Money Back Guarantee
If you are not completely satisfied. Just return your purchase, within 30 days.
We can send you a replacement or refund less shipping charges.
Sorry but Downloads and Service Manual / Owner Manual PDFs are not refundable.
All CDs are converted from image files to PDF format which can be viewed with
Adobe Acrobat Reader. Its free, very easy to install and use. If you
need Acrobat Reader click
here.
Frequently Asked Questions
Please check for your question here first. I have
compiled this list of answers to some of the common questions you have asked
many times.
-
Why were supplements suggested when I was completing my online order?
-
Would a repair manual be of any use to me as a substitute for an owner’s or user’s manual?
-
I have purchased copies before that were barely legible. Why should I buy from you?
1- Do you have a web site or a printed
catalog?
USCamera.com has been up and running since 1996. I am
currently giving it a major overhaul to make it easier to navigate and offer more free information and advice available to the customer.
Nix on the catalog. I currently have over 2000 owners
manuals, service manuals and parts lists. I am scanning everyday.
When I finally have most of them available for immediate shipment, I will
produce a list and make it available for download.
This will be posted on the site as soon as it becomes available.
2-
Do
you accept credit cards?
We use PayPal.com and Authorize.net as secure credit card service providers for our customer using credit cards with US and International addresses.
3- I don’t need the complete service
manual – just a few pages of it. Can you sell me just the pages I need?
Been there and done that. Not anymore, I am sorry.
It would be easier just to giveaway the manual.
CDs listed are ready to be shipped. It takes me more time
to locate the required pages, convert them to PDF format and put them on a disc
than it would for me supply you with complete CD.
Each instance I tried this, the customer had not completely described the
problem and/or problem area and/or found additional problems and additional
pages were required.
Please just buy the CD they are substantially less than an average repair charge for parts and labor.
4-
Why are some manuals inexpensive and others very expensive?
The main factor in the price of a owners or service manual
is the number of pages to be scanned, since that is the main factor in how long
it takes to acquire all the images.
Some manuals contain many oversized (typically 11x17 inch
pages) that must be assembled on one page for viewing.
This can take as long as 15 minutes per page, in some cases this is also
a factor in the pricing of some manuals. For a few manuals, the pricing is
affected by the scarcity or and demand for the original manual, since this
determines what I had to pay for the original manual. For example, a 50 page
manual takes approximately 3 – 4 hours from start to finish. If that manual
sells several times a week, it will definitely cost less than a 50 page manual
that sells twice a year.
Prices range from $6 for some simple parts manuals having
only a few pages to $60 for the
complete repair manual for a Hasselblad 500 C/M.
My prices are, in most cases, are lower than today’s
prices for CD manuals (photocopies or printed originals) obtained from the
manufacturer.
Since Leica and Hasselblad customers pay more for their
equipment than most, I did increase the resolution on those manufacturers pages
to equal (in my opinion) the quality of the equipment.
Since they took longer to scan and assemble I am charging a little more
for those.
This primarily applies only to owner’s manuals. The only
color used in some service manuals is for wiring diagrams.
When I have purchased owner’s manuals as copies, I
noticed that it was very difficult or impossible, at times, to see where lines
directed me to button or a lever for the particular operation or feature in
question. When I looked at original
manuals I saw they were in color for a reason.
The manufacturers used color to highlight the area they were discussing.
They also used colored lines to point you to the area they were
describing. I could see no reason
to scan in black and white since we were only talking about file size. With color scans you will get a manual as the manufacturer
intended them to be.
Color or B&W takes the same amount of time to scan and
adjust.
6- A lens came on my camera from the
factory, as a kit, but it is not in the service manual or parts list for the
camera.
Service information on lenses is generally sold separately
from camera service manuals. Camera service manuals may or may not have
information on the lenses included with your camera, but are usually not.
Most camera service manuals only include information on the model listed
only. Exceptions are Mamiya and
Nikon who have started to include some common and popular included accessories
with your camera, finders, film holders and film backs, for instance. We try to
show you those, as attributes when you check out, if any are recommended or
required.
As a general rule, the following are not included
in the factory repair manual for a camera:
1)
An owners or user's manual, or information regarding use of the camera or
other piece of equipment.
2) Repair information for lenses
3)
Repair information for film magazines, accessory finders and other
accessories.
7- Why were supplements suggested when I was
completing my online order?
Depending on the production year of the equipment, many
technicians are primarily interested only in part numbers to correctly identify
and order the correct parts accurately by part number.
However as manufacturer’s improved earlier designs, instead of creating
new equipment lines (not very common today), minor changes were made and only a
supplement would be available to show the changed parts and their locations.
Nikon FM, FM2, FE, FE2 and Minolta’s SRT series are only
two examples. Many parts were interchangeable and in some cases, only a few were
different. The body casting on any Minolta SRT camera is virtually identical and
they accept many of the same parts or accessories. Yet they had at over 20
different models and at least 9 supplements.
As an example, you must have the original SRT 101 service manual to
service and understand any of the SRT series cameras functions and operation. In
addition the complete parts list will show you all the parts, exploded views and
changes from model to model.
8- Operator information ?
As
a camera or equipment user/operator, the owner’s manual is your reference and
information resource, not a service manual or parts list.
9- Where Can I download a manual?
Currently
we don’t offer that yet but looking into it.
Our biggest problem is some of these owners and service manuals are quite
large files. If you didn’t have a
DSL or faster Internet connection you could be downloading for hours even if we
win-zipped the file. Keep checking our website, we will advertise it there first.
10- Would a repair manual be of any use to
me as a substitute for an owner’s or user’s manual?
No.
Repair manuals are of very little use to a camera owner.
Information is of technical nature and not much information is directed
towards the equipments use and application.
11- Repair manual or parts
list or owners manual? or What is the difference in a service manual and a parts
manual?
Different manufacturers follow different
practices regarding the information and format of their repair manuals.
Different manufacturers use different terms or nomenclature for parts in the
titles of their manuals.
Generally, a parts manual
includes at least two things: exploded views and a complete list of all parts
that are used in the camera. Many
also include tools required and wiring diagrams and/or schematics. Parts manuals
rarely, but on occasion, may include very limited repair information. Parts
manuals are, depending on the manufacturer, also called exploded views, parts
diagrams, parts lists, and parts catalogs.
**A service manual is where the
adjustments, service and repair instructions are found. They generally include
troubleshooting charts, tools required, test information, lubrication charts and
other information required in accurately servicing that particular model. Some
include duplicate exploded views, detailed sections on both disassembly and
reassembly. These manuals may be titled Service Manual, Service Instructions,
Repair Manual or even Service Information.
Instead of issuing separate service and parts
manuals, some manufacturers issue a single manual that provides all information
needed to repair or service a camera. This practice is becoming more common in
the era of electronic cameras, since a parts manual is not adequate to service
these more complex cameras. Again, if this is the case, we will try list any
additions, which apply to your purchase when you check out online.
12- I have purchased copies
before that were barely legible. Why should I buy from you?
Well, I tried everything I could think of and everything the
high-tech people I know in the computer business could recommend, to give you
the best scans possible. I have scanned over 200,000 pages and photographs.
What I found was:
1)
Most of the scans that I
have purchased and used from manufacturers and other suppliers were poor at the very
best. Many were concerned primarily with file size instead of quality.
2)
The paper, that the
original printers used, when the manuals were originally produced, varied widely
and the scan quality suffered at times. Especially with older manuals.
3)
Almost every image
and
page I scanned, needed to be digitally adjusted for best viewing and printing.
Some as long as 5 minutes worth of adjusts before I was happy.
4)
I found, for inkjet
printing, Ilford gallery paper, approximately 100 sheets for $8.00, produced a
premium image, but any paper gave excellent results.
Any paper worked well in laser or dot matrix printers
5)
The manufacturers did not
make manuals, with attention towards the quality and detail required for their
information to be duplicated as scan or photocopy. The main factor in the
quality of a particular scan is the quality of the original manual. Some people
assume that repair manuals and owner’s manuals were printed with the same
accuracy and quality as a book publisher. Camera manufacturers are not in the
booklet or manual business. They
sell cameras.
6)
You will not see some
makes and models available. We
found some original manuals so poorly produced that age had made them nearly
impossible to read. Even digitally improving them was much better but not very
legible. Hence they were not worth scanning because we could not save them, yet.
If digital technology keeps improving we may have them available in the
future. We will post this info to our site as soon as they become available.
7)
The quality of printing
of original repair and owners manuals varies considerably. We have found that
generally Hasselblad, Minolta, Canon and Nikon produce the highest quality.
But there are certain manuals from these that are not great quality.
8)
At US Camera, we only
scan original manuals as purchased from the manufacturer. Some manufacturers now
only supply their service and parts information on CD.
9)
Also please note that
service manuals were generally purchased by repair shops or technicians.
Where a consumer would buy an owner’s manual and stick in a drawer for
years never using it, technicians would use their manuals often, sometimes
daily. To find a manual, for a popular model that is 20 years old and never been
used is very, very rare. Most have
been open, closed and used thousands of times. We digitally touched up some that
were damaged in some way, to give them a clean appearance.
I occasionally
look at scans from prior’s months and think that I could surely do better, so
I re-scan some. Some were a little better and most are not.
Most all scans are
only 8-bit color or black and white to keep the file size down.
Also since we were working with screen primary colors and screen printed
black and white, I saw very little difference when the pages were scanned in
24-bit color or more.
I printed pages
from many different manuals on photo inkjet printers, laser printers and dot
matrix. The dot printers were the
worst but still acceptable if printed as a graphic.
Settings ranged from 360dpi to 880 x1440 and all produced very readable
results. In all reality I did not see any noticeable difference if using 720dpi
x 720dpi or 880dpi x 1440 dpi on inkjet printers or laser printers at 600dpi or
better.
Some of my scans,
mostly in service, are from microfiche. We brought those scans in at no less
than 2400dpi optical and manipulated them from there.
Adobe acrobat reader was very poor if you scanned the image there and built a file with those scans. I could not manipulate the image without exporting the file to another program and importing back into Adobe after it was adjusted. Too much time was involved for that. It was much easier to scan in through a photo program and then import to Adobe when it was ready for assembling as one big file.
I have never seen a factory
repair manual for a camera that was printed in full color. Later production
equipment around 1974, when more electronics and wiring were introduced, colored
wiring diagrams were included in some service and parts list.
Mostly Pentax.
As late as the early to mid-1970’s, some
manufacturers printed repair manuals that looked like blueprints. This applies
to some early manuals from Kowa, Mamiya, Miranda and Tokyo Optical (Topcon).
Although they were printed in blue ink, they were printed on paper with a high
wood pulp content that tends to discolor over time. While these scans are
perfectly legible, these manuals tend to have light colored backgrounds instead
of white, because of the discoloration of the paper.
Any paper manual purchased from Nikon today
will be a photocopy or CD while the vast majority of manuals obtained from
Minolta and Mamiya will be either photocopied or quick printed.
I have seen factory "photocopied
original" manuals of such low quality that they are useless for reprinting
and border on being illegible in some places. I have also seen reprints
purchased from others on EBAY that appear to be several generations removed from
the original.
Also please note that many owners manuals
were inserted in the factory box with the equipment and folded in half or thirds
at the factory. If the customer did
not ever use them they could have been folded for years. You will notice that
sometimes the scan will show a gray area or shadow, in some cases where the
folds were. This is to be expected
but all the information printed will be completely legible.
13- What if I need parts?
Where can I find repair tools?
Search on the internet for camera parts or
hand tools and many sources will be returned. I don’t currently endorse any
company for service personally and have found the manufacturers no more or less
accurate than a good shop who has the proper/current production test instruments
and qualified technicians.
14- Do you repair cameras or
know someone who does?
I only repair my own cameras. I am working on some small service articles and will post them to this site as soon as they become available.
At this time, I only sell external parts, which includes back covers, top covers and battery doors for the most popular equipment. Foam Light seals are also available for the most popular cameras of the 70's thru the 90's. We are currently negotiating with a closing service center to acquire their inventory of parts and manuals. Check our site, we will list it there first.
15- The manual I need isn't listed.
Then just email me. I will check availability and get right back to you. Chances are very good I can scan it and have it ready to ship within a couple of days.
16- Can I cut and paste the photos and text?
No. I capture the pages as a graphic and adjust for the best balance between text readability and image viewing. I have tried OCR programs and they just don't do well with photo words (i.e. Exacta usually is named exactly). I would have to spend more time correcting the errors than if I had just typed the whole manual myself. Again, even if I used OCR on the text and then grabbed the photos or diagrams and built those pages it would cost more time than it is worth. I would have days in processing each manual. I still keep looking for a better way to do this and increase the quality.
