Special for You: Custom Modes

Shop Window, Chickasha, OK, 2012. The sort of color picture I make when exploring with a handheld digital camera. Usually I have it set to one of several Custom Modes.

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Words and pictures by Carl Weese

For more than four years now, most of the time I have my digital cameras set to a “custom mode,” not the the usual M/A/S/P modes on the dial. Most references I’ve seen recommend this feature—which many digital cameras now have in some form—for managing groups of different in-camera JPEG settings. I’m sure it's useful for that too, but I always shoot RAW captures and yet I still find custom modes extremely useful.

Back in 2011 on a shooting expedition, for the second time in a couple of days I grabbed the camera from the car seat, jumped out and began shooting, only to find the ISO had switched to 3200, which was not an acceptable level for the Lumix G3 I was using. I got the settings back where I wanted them, made some pictures, found nothing I wanted to shoot with my large format cameras, so got back in the car and decided to figure out what had gone wrong. It didn’t take long. The camera’s control buttons were softer touch than I’d like. If you pick up the camera and hit the ‘right arrow’ button on the controller, it opens the ISO dialog. You see that in the finder as you raise the camera and can quickly dismiss it. But if you bump the right arrow button twice, the second hit sets ISO 3200. When I got to my hotel room that night, I called up the PDF of the instruction manual on my MacBook and looked up the custom mode function. I’ve been using it ever since.

A custom mode memorizes a whole suite of camera function settings. If an accidental button push sends ISO through the roof, just move the mode dial from C1 to C2 and back again, and your whole custom suite of settings is restored in a split second. You don’t have to figure out exactly what got changed. You don’t have to remember what your favorite settings are, or what menus to find them on. So having custom settings can bail you out on an accidental button push. Also, what if you are trying to work with a situation and decide, first that you need to dial in –.66 exposure compensation, then realize it would be better to switch to single-point AF, etc. When you move on, flip the dial, or turn the power off and when you actuate the camera again it will be at your custom settings.

Examples
There’s much more. I just want to give an idea of how useful this is, not tell everyone how to set up their cameras, and I can’t address the many camera-specific variations out there, but here are a couple of examples. The Lumix GX7 cameras I’m using now have three “custom” positions on the mode dial, and number three can open to a menu with three choices, for a total of five suites of custom settings. I won’t bore you with all five of my suites, but I’ll illustrate how useful they are by detailing my most and least often used sets.

C1 is my default for walkabout shooting, which is what I do the most with a  handheld digital camera. AE is set to aperture priority; ISO is auto, top-limited to 3200; in-body stabilization is active; AF is multi-point with touch screen AF disabled (too easy to actuate accidentally with a camera over my shoulder); drive is single frame; and all the other functions that I never change are sitting at default.

  Touch AF is really useful when the camera’s on a tripod
(here in multi-point AF mode)

When a subject calls for a tripod, for me it’s usually also calling for a large format film camera. When I actually want to use a tripod for digital capture, the camera will perform better with a very different suite of settings. So, in C3-3, aperture priority AE remains, but ISO is locked to base level; in-body stabilization is switched off (important, and oh so easy to overlook); AF is switched to single point, with touch screen AF active; drive is two-second delay.

Even though it requires a menu call and tap, switching from C1 to C3-3 doesn’t take two seconds, and I can do it while I’m mounting the camera to the tripod head, so it really doesn’t take any time at all. I’m not always in a rush, but anything that speeds up camera handling is helpful when speed is important. When the tripod shot is done, it also takes effectively no time at all to return to C1 (or C2, C3-1, C3-2) without having to locate and execute half a dozen settings scattered across four or more menus buried multiple levels deep—or having to remember what all those settings and menu positions are anyway.

  Macricostas Preserve, Washington, CT, 9/13/15

Spending the time to work out a group of custom setting suites that work well for the ways you make pictures simply makes your camera a better tool. I recommend it.

Carl

TOP Contributing Editor Carl Weese is a photographer, writer, and workshop teacher based in Connecticut. There are many online galleries of his pictures at his website, and he publishes a daily picture blog.

©2015 by Carl Weese, all rights reserved

Original contents copyright 2015 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Michael Matthews: "This could be the most helpful suggestion I've run across in years. We know the custom settings option is available, but how many use them in this way? I'd always thought of custom settings to mean unusual combinations for very precise needs. It's finally clear to me that this may offer the cure for my ham-handed mishandling of Micro 4/3 cameras which seem to keep changing their settings spontaneously. At last—the 'lock all' button which has eluded me."

Tim Wilson: "Carl, I have used this extensively on the OM-D E-M1. You can assign any of the mode dial positions to a custom function set. My two main configurations are for hand-held aperture preferred (Image stabilizer on, plus other stuff) and one for tripod shooting (IS off, two-second delay from exposure). I have put the tripod mode dial name on labels on the top of my tripod to remind me to reset. Works great."

Comments

[c.d.embrey]

Thank you Mr. Weese. Great advice, but too many Photo Enthusiasts are control freaks—if it ain't manual, you ain't a real man. The comments should be interesting.

[Charles Rozier]

But watch out if you have a Canon 6d. Every time it goes to sleep it resets itself to the current custom mode settings. If you chose a custom mode based on Manual, any exposure adjustments you subsequently make will be quietly wiped out if you let the camera go to sleep. My 5d2 and E-P5 did not reset settings until powered off or a new mode chosen, which makes a lot more sense.

[Yonatan Katznelson]

I think that is a GX-7... (not G7).

Cheers

[John Krumm]

I do the same thing with my Olympus EM1, though it doesn't have the nice "Custom " mode dial labels Panasonic does. Instead I can assign a mode to an unused part of the dial like the art filters or the storyboard and then try to remember what is what. I can also assign modes to a dozen different buttons, but that leads to trouble since the camera reverts back to default if it falls asleep or I turn it off, plus it's easy for me to hit a button by accident, as you note. The mode dial keeps it in the custom mode. I like one mode for color, one for black and white, one for action, and one for low light with auto-iso.

[Andrew Johnston]

This works brilliantly on a camera like the GX7 where everything is on a button or menu. It's less effective on a camera like the GH4 where key settings are on switches. For example my mode C1 is always set up to do a high speed burst with exposure bracketing. It worked on the Canon 7D and works well on the GX7 but on the GH4 I still have to remember to fiddle with the shooting mode. Annoying.

[Mike R]

Carl,
I'm interested in learning more about how you set up the other custom modes, and the rationale behind them, as I'm always eager to learn from the pro's. Thanks.

[OK, briefly, comparing to C1, C2 switches AE to shutter priority and AF to face detection. This is "people coverage mode," for a parade, or a gallery opening. C3-1 switches AE to program—with this particular camera P works well in rapidly changing light, like walking through sun and shade on a city sidewalk, and program shift is easy to access. C3-2 switches ISO to fixed 800 when I want a faster shutter speed than auto ISO provides in, say, deep shade or rainy day lighting.—Carl]

[Denisio Fabuloso]

My Olympus Pen series have four custom settings which can be allocated to just about anywhere. They can be a little complicated to get a handle on initially, but well worth the perseverance. I would be amazed that anyone would not avail themselves of these very useful functions. I have my EP-5 with 25mm 1.4 lens set up to mimic my old Pentax Spotmatic II film setup. (Manual mostly). Works a treat... but customability and flexibility of the digital doppelganger is astounding.

[Mahn England]

They're great! I wish I had more than 3 to choose from.

[Andrea Costa]

Yep, I also assigned the "Story Mode" on the E-M1 PASM wheel to the settings I use when shooting b/w. Very useful.

[chris]

I have just bought a second back up camera and was amazed with the touch screen for focusing. I am still of the old school of photography using the viewfinder and the focus points, but this comes in handy for quick picks.

[John Krumm]

One more thing, I just noticed that this resourceful person has made some templates available for various Olympus mode dials if you can print labels....

http://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/55611689

[Ken Tanaka]

Nice practical essay, Carl, on a topic little-covered in primary or even secondary camera documentation.

Years back I did take a swing at using custom preset sets. And they did come in handy. But partially because I tend to use quite a few different cameras I could never remember which set served what purpose on which camera. So I'd just end up perusing menu settings anyway.

The advent of customizable "quick menus" on many camera models in recent years has become far more useful for methan preset sets. This is typically a user-configurable group of a dozen or more settings that can immediately be displayed and changed via a "Q", "Q Menu"' or "Fn" button. I typically will spend lots of quality time with a new camera determining which settings (among those offered by the camera) I will most frequently need to change and set them up on the camera's quick-menu. It has completely eliminated my trying to remember the differences between C1, C2, C1, etc.

Still, custom presets are the only practical alternative for someone who finds they really need to routinely fiddle with settings not configurable on a quick-menu. I've not found any on my cameras that aren't covered by either a quick-menu or a direct function button. But others may.

[PStu]

Now if Panasonic would just do something easy and let you use the Image app on your smartphone to program the Custom modes. I have to go back into my PDF manual to figure out how to change the settings. Imagine if there were a simple page in the app where it listed all the options - PASM, focus mode, ISO, IS, drive, etc. - and you could just tick the boxes.

[Dave Kosiur]

I don't know if other cameras do this, but one of the features I like about the OM-D series is the flexibility of using RAW and JPEG even if the camera is always set to RAW. For example, I always shoot RAW files. But if I want use a Picture Mode (say B&W so I can see the results in the LCD before shooting) the camera is smart enough to still shoot RAW but saves both the RAW and JPEG files for that shot. A nice touch, I think.

[Matthew Miller]

Definitely something I really miss from my Pentax in switching to a Fujifilm X-T10. Particularly, the Fujifilm camera treats them as "sets of presets you can apply", and not _modes_ properly (once you've switched to them, there's no indication _which_ mode you chose, just the settings are now all changed at once).

With Pentax, you can have different named presets. It's also ridiculously flexible about which options you want to reset to default on power off and which you want to retain. For example, I had mine set ISO to auto by default, to avoid the exact problem here of setting it too high (or too low) and forgetting.

Ah well. Can't have it all. (Although I feel a little like if Pentax and Fujifilm merged and took the best of both, I could.)

[Darlene Almeda]

I have been using C1, C2, C3 on my Sigma Merrills and SD1M since acquiring them. My custom settings are for "studio shooting (1/125, f/8)", "bracketing with .7 differentials", and "normal at f/11." On the SD1M, the C buttons are on the dial with on-off and are so easy to use because once you set them, no need to hunt in the menu.

[David Dyer-Bennet]

Unfortunately none of my cameras has any such feature. Probably next time around, if there ever is one. That's actually the single most tempting reason to go from my OM-D EM-5 to the MkII that I've seen so far.

To the best of my ability to understand the manual, my EM-5 has the single stupidest attempt at implementing custom modes I've ever seen. I can define them, and I can use them -- by holding down one of three inconveniently placed buttons *while* pushing the shutter release. I hope people lost their jobs over that; it's a degree of stupidity rarely seen in the wild.

[Adrian Malloch]

Good tip Carl and one I have utilised many times in the past with my various Canon 1D, 5D and 6D iterations.
However, a word of warning to newbies to the technique.
Creating a custom setting is fine, but if I change an aperture, drop the shutter speed, or so some other adjustment as light and subject changes, then during a pause in proceedings the camera may go into Auto Power-off mode (after 4 minutes on my setup) and consequently when woken, ignores all the changes I had just made and reverts to the initial Custom setting.
This is really frustrating if you don't figure out what's going on in time.
I now reserve custom presets for a quick go-to set-up for alternative shooting options. Like a video mode, with sound levels, view options, manual metering and etc all ready for lights, camera and action. Or a high ISO low-available-light mode when I want to change from shooting with my off-camera flash (strobe for non-English speakers) with the minimum of fuss.
Also, when you turn off your camera with an auto-everything ready-to-shoot Custom Function set-up, then when you do pick it up to get that all-important candid moment you will not have to spend valuable time configuring modes.

[Reply When I know that I'll want a temporary control to "stick" I simply go back to the basic M/A/S/P modes with something like exposure compensation dialed in. This in effect gives me several more sort-of-custom modes as alternatives the my custom set.—Carl]

[Tim]

I agree. Custom modes were my #1 favourite feature on the one camera I've loved most for ergonomics - the Lumix GH2.

In my case, I set them for style/subjects: square b&w (A-priority), 3:2 b&w (A-priority, more contrasty "film emulation", 3 frames used for HDR bracketing), 16:9 (Manual, default shutter speed around 1/15s, pseudo-provia, 5 frames used for HDR bracketing).

That's two kinds of jobbing walking-around-shooting-trees modes nailed and one long-exposure vista. Primary reason for the choice was that when I had dSLRs, the one thing I hated most was the sore thumb from cranking the shutter-speed between 1/125 and 30s or bulb and back when changing scene/visualization.

[Chuck Holst]

The Sony RX100 also has custom settings. Since the RX100 is my sea kayaking and camping camera and I always try to schedule a trip during the Perseid meteor shower, I have one memory setting for meteors (15 sec, f/2.8, daylight white balance, infinity focus, etc.) and another for daylight photography from a bouncy boat (shutter priority at 1/500 sec, auto exposure, auto focus, auto ISO, etc.). A handy thing about the RX100 is that I can always modify the memorized settings on the fly, so for example if the lighting calls for it and I'm shooting wide angle from my kayak, I can easily change the shutter speed from the default 1/500 sec to 1/250 sec.

[Kurt Kramer]

I have an Olympus OM-D E-M5 MkII. I have set some custom functions. When new firmware is issued, it wipes out one's custom functions (assigned to Fn buttons). I have to go back to e-mails from Oly tech-support to re-set them. Does anyone know: If I were to save my settings as a Custom Setting, as advocated in the article, do the Custom Settings survive a firmware update?
(I've been avoiding firmware updates because re-setting everything is too much trouble. But now Olympus has a major firmware 2.0 coming for my camera, and some of the new capabilities will be important.)