| Reading the Manual Does anyone actually read the manual supplied by the camera manufacturer?
I finally popped for a 1Ds Mk III ($7,399 at B&H) and was reading the manual this morning (before doing anything with the camera) and pulled up short on page 2.
Right there, third heading… Test the Camera Before Using
After shooting, playback and check the image whether it has been properly recorded.
If the camera or memory card is faulty and the images cannot be recorded or downloaded to the personal computer, Canon cannot be held liable for any loss or inconvenience caused.
The next heading is: Copyrights. Notice the terrible formatting.
Aside from the fact that the first sentence is an incomplete sentence and the definite article ‘the’ before ‘personal computer’ in the second sentence should be an indefinite article ‘a’, this could leave one to believe that Canon washes their hands of any and all responsibility for correcting problems when the images are corrupted, even if the fault is with the camera body!
I know what they are saying: Canon cannot be held liable for the loss of any images resulting from defective equipment, theirs or the maker of the memory card. That is reasonable.
However, they might have been a little more reassuring with something like the following… Test the Camera Before Using
After the initial test shots have been played back and checked on the LCD panel you should verify that the images have been properly recorded on the memory card before using the camera.
To verify that the images have been correctly recorded you need to download the image files to a personal computer. If the files cannot be viewed in appropriate software on a personal computer Canon cannot be held liable for the loss of the images but Canon will gladly repair or replace the camera if it is defective.
…I have found other places in the manual where a more verbose definition or explanation would have been very helpful. Maybe I’m just too old for my own good anymore but these things just jump off the page at me. |