MenuMad

[Archlich]

An even better strategy would be to read the owner's manual of any camera you are considering before buying it and figuring out if it will work for you.

Yes and yes. My GR III has 5 categories and over 100 settings. After spending 10 minutes reading the manual and 30 minutes of fiddling with the camera I was set. Would only need to turn the USER dial between its three slots in real use. After my first major excursion (to Cuba) I refined the custom functions assigned to these slots. The bond is formed.

Read the manual. Read the manual. Read the manual.

Do not shy away from it. Do not blame your tool for being able to do more things than you're capable to utilize. Nothing wrong with knowing its full capacity. Sometimes it changes you for the better as well.

A paint brush does not come with a manual but would take a lifetime to master. A painter also knows how different pigments present in his paints handle differently under various conditions. The only way to go is constant study and research and endless trial and error. We're gifted with today's cameras that come with clear directions printed on paper.

 

[Rob-F]

Two digital cameras I like for being film-like in their handling are my Fuji X10 and Fuji X100. And while the Nikon D700 is not film-like, I still like that there is a button right under my fingers for most of what I want to do. When I pick up my Leicasonic Digilux 6, I have to relearn what to do, every time I use it. Somehow the Fuji cameras are more Leica-like than the Leica D-Lux 6. Bill is right. It can get confusing.

 

[charjohncarter]

My first DSLR was a Pentax, and now I'm on my fourth. I thought staying within one manufacturer would solve your query/problem. I was wrong.

 

[robert blu]

Read a more than 200 pages manual before buying a camera?

Theory is good but from a practical point of view it is not so easy to do it and to understand it (which probably is because of bad or approximative translation, probaly AI made).

 

[FranZ]

While Leica is special in this regard... I can't see how the two Fujis are drastically different either... especially for digital.

My thing is to try to make my digital cameras as simple as my film cameras had been. Use one meter mode always. And only go back into the menu, after initial set-up, to format my SD Cards.

Fuji solved even this going back into the menu for formatting your SD card:
Hold down the trash can button for 3 seconds and press the rear command dial and it instantly takes you to SD card format.
Another issue solved😉

 

[farlymac]

Read a more than 200 pages manual before buying a camera?

Theory is good but from a practical point of view it is not so easy to do it and to understand it (which probably is because of bad or approximate translation, probably AI made).

I hear you loud and clear, Robert. It took me forever to figure out how to select a single focal point on my D610 because they just happened to leave out the sequence to get the camera in that mode out of the manual. I read it multiple times before I finally realized one had to use the front control dial to select S. Nowhere did it even mention the use of the front dial for any of the AF settings. And this was a camera originally sold in April of this year, not something that came out years ago when it was a new model. Maybe not enough people complained about it for them to correct the manual.

PF

 

[jsrockit]

Fuji solved even this going back into the menu for formatting your SD card:
Hold down the trash can button for 3 seconds and press the rear command dial and it instantly takes you to SD card format.
Another issue solved😉

True, I just got so used to the button pushes after 10 years! It's like a video game controller combination for me. I keep telling myself I'm going to use that trash can!... 😉

 

[shimokita]

I struggled when I first got my Fuji, particularly at night in low light
Eventually got the set-up I wanted and that I use most of the time...
It's not so much the menus, it's the time to negotiate when speed is essential.

Custom User Mode, where "all" functions are configurable is your friend
Canon 5D C1/2/3 plus Av/Tv gives you at least 4 setup options without menu diving

 

[willie_901]

While Leica is special in this regard... I can't see how the two Fujis are drastically different either... especially for digital.

My thing is to try to make my digital cameras as simple as my film cameras had been. Use one meter mode always. And only go back into the menu, after initial set-up, to format my SD Cards.

Same!

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[Bill Pierce]

While Leica is special in this regard... I can't see how the two Fujis are drastically different either... especially for digital.

My thing is to try to make my digital cameras as simple as my film cameras had been. Use one meter mode always. And only go back into the menu, after initial set-up, to format my SD Cards.

True. My mistake. And the Fuji system has made a point of keeping many of the important controls similar to those found on film cameras, that is to say outside of the menu system. Even for someone not familiar with film cameras, this means speedy assignment of basic values. Perhaps at the other end of the scale is Sony where the A7R iv has 250 plus menu items and sub items, no shutter speed dial and no f/stop ring for many of their more popular lenses. It’s a definite slow down if you have to make changes while shooting.

 

[Godfrey]

Read a more than 200 pages manual before buying a camera?

Theory is good but from a practical point of view it is not so easy to do it and to understand it (which probably is because of bad or approximative translation, probaly AI made).

I hear you loud and clear, Robert. It took me forever to figure out how to select a single focal point on my D610 because they just happened to leave out the sequence to get the camera in that mode out of the manual. I read it multiple times before I finally realized one had to use the front control dial to select S. Nowhere did it even mention the use of the front dial for any of the AF settings. And this was a camera originally sold in April of this year, not something that came out years ago when it was a new model. Maybe not enough people complained about it for them to correct the manual.

PF

Often the organization of the manuals is not terribly well thought out. I was seriously put off by the Nikon D750 manual when it didn't start to touch on anything even remotely photographic in nature until you got to page 140 or so. That alone undermined my confidence that I'd ever be able to find anything useful in the manual.

If I'm going to buy a camera for which the manuals are available online or in downloadable PDF form, I download and skim the manual through quickly but with reasonable thoroughness prior to my purchase. It helps in making the final decision on a camera. THEN, my week or two learning time is spent going through the manual, one section at a time, with the camera in hand to try things out and see what does what and how it affects other stuff. It's a laborious process, but it has its rewards.

That said, I've found a quick way through most manuals in the learning phase. I first flip to the back of the manual, the appendices, and see if there is an appendix with a comprehensive listing of all the menu items and their default settings: most good manuals have this. It's usually a few pages long on the more complicated cameras. Reviewing it in detail with the camera in hand serves a couple of things in the learning phase:

• It lets you know explicitly what commands the camera supports and where they are.
• The defaults and optional settings let you know what you might want to change on the ones that are reasonably well named so you know what they have to be.
• If you have such an appendix handy, once you work through what settings you prefer over the default settings, you can copy out the appendix and annotate it with the settings that you have changed. This makes it much much easier to set up the camera again if you have to do a camera-wide reset (and if the camera offers no function to save and reload a particular configuration).
• It lets you know where in the manual to look for more detailed information for each menu command, should it not be obvious from the name and option settings themselves.

Reviewing this listing first, and then looking back to the textual portion of the manual with the camera in hand to experiment with, speeds up the learning and retention process by quite a lot in my experience. 🙂

G

 

[kbb]

If you want to minimize the time that you spend changing metering schemes, moving focus points, selecting JPEG 'looks', don't do that stuff. Set up the camera to use with the human computer controlling things. It's much simpler.