Reference Manuals

[pjbw]

Is there any hope of Olympus bringing out a printed reference manual for the C-5060WZ?
I do not have a laptop PC to carry round with me to access the .pdf manual. Telephoning the answer-phone number here in the UK produced a lot of A4 photocopies with the manual 4-up on both sides - useless. Unfortunately the sides of the A4's were not in sync so the sheets could not be guillotined and bound into an A6 booklet.
Since the .pdf file is laid out in A6 pages surely it should be possible to produce a professional- looking booklet to accompany this £500 camera so that I can use its functionality to the full?

 

[maury]

Not likely Peter, unless the vast majority of buyers refused to buy unless this was changed.
Unfortuneately this is the general reality in the industry.
I did the copies then bound them into individual chapters which I reference as needed.

 

[chaswest]

This answer is probably not timely but I printed the entire manual with a duplex printer (HP(970Cse) then took it down to Kinkos and had them bind it with a spiral binder and plastic covers. Even after all this, I feel the manual is not user friendly. For ex&le, the book does describe the camera controls in detail but does not explain the reasons many features were incorporated. Why, for ex&le, does the normal flash fire a quick preflash. To get an immediate shutter release with accompanying flash, you must set flash controls for SLAVE and adjust the flash power manually.

 

[iberger]

> The preflash is usually for redeye reduction: The first flash makes the pupils of your subjects' eyes close down a bit so that less of their retinas reflect light back to the camera. (I say "usually" because I vaguely recollect > something about cameras pre-flashing to give the autofocus enough light.) Preflashing does reduce (not eliminate) redeye, but also alerts your subjects that you're about to shoot, sometimes making them freeze self-consciously.

 

[chaswest]

> [This is only one of many things that the manual does not explain > satisfactorily. Part of my problem was weak batteries in the Fl20 flash > attachment. The red-eye reduction flashes in the c-5060 are about 5 > preflashes with a gap of almost 1/2 sec before the main flash. I now > believe that the preflash (in regular automatic mode) is for exposure > control. But I wish that I knew how that works. I guess I should get more > aquainted with the several different "modes" that you can set on this > camera. Thanks for your advice.]

 

[pjbw]

>"In > a nice change from their normal routine, Olympus actually includes > a full, printed manual with the E-1. The quality of the manual > itself is good, which is important on a camera as complex as > this one." >

>"Unlike with their consumer-level cameras, > Olympus includes a full, printed manual with the EVOLT. > As camera manuals go, it's not bad. It won't win any > awards, but you'll find answers to your questions here." > From the review of the E-1 and E300 at http://www.dcresource.com/reviews/olympus/e1-review/index.shtml http://www.dcresource.com/reviews/olympus/e300-review/index.shtml It's nice to see that Olympus takes our rants in this forum seriously. I humbly think that my C-5060 is quite complex (and good) enough to have deserved a decent printed manual.