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| Olympus E-M1 Mark II, 12-100mm f/4 Pro lens @ 100mm; 1/125th sec. @ f/11; ISO 200 (click to enlarge) |
I love the fact that I have three Custom Settings on my Olympus E-M1 Mark II. They don't exist on my Fujifilm X-T2. The Custom Settings on the main dial (C1, C2, C3) allow me to program every setting in the camera in a particular manner in order to better facilitate a particular type of photography in which I may be engaged. With one twist of the dial, all of my settings change instantaneously. Wonderful! But that is also the rub. Let me explain.
Since I consider myself a generalist photographer, mostly practicing travel, nature, landscape and some wildlife and street photography, I have my custom settings tuned into those types of photography. For the C1 setting, I have the camera set to aperture priority, f/5.6, ISO 200, S-AF, single AF point, Auto WB, single frame advance with shock reduction, etc. I normally keep the camera set here when out wandering for general photography.
When I switch to C2, the camera instantly changes to shutter priority, 1/2500th sec., Auto ISO, Auto WB, 10FPS with shock reduction and C-AF + Tracking among other settings. I can instantly switch to all of these settings if I encounter wildlife, an eagle, etc. No fumbling trying to change a number of settings while your subject walks or flies away!
For C3, everything is set to automatic so if my wife and I are traveling and I ask a stranger to take a photo of us, there is nothing to do except point and shoot. You would have to work in order to not make a well exposed and focused image in this mode.
In reality, there are literally hundreds of ways to program each custom setting. I had never used custom settings in previous cameras I've owned, but I do appreciate the ability now. In fact, I wish I had used them as they are so efficient and convenient but I was a bit "old school" in my photographic thinking.
One of the things I have done since I started photographing digitally is set a custom file name, if the camera permits. The name I choose is related to a particular camera body. Sometimes I've owned two exact same models of camera and this made it easy to know which camera shot which files, if there were any issues. Additionally, if I never changed my files names, I would have many duplicate file numbers as most digital cameras have default file names set to a prefix of DSC. If I had owned 5 different cameras over the years, I would have 5 sets of DSC00001, DSC0002, DSC0003, etc.
Here is where the two above paragraphs merge.....
Recently, I reached the 10,000 exposure mark with my E-M1 Mark II. Because of my file prefix, I had to change a "0" to a "1" in order for the files to read correctly above 9999. I did that with no problem. However..... and here is the rub. If you have your custom settings set, you have to change and save the file name for each of those custom settings as well. Not only there, but you also have to change it for when you are not using a custom setting, but one of the P, A, S, M settings. In other words, you may have to change and save the new file name in 4 different places.
Originally, I discovered this as when I first bought the camera, I made many test exposures to get to know the camera, then configured my Custom Settings to the new file structure. For the life of me, I could not figure out why some of my files, when viewed in Lightroom, had different file structures. I even called Olympus and they didn't know.
What I finally figured out had happened was that I reconfigured and renamed the file names when the camera was set at the "A" or aperture priority setting on the main dial. It was a time after that when I configured my C1, C2, and C3 custom settings. All worked well as long as I was using one of the P, A, S, or M settings. When I switched over to photograph with a Custom Setting, the default file setting was still in place from the factory because I didn't specifically go in and reset it, then save it in the Custom Setting portion of the menu. In Lightroom, when looking at my images, some had the custom file name and some didn't. That was baffling for a long time.
A few weeks ago, when the camera reached 10,000 exposures, I did go in and save it for each of the Custom Settings. But, I forgot to also save it when shooting using one of the P, A, S, M settings as well.
Again, I found myself in Lightroom with mixed files. I had to use Lightroom's "Rename Photo" feature (Library > Rename Photo) to go in and rename the errant files so all matched up again.
This technology we have at our disposal is wonderful but it also can be a pain. It makes our photography easier and more successful but it also requires us to think and plan. If we don't we may not get what we think we are getting.
This is just a heads up to all of you who may incur this issue as I wanted to point out my experiences and how I solved the problem. I don't know if this phenomenon applies to other manufacturers' cameras or not. In case it does, you now have the information to correct it.
You may also want to check out my website @ www.dennismook.com.
Thanks for looking. Enjoy!
Dennis A. Mook
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Thanks for your unique insight. I tried to duplicate this on a Pen-F and could not. I've wondered why Olympus had to reduce the C settings from 4 on the Pen-F to 3 on the E-M1 II. Seems like they always give with one hand and take a little away with the other. On the bright side, you could set Shutter Priority up to be your bird settings. Then rename your filenames to start with 'B'. Later, every time you worked with your files on your computer, you'd know what the contents were. You've now freed up C2 for new settings. If C2 is landscape, rename the files to start with 'L'. When you hand your camera to strangers to take your picture, set the dial to iAuto to free up C3. Set the filenames for C3 to start with 'A' if C3 contains your settings for architecture. Just thoughts on a technique for more convenience when on the computer. Thanks again for your fine articles.
ReplyDeleteGeorge, thank you for your comment and suggestions. I used to use shutter priority when cameras were simpler and all of the options were not available, but now find there are too many other settings that also need to be changed when encountering an unexpected eagle, etc. The nice thing about using the custom setting function is that those many settings are changed with just one quick turn of the dial.
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