I wonder how many folk have had a new camera for Christmas? If you have then you’re not alone.
On average 9 million digital cameras are sold each year which equates to almost £20 billion sales revenue … and that’s not including the lucrative lens market! So a lot of people own a camera and that’s not including their mobile/cell phone camera. And this raised a thought in my digital 😉 brain. I wonder how many manuals/instruction booklets are produced too?
A lot of manuals are now on-line digital entities but there are still a few paper examples floating about. After all, instruction manuals are a must with any new camera gear…aren’t they? Simple answer is a resounding ‘Yes‘. Modern digital cameras are complex pieces of kit with built-in software that allows the user to make the most of their purchase. Things have come a long way since the early point-and-shoot days. Modern cameras are all singing and all dancing with lots of bells and whistles. And that’s the way it should be…We want to create images according to our taste and creativity…not be a simple ‘button pusher’. Goes without saying that when we get our new camera we read the manual carefully to discover what things are available to us ready for when our creative juices start flowing. Common sense eh? Hmm! Have you read and fully digested your camera’s manual? This can be a real pain in the butt can’t it? I just want to get out there and start shooting…sod it, Auto mode will do for now. I really can’t be arsed to read page after page of the manual…I’ll do it later. Trouble is, later never comes does it?
You really do have to know your camera inside-out in order to get the most from it. Which, in turn, allows you to be creative and be the photographer you want to be. Not a button pusher! And this means reading your manual. No option here. You just gotta do it. ‘But’, you say…’I’ve got a really basic camera so no need for a complicated manual’. Really? Well check this out:
I looked around for the cheapest possible new digital camera I could find and it came is at about £181. Now that’s not bad…it’s a bridge camera complete with lens and it’s a reasonable bit of kit. Next thing I did was take a look online at the accompanying manual/instruction booklet. Guess how many pages it contained…One Hundred And Six. Yep! you heard it right. Why does a straight-forward camera at such a cheap price need all that stuff in a manual? Well, it’s simple…the answer is in the question…if it was a simple and straight-forward camera then it wouldn’t need 106 pages of ‘how to‘ would it? So it’s not as simple and straight-forward as you might think.
My point is this. ‘Read the Manual and absorb it’s contents’. No ifs, buts or maybe. Unless, of course you just want to be a button pusher. And quite frankly even at £181 it’s a hefty price to pay just to push a button😉
Happy snappin’ folks
Meter the Light 