03-26-2017, 09:26 AM
No.
In my everyday routine, this is normality. In our office we're two guys writing manuals for machinery. Only 4 different series with different modifications, options and also hardware differences, leading to different behaviour and maintenance. The manuals we publish are full of descriptions and procedural instructions which are plain wrong today and were plain right only months ago. If you know a recipe how to change them in real time, with all the influences it has to the rest of our drawings, texts and software procedures, we can pay you as external counsellor - but it has to be real good advice
We publish for each machine 600 pages manual for hardware, 400 for software (only the interface), another 600+ for programming, plus spareparts lists, plus electrical documentation for the system, plus installing descriptions, plus transportation advice. Only the first two documents are changing a lot, because of hardware changes and customer requests for new functions we have to listen to.
I'm sure, Nikon has the same disclaimer as we have: "Changes related to technical progress can happen at any time without notification" and progress in terms of software behaviour I've seen so much in the last 5 years that it will become a never ending story. And this is the situation in genuine language German - not to mention 8 other languages we also provide and take care for translations.
I perfectly understand your point of view, as the law is on your side - saying that (at least in Europe and here in the countries where the expression "state of contemporary technology" is a well known phrase) you can ask for rebate or refuse an item if you have no appropriate manual or a manual with lots of flaws. But since you bought on grey market, it could be a bit more difficult - and the AF-C section is how many % of the 500 pages? Nikon is not listening, not even offering an official mail-address to put such complaints in place (currently they would be drowned by mails...) I'm afraid you have to live with that flaw and try to make your own manual.
Can be interesting. I did that a couple of times for myself with VueScan software, Solmeta Geotagger (horrible manual) and others. At least, the Solmeta manual was good enough that the importer gave me a power bench for free
And that's about the ordinary payment state. As technical writer you write things nobody cares about usually, only if problems occur - and here's where the good and bad manuals come to light. You're usually too late. Last changes of the product are made before the first user hits the "PowerOn" switch.
I once read, the offices for technical documentation are independent from the manufacturer in Japan. Hard to believe. But possible. And the usual "lost in translation" stuff, like Fuji talking about "frames" in English, meaning "exposed pictures" and translating into German says "cadre" (frame of a painting or a window, door).
Yesterday I got a brandnew book of Rico Pfirstinger, German guy writing about Fuji X-T2, 120 professional tipps. It finally came out as book in German, an English ePub it was already available for longer time, sic. For tomorrow, Fuji's Kaizen firmware improvement will make some insightful observations about AF, especially AF-C, outdated. It's the first wave of 23 new functions (4 of the 33 announced are for X-Pro2 and already in X-T2), 6 more will come in May, which also affect the book.
Of course, I get used to it - but also very tired about that "progress".
I will machine the Arca socket of my Tamron 150-600 to make it fit better in my quick-release clamps - the difficult and picky FHM types. A project with clear start and end. Sometimes I need that. Because documentation is never ever finished - except the machine I describe runs out of production. Sorry for the lengthy post - my colleagues over in japan will have the same troubles.
In my everyday routine, this is normality. In our office we're two guys writing manuals for machinery. Only 4 different series with different modifications, options and also hardware differences, leading to different behaviour and maintenance. The manuals we publish are full of descriptions and procedural instructions which are plain wrong today and were plain right only months ago. If you know a recipe how to change them in real time, with all the influences it has to the rest of our drawings, texts and software procedures, we can pay you as external counsellor - but it has to be real good advice
We publish for each machine 600 pages manual for hardware, 400 for software (only the interface), another 600+ for programming, plus spareparts lists, plus electrical documentation for the system, plus installing descriptions, plus transportation advice. Only the first two documents are changing a lot, because of hardware changes and customer requests for new functions we have to listen to.
I'm sure, Nikon has the same disclaimer as we have: "Changes related to technical progress can happen at any time without notification" and progress in terms of software behaviour I've seen so much in the last 5 years that it will become a never ending story. And this is the situation in genuine language German - not to mention 8 other languages we also provide and take care for translations.
I perfectly understand your point of view, as the law is on your side - saying that (at least in Europe and here in the countries where the expression "state of contemporary technology" is a well known phrase) you can ask for rebate or refuse an item if you have no appropriate manual or a manual with lots of flaws. But since you bought on grey market, it could be a bit more difficult - and the AF-C section is how many % of the 500 pages? Nikon is not listening, not even offering an official mail-address to put such complaints in place (currently they would be drowned by mails...) I'm afraid you have to live with that flaw and try to make your own manual.
Can be interesting. I did that a couple of times for myself with VueScan software, Solmeta Geotagger (horrible manual) and others. At least, the Solmeta manual was good enough that the importer gave me a power bench for free
And that's about the ordinary payment state. As technical writer you write things nobody cares about usually, only if problems occur - and here's where the good and bad manuals come to light. You're usually too late. Last changes of the product are made before the first user hits the "PowerOn" switch. I once read, the offices for technical documentation are independent from the manufacturer in Japan. Hard to believe. But possible. And the usual "lost in translation" stuff, like Fuji talking about "frames" in English, meaning "exposed pictures" and translating into German says "cadre" (frame of a painting or a window, door).
Yesterday I got a brandnew book of Rico Pfirstinger, German guy writing about Fuji X-T2, 120 professional tipps. It finally came out as book in German, an English ePub it was already available for longer time, sic. For tomorrow, Fuji's Kaizen firmware improvement will make some insightful observations about AF, especially AF-C, outdated. It's the first wave of 23 new functions (4 of the 33 announced are for X-Pro2 and already in X-T2), 6 more will come in May, which also affect the book.
Of course, I get used to it - but also very tired about that "progress".
I will machine the Arca socket of my Tamron 150-600 to make it fit better in my quick-release clamps - the difficult and picky FHM types. A project with clear start and end. Sometimes I need that. Because documentation is never ever finished - except the machine I describe runs out of production. Sorry for the lengthy post - my colleagues over in japan will have the same troubles.