By special arrangement, the Imaging Resource is pleased to bring you a special "guest appearance" on our forums by Mike Rubin, product manager for the hugely successful Nikon Coolpix product line!

Have a question about the Coolpix cameras (especially the new 990?). How about digital imaging in general? - Anything is "fair game"! (Well, anything polite that is.) Leave your question on the forum just like always, only preface it with the word "NIKON", so Mike can easily pick out the questions directed to him. (Eg, "NIKON - How does matrix exposure work, and why do I need it?") Mike will check in periodically over the next week, and promises to answer any and all questions by 9pm Thursday the 23rd. Don't be bashful, ask away!

We're trying this as an alternative to the often-frustrating "chat" approach to communicating with manufacturers: Scheduled chat sessions usually end up with about 5% of the questions actually being answered, and the other 95% of the people feeling frustrated or ignored. The problem is there's just no way to have one person dialog in real time with even a few dozen others, let alone the hundreds or thousands the web makes possible. We're trying this "scheduled forum appearance" as an alternative, letting everyone ask questions, hopefully all of which can get answered. It'll be an interesting experiment, let us know what you think of the idea and experience as we go along!

-- Dave Etchells (web@imaging-resource.com), March 17, 2000