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A small rant...

Barbara

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Hi all, a small rant about DJI's lack of detailed docmentation when it comes to their users manuals. I have frequently found that details are missed or explanations are so cursory, they tell you nothing.

For example, on my M2Z, when I in Auto mode for video you can use the 5D button to adjust the exposure compensation or AE (default configuration), and you can lock the AEsetting. All as documented in the manual. When you switch to manual mode, the same 5D button now controls the shutter speed and you cannot lock the AE setting. I could find no reference to this in the manual.

I've always been friends with the Auto settings when it came to cameras, having never owned anything too sophisticated. The Spark was simple and gave me the experience I needed to simply fly the aircraft. My new M2Z (less than a week old) is probably the fanciest camera I've owned and that's why I bought it. I'm hoping to learn how to be a better vieogrpher/photographer. However it doesn't help when the documentation sucks.

Rant over....

Oh, and I find this forum to be extremely helpful, you just have to ask the right questions.
 
Hi all, a small rant about DJI's lack of detailed docmentation when it comes to their users manuals. I have frequently found that details are missed or explanations are so cursory, they tell you nothing.

For example, on my M2Z, when I in Auto mode for video you can use the 5D button to adjust the exposure compensation or AE (default configuration), and you can lock the AEsetting. All as documented in the manual. When you switch to manual mode, the same 5D button now controls the shutter speed and you cannot lock the AE setting. I could find no reference to this in the manual.

I've always been friends with the Auto settings when it came to cameras, having never owned anything too sophisticated. The Spark was simple and gave me the experience I needed to simply fly the aircraft. My new M2Z (less than a week old) is probably the fanciest camera I've owned and that's why I bought it. I'm hoping to learn how to be a better vieogrpher/photographer. However it doesn't help when the documentation sucks.

Rant over....

Oh, and I find this forum to be extremely helpful, you just have to ask the right questions.
I do agree with you in some sections of the manual. However i think it is a very fine line for any company (not just DJI) when it comes to documentation. You can go way too sparse and the manual is useless. You can go way too verbose and then no one even attempts to read it because it is "too big". I for one would prefer more details as long as it is well written and properly organized.

I see it all the time with documentation both in my profession and with drones. I see it often here where forum members ask simple questions which are very adequately covered in the manual (how does RTH work, or why are batteries warm after you store them fully charged for a few days?) and they refuse to read the manual, even as short and concise as it is. And my rant is that if you point some of them to the manual, they call you rude or ask why you can't just answer the question!!

In regard to that last point, companies know that most people will never read the manual, so why put extended effort and lots of funding into something that is not used? I still agree fully with you but I see why it is purposely as concise as possible.
 
Hi Barbara! I have the M2P and enjoy flying it ! Unfortunately I’m not that into the photography part of its capabilities and hope to learn more in coming time !
The only advice I can give you is watching YouTube videos on the subject and of course you made a good choice by posting your question on this forum ! There are many knowledgeable pilots here and I’m sure you’ll get some good answers ! Good luck , have fun and be safe !!
 
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I do agree with you in some sections of the manual. However i think it is a very fine line for any company (not just DJI) when it comes to documentation. You can go way too sparse and the manual is useless. You can go way too verbose and then no one even attempts to read it because it is "too big". I for one would prefer more details as long as it is well written and properly organized.

I see it all the time with documentation both in my profession and with drones. I see it often here where forum members ask simple questions which are very adequately covered in the manual (how does RTH work, or why are batteries warm after you store them fully charged for a few days?) and they refuse to read the manual, even as short and concise as it is. And my rant is that if you point some of them to the manual, they call you rude or ask why you can't just answer the question!!

In regard to that last point, companies know that most people will never read the manual, so why put extended effort and lots of funding into something that is not used? I still agree fully with you but I see why it is purposely as concise as possible.
You are right about writing manuals. I worked for a National Standards organization and authored my share of procedures and manuals for internal use. It's always a trade off between too detailed and too general. I tended towards the detailed side. I've been told it's my German heritage....

But in my example, an extra sentence is all that would have been required. In auto mode - this, in manual made - that.

Oh well, it's a good thing I'm retired now so I can spend endless hours reading manuals, watching Youtube videos and playing around with my toys....
 
Hi Barbara! I have the M2P and enjoy flying it ! Unfortunately I’m not that into the photography part of its capabilities and hope to learn more in coming time !
The only advice I can give you is watching YouTube videos on the subject and of course you made a good choice by posting your question on this forum ! There are many knowledgeable pilots here and I’m sure you’ll get some good answers ! Good luck , have fun and be safe !!
Yes, many hours of Youtube videos by many self proclaimed experts. I must be enjoying myself, considering how much time I've been devoting to this. That or there is something drastically wrong with me ;o)
 
To be honest, with most things, I don't bother reading the manual. I'd rather watch informative videos that demonstrate clearly and quickly how to do something instead of read pages of text which tries to explain the same thing. The more complex that "thing" is, demonstration is a lot more efficient than explanation in text form.

For example, I can't imagine how to write a book to explain Adobe Premiere Pro. (I'm sure it's been done though). But for me, it's much easier to just watch a video to learn about the specific functionality I want to learn. Whether it's colour correction, cutting, transitions etc...
 
in all fairness to DJI with regards to the online manuals, for me the main thing to grasp is the flight characteristics and the control of the aircraft by the RC also the info about the APP
with regards to the photography side of things ,then settings and control of the camera is a whole separate subject, and i think that the manual does lack info on that side of things,
photography is a very subjective thing and what may please one person ,may not be pleasing to another, each individual will have their own settings for what they consider to be correct
 
I'd rather watch informative videos that demonstrate clearly and quickly how to do something instead of read pages of text which tries to explain the same thing.
Ahhh those are the KEY words there though...CLEARLY AND QUICKLY. Unfortunately too many YouTube presenters/authors have totally lost touch with how to present a topic in a concise way. They are too concerned with a glitzy intro, their own face on camera or telling stories about how their dog did something interesting, instead of getting to the point! I've seen so many videos where they take 10 minutes to discuss a topic that could have been covered in 30 seconds. That is way more frustrating than just reading the manual.
 
To be honest, with most things, I don't bother reading the manual. I'd rather watch informative videos that demonstrate clearly and quickly how to do something instead of read pages of text which tries to explain the same thing. The more complex that "thing" is, demonstration is a lot more efficient than explanation in text form.

For example, I can't imagine how to write a book to explain Adobe Premiere Pro. (I'm sure it's been done though). But for me, it's much easier to just watch a video to learn about the specific functionality I want to learn. Whether it's colour correction, cutting, transitions etc...
I like watching informative videos too. Some are incredibly useful. Some are just time I'll never get back. I still like manuals though. I can search them using keywords, bookmark items of interest and refer back to them whenever I need to. Guess I'm old-school that way.
 
in all fairness to DJI with regards to the online manuals, for me the main thing to grasp is the flight characteristics and the control of the aircraft by the RC also the info about the APP
with regards to the photography side of things ,then settings and control of the camera is a whole separate subject, and i think that the manual does lack info on that side of things,
photography is a very subjective thing and what may please one person ,may not be pleasing to another, each individual will have their own settings for what they consider to be correct
I agree about photography being subjective. But the mechanics of controlling the camera settings are critical. While surprises in camera operation may not be as catastrophic as surprises with the aircraft controls......

I look at this whole thing as a learning experience. I have the time.
 
Ahhh those are the KEY words there though...CLEARLY AND QUICKLY. Unfortunately too many YouTube presenters/authors have totally lost touch with how to present a topic in a concise way. They are too concerned with a glitzy intro, their own face on camera or telling stories about how their dog did something interesting, instead of getting to the point! I've seen so many videos where they take 10 minutes to discuss a topic that could have been covered in 30 seconds. That is way more frustrating than just reading the manual.
Agreed. There are some very good professional video tutorials out there and much click bate. DJI has some good tutorials, but not enough to cover every aspect of their vast ever changing line of products. In the past I've purchased huge third party dead tree manuals for software (Photoshop, Excel....), but they are expensive and the trend to having new versions of software being released every other day....

So I like manuals, and good informative videos.
 
Like anything, there are good manuals and bad one's (or so so) and same for videos, however there is usually only "one' manual or small set of them for a drone.

However, There are slews and slews of videos, again, some good, some bad. if you see something in a video thats contradicted in another, there are places like this to sort that out..

I glossed over the manuals, I learned most of my flying from videos.. whether thats good, bad or indifferent, is up for debate. I've never crashed any of my drones yet and try to avoid situations that are perhaps extraordinarily risky.

You can learn from reading some of the threads that are "I crashed, what did I do wrong" and then the analysis from the logs can add to things to know when perhaps things do go wrong or situations to avoid all together..
 
One of the problems with manuals is that many people who write software are what we used to call "spaghetti coders". I have seen pages of complex C++ code from what I would consider a highly qualified programmer - without a comment line at all.
Spaghetti code (Spaghetti code - Wikipedia) can be fast and efficient, but when someone other than the original programmer tries to document it and/or maintain it life becomes much more complicated.
Than the person documenting the code has constraints on time and money and many things get missed.
Than the person documenting the functionality of the software to put it in an end user manual misses more things and has more deadlines.

If programmers were forced to write code that was well documented we would have a lot less code.
It's a great tradeoff between good manuals and inexpensive tech that works.

We are all Beta testers.
 
I like watching the videos, but if you are spending more than 10 seconds on an intro logo, then you spent too much time on it. I get the need to brand yourself, but less is more.
 
To be honest....I’ve always heard people with mechanical aptitude never read manuals. I have to re-read it daily it seems but your post was on the money IMHO
Keep up the good work:)

I'm not sure about mechanical aptitude lol...

I guess I just find it easier to learn from example and demonstration than book learning. It's how I learnt very complicated games too (Europa Universalis 4)... so I guess I am used to searching on YouTube for most problems. The key is, as others have mentioned, finding high quality guides. The like/dislike ratio is often a good indicator.

I actually built my own desktop PC entirely through following a YouTube build guide, with zero IT experience. I just tried my best to keep my build as close to the demonstration as possible to minimize the risk of a mistake. Was quite proud that I managed to build a gaming PC for £1200 that'd cost over £2000 if I bought from Alienware or something.

But mechanical aptitude? Give me an IKEA furniture set with some instruction manuals... I probably will screw it up. ???
 
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I do agree with you in some sections of the manual. However i think it is a very fine line for any company (not just DJI) when it comes to documentation. You can go way too sparse and the manual is useless. You can go way too verbose and then no one even attempts to read it because it is "too big". I for one would prefer more details as long as it is well written and properly organized.

I see it all the time with documentation both in my profession and with drones. I see it often here where forum members ask simple questions which are very adequately covered in the manual (how does RTH work, or why are batteries warm after you store them fully charged for a few days?) and they refuse to read the manual, even as short and concise as it is. And my rant is that if you point some of them to the manual, they call you rude or ask why you can't just answer the question!!

In regard to that last point, companies know that most people will never read the manual, so why put extended effort and lots of funding into something that is not used? I still agree fully with you but I see why it is purposely as concise as possible.
to be fair I and most would want you to answer the question whether the info was available else where or not. Surely that is what the forum is for and if you don’t want to answer don’t -There could be a rafter of reasons that they haven’t consulted the manual - They may have already and didn’t understand It or wanted support or reassurance from a friendly and helpful Drone community -Surely there is No need to bust somebody’s balls over the head of it - You’re under no obligation to help or respond
 
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Several points on the manual and video learning. Video works well when you want to learn a specific thing about a specific sub activity.

The manual is far more useful when you want to know how the entire system works. In my experience I discover additional functionality that I didn’t know existed.

The biggest problem with videos is that they are often wrong or misleading, reflecting the videographer’s opinions rather than fact.

No video that I have seen actually describes adequately how the flight system actually works, nor does the DJI Manual. SAR104 published the only essay that does this adequately.
 
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