Why do Nikon bother producing 'non-printable' manuals??

"Chris H" wrote in message
...
In message , tony cooper
writes
On Sat, 16 Aug 2008 17:23:15 +0100, Chris H
wrote:
..

What happens if I move to the USA. I have several Nikon Cameras, bought in
the UK though Official Nikon UK channels and registered with Nikon. Can I
get Nikon US to service/support them?

Would it work the other way... if you moved to the UK with your Nikons
purchased though official Nikon US channels?

Your warranty would be honored in the US by Nikon *IF* you could provide
proof of purchase such as a sales receipt.
A camera purchased from an authorized Nikon USA retailer will carry two
warranties. One for use inside the US and one world wide warranty for use
outside the US. Both warranties require proof of purchase.

On Sat, 16 Aug 2008 15:38:45 +0100, Dave wrote:

I don't believe anyone who wanted to breach Nikon's copyright would have
too much trouble getting hold of a manual they could print. It will be a
bit of an inconvenience to those who just want to print it (or, as in my
case, some pages from it), and present no problem to someone who wanted
to rip it off.

The roadblock to getting a printable Nikon manual isn't quite a
onerous as it appears at first glance. The only requirement seems
to be to purchase *any* Nikon product that has printing and
non-printing manuals online. Once you satisfy the requirements for
that product, using a bit of standard "cookie" magic, Nikon will
allow printable manuals for other non-owned cameras to be
downloaded. I doubt that I'll ever want to print a sizeable portion
of any of Nikon's manuals, but the printable manuals allow text to
be copied, which can be useful. I've never owned a D3 or D700, yet
am able to paste a quote of this information from page 59 of the
D700's manual :

FX format
(36x24)
Images are recorded in FX
format using the full area of the
image sensor (36.0 × 23.9 mm),
producing a picture angle
equivalent to a Nikkor lens on a
35 mm format camera. The
edges of pictures taken with DX
format lenses will be blacked
out.

DX format
(24x16)
An area at the center of the
image sensor 23.5 × 15.6 mm
(shown by the DX format crop
in the viewfinder) is used to
record pictures in DX format.
To calculate the approximate
focal length of the lens in
35 mm format, multiply by 1.5.

Chris H wrote:

What happens if I move to the USA. I have several Nikon Cameras, bought
in the UK though Official Nikon UK channels and registered with Nikon.
Can I get Nikon US to service/support them?

Would it work the other way... if you moved to the UK with your Nikons
purchased though official Nikon US channels?

It's not that big a deal to send it back to the country you bought it in
for repairs.

--
Paul Furman
www.edgehill.net
www.baynatives.com

all google groups messages filtered due to spam

This post is off-topic for this newsgroup, rec.photo.equipment.35mm,
which is concerned with film cameras that use 35mm film, not digital
cameras that look like 35mm SLRs.

OoK. A Netkop.

Fi.

Without wishing to appear unduly cynical, I think you'll find
the same applies to around 90%* of the material posted on UseNet.
However laudable may have been the intentions of the poster.


michael adams

* That was a figure arrived at as a result of my last 2yr Research
Project on this particular topic. You can trust me on this one.

Yebbut, you're well known as being a bit of a ****.

Fee.

ASAAR wrote:

The roadblock to getting a printable Nikon manual isn't quite a
onerous as it appears at first glance. The only requirement seems
to be to purchase *any* Nikon product that has printing and
non-printing manuals online.

Not even that - just go to the European site. No need to have any
equipment registered.

It really is hard to see what Nikon achieve by this.

1) They have to pay staff to generate the two manuals - of course I am
aware it only needs them saved different ways, but it still needs to be
done.

2) They have to keep two copies on a web server.

3) The web pages must describe all the reasons, have different links.

4) The web server must perform a lookup in a database to see what people
own.

5) It could cause a bit of annoyance to someone who is not too computer
literate.

6) Someone who is considering buying their first Nikon, might be a bit
miffed they can't print a manual.

7) It generates posts to newsgroups like this one.

Then tell me what this really gains Nikon?

In message , Dave writes
ASAAR wrote:

The roadblock to getting a printable Nikon manual isn't quite a
onerous as it appears at first glance. The only requirement seems
to be to purchase *any* Nikon product that has printing and
non-printing manuals online.

Not even that - just go to the European site. No need to have any
equipment registered.

It really is hard to see what Nikon achieve by this.

Not Nikon but Nikon-US

--
\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
\/\/\/\/\ Chris Hills Staffs England /\/\/\/\/
\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/

Chris H wrote:

It really is hard to see what Nikon achieve by this.

Not Nikon but Nikon-US


So what do Nikon US achieve?

Do you believe it protects them against copyright infringement, which is
the reason they say they do it?

Do you really believe it would stop someone buying a gray import and
saving them self money, because they can't print a manual from the US
site? (Recall they can print it from Acrobat reader on Solaris, Evince
on Solaris, or download a copy from the European site.)

Dave wrote:

A far more effective way to stop these 'gray imports' would be to sell
the products for the same price in each country.

The only reason I did not get my D3 from outside the UK was that is was
more money than I was willing to risk. But for a £500-£1000 lens I would
not think twice about it if the savings were sufficiently large.

A company like B&H will warrant gray market equipment if the
manufacturer refuses to repair it. Canon has no problem with repair gray
market equipment, in or out of warranty, while Nikon U.S. won't repair
it at all, even if you're willing to pay for service.

The manual thing is just weird. I ran into this when I was trying to
provide some phone support to a help someone with a Nikon camera.
Fortunately I have a program that removes printing restrictions from PDF
files, but I had to find it which was a challenge for me as I hadn't
used it in years.

Dave wrote:
Chris H wrote:

It really is hard to see what Nikon achieve by this.

Not Nikon but Nikon-US


So what do Nikon US achieve?

Do you believe it protects them against copyright infringement, which is
the reason they say they do it?

Do you really believe it would stop someone buying a gray import and
saving them self money, because they can't print a manual from the US
site? (Recall they can print it from Acrobat reader on Solaris, Evince
on Solaris, or download a copy from the European site.)

Nikon U.S. is too great for anyone to understand. Just don't buy any
Nikon equipment while traveling outside the U.S. and expect to get any
support from Nikon U.S., even non-warranty service at your own expense.

Nikon U.S. is a separate company from Nikon, and they have their own
strange ways of alienating both current and potential Nikon customers.