change and change can be good. At least we can pretend we believe it is so.
May 28, 2019 09:09:17 #
azdustdevil wrote:
They got your money. That's all that matters.
uh if very few people actually read the manual why would it be printed... providing a pdf is much cheaper than the paper n ink, or they could provide the manual and charge a higher price of the camera....
May 28, 2019 09:11:19 #
PGHphoto
Loc: Pittsburgh, PA
latebloomer wrote:
I just purchased a new Olympus E-M1-II. As my Pen F it had no include a full manual with it. My Nikons do.
Why can't a manufacture produce an included manual with such an expensive product? I know there manuals are not perfect; yet, they are very useful and can't cost that much to produce. Are the makers just that greedy and selfish? I find it absurd.
Why can't a manufacture produce an included manual with such an expensive product? I know there manuals are not perfect; yet, they are very useful and can't cost that much to produce. Are the makers just that greedy and selfish? I find it absurd.
Besides the cost of producing and printing the manual, error correction or enhanced functionality often make part of the manual invalid. Electronic publishing makes it easier to maintain and correct.
In today's world where everybody wants to be able to search their phone for the answer when needed, it also makes sense to have a digital copy rather than a hard copy.
May 28, 2019 09:14:47 #
fetzler
Loc: North West PA
You can download the manual. Also Olympus O.I. Share software for Phones and Tablets has a Manual and Tutorials.
May 28, 2019 09:15:32 #
latebloomer wrote:
I just purchased a new Olympus E-M1-II. As my Pen F it had no include a full manual with it. My Nikons do.
Why can't a manufacture produce an included manual with such an expensive product? I know there manuals are not perfect; yet, they are very useful and can't cost that much to produce. Are the makers just that greedy and selfish? I find it absurd.
Why can't a manufacture produce an included manual with such an expensive product? I know there manuals are not perfect; yet, they are very useful and can't cost that much to produce. Are the makers just that greedy and selfish? I find it absurd.
Canon will provide a printed copy, if requested; perhaps Olympus will if you ask??
May 28, 2019 10:01:41 #
latebloomer wrote:
I just purchased a new Olympus E-M1-II. As my Pen F it had no include a full manual with it. My Nikons do.
Why can't a manufacture produce an included manual with such an expensive product? I know there manuals are not perfect; yet, they are very useful and can't cost that much to produce. Are the makers just that greedy and selfish? I find it absurd.
Why can't a manufacture produce an included manual with such an expensive product? I know there manuals are not perfect; yet, they are very useful and can't cost that much to produce. Are the makers just that greedy and selfish? I find it absurd.
Just purchased a new Jeep Wrangler and no manual is included anymore. They supply a pdf via the radio system and computer. They don’t tell you at the dealership that you can request a paper manual that will be mailed to you which I did. I guess it’s the new norm. I for one prefer a paper manual.
May 28, 2019 10:05:35 #
Dikdik
Loc: Winnipeg, Canada
latebloomer wrote:
Are the makers just that greedy and selfish? I find it absurd.
They are economising... in addition, I think they reflect the times. I almost never read a manual anymore; I nearly always download a *.pdf file from the website. With few exceptions, I download the manual before buying the equipment and go through the manual just to see what I'm buying.
Dik
May 28, 2019 11:09:04 #
latebloomer wrote:
Thank you all for your comments. My issue is the need to a small sized manual that can easily fit in a camera bag. I do not find running off 100- 200 + pages on my computer to re that helpful. My use is almost to uge it as a reference to look up a need or answer a problem. I do find the plethora of alternatives in the Olympus menus and chooses almost excessive. Is there really a new for a "food setting?"
Yes, I read a lot. Surprised more don't.
Thanks again,
Terry
Yes, I read a lot. Surprised more don't.
Thanks again,
Terry
Terry, you can download the PDF and put it on your phone if you have a smartphone. Then you can also perform "searches" from the pdf and find whatever subject fast. Smartphones are pretty cool these days. You can also increase the size of the print on your phone so that you can read it easier. Just sayin'
May 28, 2019 11:17:35 #
Dikdik
Loc: Winnipeg, Canada
jeep_daddy wrote:
Terry, you can download the PDF and put it on your phone if you have a smartphone. Then you can also perform "searches" from the pdf and find whatever subject fast. Smartphones are pretty cool these days. You can also increase the size of the print on your phone so that you can read it easier. Just sayin'
Unless the document is really protected, you can highlight important material within the document if using Adobe pdf reader (a free program).
Dik
May 28, 2019 11:19:14 #
fehutch
Loc: gulfport, ms
Ditto on the Fuji manuals. The supplied paper manual is small and thick. Storable, but usable?? On the other hand, their digital manual (on my (iPad) is very readable, and with touch screen access to specific page and/or topic. Best camera (or anything) manual ever...
May 28, 2019 11:35:27 #
Today, manufacturers assume that everyone has internet access and that they can download the manuals. Also, the manuals for today's digital cameras are much longer than those for the film cameras of the past, due to the complexity of the cameras. Hence, the 500 plus page manual mentioned above. My Olympus did come with a paper quick start guide but the full manual is available only online.
May 28, 2019 11:55:40 #
Price of provisioning and price of production. The simple answer is to cut costs in two areas. Manuals cost money to produce and inventory. Furthermore, printed manuals do not come from the same producer and they have to be shipped to the division that produces and packs the cameras. Well, so did the manuals that they DID produce to DVD and have to get to manufacturing and shipping, but costs intervene when most users buy the camera's and lenses and throw the rest away or lose it.
I worked on site for Dell Computers for a number of years and came to understand why Original Windows disks and any form of manual fell by the wayside. I went into homes, where the vast majority of original documentations for the computers were lost or trashed.
Presumably the same with camera's.
However, I have not seen one camera packaged without a PDF file on the DVD that also contains the proprietary software for RAW and editing for every new camera I have seen.
Those who want paper, go pay Barnes and Noble, or take the OEM manual you surely got on file and pay to have it printed. It's simply too costly for the manufacturers to pay for poorly written manuals by people who natively speak a different language, and only 10% of which are going to be used.
Blubber somewhere else please?
I worked on site for Dell Computers for a number of years and came to understand why Original Windows disks and any form of manual fell by the wayside. I went into homes, where the vast majority of original documentations for the computers were lost or trashed.
Presumably the same with camera's.
However, I have not seen one camera packaged without a PDF file on the DVD that also contains the proprietary software for RAW and editing for every new camera I have seen.
Those who want paper, go pay Barnes and Noble, or take the OEM manual you surely got on file and pay to have it printed. It's simply too costly for the manufacturers to pay for poorly written manuals by people who natively speak a different language, and only 10% of which are going to be used.
Blubber somewhere else please?
May 28, 2019 11:56:59 #
This is a phrase that I like very much: "When everything fails just read the manual."
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