RTFM Where is My Owner’s Manual?

by Jon Wason   copyright 2012

Back in 1901 if you had a dollar to spend on a frivolous luxury you could buy a Kodak Brownie camera. Even though the advertisements claimed the camera was so simple “any schoolboy or girl can make good pictures with the Brownie Camera” it came with a 44-page instruction booklet.  

More than a hundred years later, cameras still come with a manual and people still don’t read them. However, there are benefits to reading your camera manual or the manuals for any other mechanical devices.

The initials RTFM stand for “Read The Fine Manual” – or something like that. I think perhaps the angry retort, “RTFM, you idiot!” can be traced back to frustrated computer help desk employees, but that is just a hunch. Anyhow, my advice is just invest a few minutes and read the manual. After that put in your camera bag so in some future date when you are out in the field shooting some interesting subject and need to adjust something on your camera, you can easily retrieve the manual and find the answer. If the manual is back at home with the box the camera arrived in you are out of luck.

Many people purchase a new camera, excitedly open the box, remove the wonder of modern technology and never even open the manual, much less read it cover to cover.

I can’t recall how many times I was at wedding shooting all the events of the day and a person approached to ask me how to operate their camera. They ask, “Hey can you show me how to turn on the flash? I just got this camera,” or “Do you know how to change the shutter speed?” I did my best to help them but they were making two mistakes. The first was assuming that because I am a wedding photographer I know how to operate every camera. The second mistake was not learning how to use their camera. The best remedy for that one is to read the manual.

A few minutes spent looking at boring little booklet can pay off later with better photos.


HERE IS A LINK TO A SHORT VIDEO ABOUT F-STOPS:


http://youtu.be/FBJLg77daP8