The September 2023 course book was expanded from 216 pages to 286 pages, with revised pages and new inserts, so I didn’t have to reprint the entire book six times. Prior to the workshop, I emailed the tools section of the course book to the attendees, and they collected the course book a day before the workshop, to familiarise the course contents and to save some time. They also took the course book to read after that first day, as I first did on the September 2023 workshop.
On the evening before the workshop, an attendee came early to help me to set up the tables and chairs, which was greatly appreciated. Others came later also offered to help, but their assistance was no longer needed.
One attendee couldn’t bring a F2 body to the workshop, so I sold him an unserviced one by prior arrangement. Another attendee found his F2 body had a split shutter curtain during the workshop, so I also sold him an unserviced one.
The attendees followed the course book by themselves, and I helped them whenever they had problems. There was no bottleneck, because when the two shutter testers were occupied, other attendees followed later sections of the course book, eg to refoam their F2 bodies. However, I noted a few improvements and expansions are still needed in course book.
Since I corresponded with an attendee on auto collimators prior to the workshop, I showed him my Gokosha auto collimators and other items.
The May 2024 workshop was the fastest so far, because none of the F2 bodies had major issues, and everybody completely serviced their F2 bodies by 3.30pm. There was enough time for us to pack everything up and for me to take all of my belongings back home by 5.00pm.
Five of us went to the regular local Chinese restaurant at 5.30pm for the end of course meal.
After the workshop, three of the attendees booked another workshop.
Feedbacks from the attendees :
Thank you for giving this workshop, I learned a lot of it and it was very nice. I am very grateful that you shared your knowledge about the Nikon F2.
Thanks so much, and especially for the great and inspiring workshop! I totally feel like getting to start on my other five F2’s now! I learned a lot and the way it was built up around the book and lots of practice was very good.
For me the course was pretty straight forward. Thanks again for this experience. I enjoyed it very much.
I enjoyed the course very much. It was very good value for money, well worth travelling from Belgium to attend, and I was happy to return home with a serviced F2 in an ‘as new’ working condition!
The evolving manual is very thorough and clear. However, you need to be able to review it thoroughly well before the course starts, not the night before, or in our case, on Friday evening: there simply is not enough time and while the manual is comprehensive, you really need to have the camera you’re working on in front of you - OR have some supporting instructional video material.
You also mentioned many times during the two days, 'just follow the manual'. However, for non-engineers / technicians i.e. lay people, the manual / terminology can be quite intimidating and many people prefer to be shown - hence my preference for video instruction supported by written material. However, I really appreciated you always being on hand to help out when needed.
