How to use the "PROTECT" button

[jaapv]

I posted this one on LUF, but it might be useful here as well:

I know that there are many that find the protect button next to useless. I disagree, it has a number of functions that are quite practical.



1. The obvious one: You don't trust yourself to avoid doing the stupid thing and inadvertently hit "delete all" thus losing all images on the card (that's me ). So "protect all" from time to time during the shoot.



2. You have shot a card full, but a (large) number of the shots are trash ("test shots") so you can chimp through the card,zooming in, choosing and protecting just the winners and afterwards hit "delete all", leaving you with a clean card with only the protected images saving a lot of time and effort in uploading to the computer.



3.It turns out the camera software was made very intelligently for this purpose,

You have a card full of images of which you know which ones to keep without having to zoom in to judge. Or have a card you already uploaded and forgot to wipe before reusing.

Turn the scroll wheel anticlockwise to get thumbnail groups, push "protect" and with the arrow buttons walk through the thumbnails.The left and right button scroll the thumbnails, the up and down arrows control the protect menu.The set button is enter. The protect menu will jump to "protect all" when you are on a previously protected image and jump back to "protect single" when the selected thumbnail is unprotected. That way you can very quickly and efficiently mark images to keep, again "delete all" and upload the protected images efficiently into the computer.



The advantage against just deleting unwanted shots lies in the fact that one does not get the question to delete the image each time, so no additional "yes" push which breaks the rhythm of the workflow. And an unprotect decision is reversible until the final "delete all".



I would not upload a firmware that did away with the protect function....

And to answer an OT theme, that appeared on LUF: Assigning ISO to the protect button would not interfere with the protect function, this works in "play" mode only, and an ISO change mode would be used only when the camera is used for shooting, so there is no interaction between that wish and the current protect function.

 

[noimmunity]

Thanks for the resume!
I would also LOVE to see a firmware update that enables user assignation of the delete button during shooting to a choice between ISO or Exp Comp.

 

[benkelley]

First, thanks for the info, Jaap!

Second...

Thanks for the resume!
I would also LOVE to see a firmware update that enables user assignation of the delete button during shooting to a choice between ISO or Exp Comp.

Delete for ISO, protect for EV COMP. Or the other way 'round. 'Twould be perfect!!!

 

[johannielscom]

I have noticed though that all images need to be unprotected on the camera before hooking the card up with a cardreader and my Macbook.

Lightroom 2.0 will mark protected images as unable to read when importing if you leave the 'protected' flag on the file.

Just for info, if anyone has a similar problem with a different hardware setup or different version of LR, this might be interesting to know as well.