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The "How to digital photography" guides are more like a cookbook, which tells you what steps to follow to get a result, where this is more like a technical refe

The "How to digital photography" guides are more like a cookbook, which tells you what steps to follow to get a result, where this is more like a technical reference, that tells you what the camera is doing and why you'd want to take a given action to get a certain result. Personally, I don't consider myself to really understand a subject until I find (or reverse-engineer for my own use) a good technical reference: I might be able to get results, but if the black magic doesn't work as expected, I'm stuck calling someone who does understand the 'why'. I suppose a better question might be why hasn't Panasonic updated this guide? I don't think the subject matter has been nearly constant enough. What about Panasonic might have had the finances and institutional willpower to task a group of engineers, web developers, and technical writers/drafters with the job of creating this, but not had the power to keep it updated or recreate it today? It's very old - are their customers all 15-year veterans who got into the field needing this reference, but subsequently kept informed of news developments with piecemeal updates?

hug 6y ago
> I suppose a better question might be why hasn't Panasonic updated this guide? Because, in a general sense, it's completely unnecessary. Cameras are used in the exact same way these days that they were 25 years ago. All of the knobs and dials are the same, they just go to 11 now. Almost everything about even a fairly modern camera is covered, including going so far as colour filter arrays and demosaicing, which is stuff that the vast majority of photographers don't concern themselves with -- but if you do need the intro to it, it's there. There's a few small anachronisms, and those anachronisms mean absolutely nothing to even the most technical of end users: The best example is their statement that CCDs are more common than CMOS sensors: Not anymore, but also the exact electrical mechanism by which the light is picked up is useless information for anyone reading the guide: By the time you are so deep in the weeds that the difference between a CMOS & CCD matters to you, you're not reading 101-level guides from a consumer camera manufacturer.

hug 6y ago

> I suppose a better question might be why hasn't Panasonic updated this guide? Because, in a general sense, it's completely unnecessary. Cameras are used in the exact same way these days that they were 25 years ago. All of the knobs and dials are the same, they just go to 11 now. Almost everything about even a fairly modern camera is covered, including going so far as colour filter arrays and demosaicing, which is stuff that the vast majority of photographers don't concern themselves with -- but if you do need the intro to it, it's there. There's a few small anachronisms, and those anachronisms mean absolutely nothing to even the most technical of end users: The best example is their statement that CCDs are more common than CMOS sensors: Not anymore, but also the exact electrical mechanism by which the light is picked up is useless information for anyone reading the guide: By the time you are so deep in the weeds that the difference between a CMOS & CCD matters to you, you're not reading 101-level guides from a consumer camera manufacturer.