Lessons

Lesson Info

Button Dial Setting & Power Management

Next up is our button dial settings, and so we have a lot of buttons and dials that can be customized on the camera and this is where we get to dive in and control those. First up is our focus lever setting. Now, we already talked about the quick method of programming this which was holding that button down for about two, three seconds, but we can come here into the menu system and we can turn this focusing stick off so that it doesn't do anything or that we have to push to unlock it. Normally most people are gonna wanna leave it turned on so they can change their focusing point quickly and easily. Edit and save the quick menu, and so we saw how we could do this with a shortcut, but we can also do it here. Let me go ahead and jump in and just show you again right here. So, let's get into the correct menu mode, and so we are in button dial settings, edit save quick menu, now you see this same screen up here and we get to choose and we get to find items that we use, like I'm not gonna us...

e face and eye detection that much, I'll hit the okay button and I'll find something else that I use on a regular basis in here. And let's just say I like to access the movie mode in here, and so now that mode is into that spot and if I want, let's see, so now I can press the Q button and I can come down and I can select my different, let's try this again. I turn the back dial and I can start scrolling through all the different menu options. And so the quick menu is gonna be one of the fastest ways to get access to a number of the features in here. Now realize that a lot of the buttons we're gonna get to here in just a moment can be reprogrammed in certain ways, and there's gonna be a list of options that you can reprogram one of these buttons. And the options that you have for this are not the same as this. And so you might wanna figure out where you can program these buttons, and so when you go into the selections you are probably gonna be a little bit frustrated because not everything in the menu is available, but figure out what is available to you and what will work for you, and go ahead and fill this up. And if you don't need it, you can take it out and leave it blank like we've done down here in these bottom two right squares. And one other little quick note, when you press the Q button, yeah I guess it goes back to where you last left, but often times it's here in the top left, and if it's in the top left you wanna think about what's closest to the top left, and you have the right, down, but also if you go up this is one of the most important ones, and if we go back to C1 over here and so you might wanna think about where do you normally leave this, and how close are those settings so that you only have to do the fewest amount of clicks to get the most used settings in the camera. All right, so that is customizing the quick menu. The function AE-AF-L button setting, I think this is horribly named they shoulda just called it the button setting because the camera has eight different function buttons and you can reprogram all of them. They could all do the same thing or they can all do something different. Now, they come packaged from the factory programmed pretty well. Pretty well, but I bet that you are gonna wanna go in and reprogram these buttons. So, when you go into this function they have a nice little graphic display that actual shows you where the button is on the camera and what it is currently programmed to do, and you simply go to the right and you reprogram it with something that you find more useful. Now, realize that this is one step quicker than the quick menu, and so you wanna put your most important functions in here. And so basically you get to go choose the eight things that you think are the most important in here and reprogram these buttons. And so I have found that my preferences change over time and they also change depending on what I'm shooting and so you may need to kinda have two different setups, one for sports and one for portrait photography. Or you'll find that you no longer use something that you used a lot. Go back in and recheck those and see if they're really set the way that you want them to. Let 'em settle in and see if they work out the way you want. Selector button setting. Okay, so the selector buttons on the back of the camera are normally function buttons, which means they perform a certain function, one of the ones that we just programmed in in the above setting. But if you don't want them to do that, they can double as a focus area. So, let's just say that you don't like the focus stick. For whatever reason, you don't like changing the focus area with this. You could change this mode to focus area and you would then move the focus by moving up, down, and left, and right on the selector buttons. And so it's a personal preference. I think those four buttons make for a fantastic shortcut buttons and so that's why I'm recommending leaving that as the function button. Command dial setting. Normally the front command dial is being used for shutter speeds, and the back one is being used for apertures, but that isn't exactly the way either Canon's or Nikon's or Pentax's or somebody else's camera's may work. And if you wanna flop those controls, you can flop them. Totally not necessary, it's just a personal preference option. If you recall on the ISO it had a high setting and you get to choose whether it's 25,000 or 51, and this is where you get to choose it. The 51,000 is pretty low in quality and you would only wanna choose that if you are really desperate and needed to shoot there, and so most people are gonna wanna be set at the 25,000 mark. Shutter auto focus, so when you press down on the shutter release, does the camera auto focus? Normally this is on when you buy the camera it's turned on, it's the way most cameras work, but a lot of photographers like a back button focus. So, they are turning off the auto focus when you press halfway down, and that is what would be considered back button auto focus, but if you do this remember that you are gonna have to program the AFL button in the back of your camera as being your focus button if you are in the focusing modes. If you are in a manual focusing mode you will be able to use that AFL button for focusing. And so the more advanced users may wanna turn it off. Basic users are gonna leave that turned on I think. The shutter auto exposure lock, we talked about this at the beginning of the class. When you press halfway down on the shutter release, not only does it meter, it locks the meter in so you can recompose the camera with those exact same settings. Not everyone likes that, in fact that's not the way most cameras work. Most cameras work with just metering and then it adjusts the metering as you move the camera around. And so it's really gonna depend on how you like the camera to work, and so it's a little hard for me to recommend but I know that most cameras on the market are kind of an active metering system, and so if you want this camera to act like most cameras out on the market, you would wanna turn this feature off. Second page. Shooting without a lens. And so if you have your camera hooked up to some sort of adapter for other lenses, do you wanna be able to fire the shutter? If you normally just own Fuji lenses you can leave this turned off, that where there's nothing that gets in the way if you stuck your finger in there it's not gonna get caught on the shutter and break the shutter or anything. If you are using external lenses, third party lenses with adapters, that's when you would wanna turn this on. The focusing ring in the camera can be adjusted so that when you focus to infinity it either turns clockwise like Nikon, or counter clockwise like everyone else in the industry. That's right, Nikon is the awkward one. They focus backwards from everyone else, and so those lenses, they make great lenses but for people who shoot video and they shoot Canon and like lenses and then they bring a Nikon out, everything focuses reverse. It's just kind of awkward. And so if you're coming from a Nikon camera you can make this camera mimic a Nikon in the direction of the focusing ring. The auto exposure AF-lock mode, and so when you press these buttons, do you want it to be where you have to press and hold the button in for it to stay active, or do you want it to be like a switch where you just press it once and turn it on, and press it once if you turn it off. Normally I leave it in the pressing mode because it really forces me to think that I am setting this function, it's very, it's easy because once you take your finger off it's no longer activated. If I used it a lot I could see the switch mode here because it's very easy to just press the button in and then you can recompose and you don't have to have your finger down there. So, it's a matter of personal preference, but most people have it on pressing. The aperture setting when using one of the XC lenses that do not have an aperture, you can either choose for manually to be able to change all through the different ranges of apertures, or where it will also go down to auto if you turn the dial far enough by turning that back control dial, and that's only gonna come into play with the XC lenses and that 27 millimeter which does not have an aperture ring on it so it's just a small collection of lenses. Next up is is a lock mode and this actually goes into a little bit of a sub menu here. And so the lock setting allows us to lock or unlock functions of the camera. And this is gonna be the buttons and controls, and we've seen a number of locks all ready, but this is a more intensive lock system on the camera. So, here's the five pages of information of things that you could lock on the camera. So, if you were having the camera setup in a situation where maybe other people were utilizing it and you didn't want 'em to be changing the modes, but you wanted the camera to be allowed to shoot photos, you could go in and check anything that you don't want to change. So, for instance if you don't want somebody to format the memory card or change the white balance, go put little check modes by that and those will be locked in when this lock mode is engaged. And so, useful in a variety of situations, but it's pretty peculiar and there's gonna be a lot of people who never, ever, ever use this particular feature. And that takes us through the button dial settings. Next up is power management. Lot of things dealing with the battery system here. So first off, auto power off. How quickly do you want your camera to go to sleep, and it's a matter of convenience versus battery life, and so one minute seems to be a pretty good balance, but if you think something else works better for you, make the change here. Power management, we also get the boost and normal option. We saw this before when we have the downward button turns this on and off, but a lot of people don't use this particular feature a lot, and so they'll just set it here in the camera's menu system and leave it there. Remember that by putting it the boost mode if increases the speed of focusing, the acquisition of focus is gonna be a little bit faster. The frame rate in the view finder is gonna be faster, and I like that because it gives you a more realistic look, however, I will tell you on the EVF before you switch it just to do that particular thing, if you're looking at a static subject you're not gonna see any difference. It's when you're moving the camera from side-to-side or a subject is moving around in the frame. So, action photography is where it's gonna have its biggest advantage, but it does come at a little bit of a cost to the battery's life and how many shots you're expected to get.