Does It Really Have to Be This Hard?

Guest Post by Gordon Lewis

Prompted by Mike’s “Simple Is the Next Revolution” post and with a rented Olympus OM-D E-M10 Mark II in hand, I decided to list the minimum settings I felt necessary to set it up for my style of shooting. These are the settings I would want regardless of the brand or model of camera. Here are my most important, in no particular order of priority:

• Recording mode: Raw
• Color space: Adobe RGB
• Back-button focus (to separate autofocus from the shutter button and assign it to another button.)
• Front dial (the one closest to the lens) for aperture settings
• Rear dial for exposure compensation in auto modes and shutter speed in manual exposure mode
• Single-shot autofocus (as opposed to continuous autofocus)
• Single, manually-adjustable focus point or area
• Center-focus
• AF confirmation sound off
• Focus priority off (so that I can still shoot even if the camera thinks the image is not in focus)
• Touchscreen off (to prevent unpredictable changes caused by accidental touches)

Auto ISO, Auto White Balance, Matrix metering pattern, and single-frame shooting (as opposed to continuous) are usually the defaults, in which case I leave them as-is. For a mirrorless camera such as the E-M10 Mark II I also add features that are unavailable on DSLRs. The most important to me are:

• Manual focus assist: ON
• Manual focus triggered by turning the lens’ focusing ring: ON
• Viewfinder brightness reflects exposure setting: ON

Keep in mind that I’m mainly a street and travel photographer. I want fast and accurate focus and exposure for one shot at a time. If I shot sports my settings would be completely different; but then, so would the camera.

It’s great that digital cameras allow you to do all this, and it’s true that once you’ve done it you seldom have to do it again. On the other hand, depending on how well the menu system is set up, figuring out how to do it can test even the most patient soul.

For example, to set up back-button focus with the E-M10 you first have to decouple autofocus from the shutter button. You then have to assign AF to some other button, presumably one located near where your right thumb comes into contact with the back of the camera—hence the term "back-button focus."

The problem is, it’s not at all obvious how to do this. The instruction manual makes no explicit reference to back-button focus at all. Instead, you somehow have figure out that to decouple AF from the shutter button you need to go to the Utility menu, select AEL/AFL, then change S-AF from Mode 1, the default, to Mode 3. I kid you not. It takes a similarly arcane procedure and multiple navigation button clicks to assign autofocus to the Fn1 button on the back of the camera.

Bear in mind that I’m a Harvard graduate with over 40 years of photographic experience. I do instructional design and technical training for a living. It’s therefore reasonable to suspect that if I find it a challenge to figure these things out, others will too. More to the point, just because someone can perform an unnecessarily difficult task doesn’t mean they like to.

Olympus OM-D E-M10 Mark II

Some of you Olympus owners may infer from all this that I’m smearing the fine reputation of Olympus cameras. To the contrary: You can take considerable pride and solace in the fact that camera setup is no easier nor more intuitive with Sony or Fuji cameras either. I do find setup slightly easier with Panasonic mirrorless cameras and Canon, Nikon and Pentax DSLRs, but that’s still not saying much.

If you’re looking at the list above and wondering why you should have to do all this just to take a simple picture, the answer is, you don’t. Practically all enthusiast cameras these days have a “full auto” setting that lets you just point and shoot to your heart’s content. The drawback is you then give up practically all control over what the camera is doing and how, in which case, why buy such a complicated camera at all? The fact is that fewer and fewer people are willing to and I, for one, understand why.

Gordon

UPDATE Wednesday (from Gordon): In answer to some of the questions and comments I’ve received so far:

1. My list of settings is for example only. It is not a recommendation to anyone else. If I wanted to or had to I could make do with far fewer and without much complaint. That said, several photographers commented that their list would be a lot like mine, so my list wasn’t entirely fanciful either.
2. The Adobe RGB setting just happened to pop into my head while I was typing. Sometimes I use this setting, sometimes I don’t, and in either case I don’t find it has any effect on my raw files or exposures. Thom Hogan’s suggestion to use RawDigger to analyze my raw files, though well-informed and helpful, would be moving more in the direction of more complexity for me rather than less. Thanks, but no thanks.
3. The reason I prefer to set my cameras for back-button focus if possible is because I don’t want the camera to re-focus every time I press the shutter button. This is important because I generally use the center AF point only. BBF avoids the need to keep the shutter button half-pressed to lock-in focus before I re-compose and shoot. I can focus once, re-frame, then shoot to my heart’s content without worrying that the camera will re-focus between shots. This only applies to still subjects, of course. With moving subjects I use continuous focus, a larger off-center AF area, and keep the focus button depressed while shooting.
4. I agree with those who pointed out that the Fn1 button on Olympus OM-D cameras is too small for optimum use as a BBF button. That’s a separate rant for a different time.
5. Finally, I also agree with shooters who prefer pre-automation film cameras. In general, the more I can get my digital cameras to behave like my Nikon FM3A, the better I like them. The main point of my post is that it can be surprisingly difficult to simplify how some cameras operate.

Old friend Gordon Lewis, originally a colleague from Camera & Darkroom magazine, is the author of Street Photography: The Art of Capturing the Candid Moment, published by Rocky Nook. He lives in Philadelphia with his wife and three kids.

©2016 by Gordon Lewis, all rights reserved

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

Michael Matthews: "That 40 years of photographic experience does give you an advantage: you know exactly what you want. The challenge lies in finding it. Those of us who are occasional photographers (but would like to do better) have to come to grips repeatedly with the near-infinite complexity of settings and the brain-breakingly obscure way their functions are named and hidden in sub-sub-menus. I'm not buying another camera until it comes equipped with Kirk Tuck's Auto-Pro Mode."

Ricardo Silva Cordeiro (partial comment): "Almost all brands have seemed stuck on the same kind of 'engineery' interface for years. They don't have basic notions of design like the fundamental 'bauhauesque' elegance of simplicity. I think it's time for companies to actually hire outside interface design teams, preferably non-photographic-driven ones.

"From what I've seen online, the new Hasselblad X1D takes a bold step in the right direction in termos of interface/ergonomics design."

D. Hufford (partial comment): "After I have everything set up, sooner or later something will be accidentally changed. There was the time I somehow turned on the touch screen of the GX7 and got the focus point stuck down in the lower left hand corner. Couldn't fix that til I got home and Googled. Then there was the dark, snowy night with the Fuji X100 when I my gloved hands somehow set it to video and I searched the menu system for 10 minutes to figure out how to shut it off."

Mike adds: This is what I hate most about modern cameras. It would be intolerable, except that every camera is afflicted with it to some degree so we have to put up with it.

Gabe (partial comment): "Aw come on folks—I thought this was about simplification! FWIW, pity there's no manual available for abbreviated slangology, so OTOH, not to feel left out, there are a few clarifications I've added to my photographic vocabulary:

• RTB: reboot the bugger (goes hand in hand with...)
• TOBCTT: take out battery, count to twenty
• TAWARM: take a week and read the manual
• TTDSWH: turn that dial and see what happens
• AM: Ask Moose (applicable to Olympus)

"Submitted for your approval—my entry for clarifying the 'Micro Four Thirds' naming kerfuffle: 'Short Flange Distance Mirror Deprived Four Thirds Sensor Imaging Mechanism.' Now applying the GM (Groucho Marx) rules of clarification that would abbreviate as: 'Shoflad Mirdefot Sim.'"

Henning Wulff: "I use(d) Canon, Olympus, Panasonic, Sony and Leica M digital cameras. Olympus and Sony are the worst to set up and understand; Canon and Panasonic somewhat better, but Leica M is by far the easiest, most intuitive and simplest. No autofocus, but good manul focus  :-). 

"A comment was made that computers and phones are getting simpler and more intuitive to use. We can thank one person for that: Steve Jobs. His at times tyrannical insistence on an intuitive interface has permeated both types of products. We're still in Windows 3 days with camera UI's."

John Doty: "What I don't understand is why we cannot pull up a menu on our computer, select the options, assign the buttons to do what we would like them to do and then download all this information to the camera. It is (should be) relatively simple, after all, someone set the functions the same way when the camera was designed and programmed. Why can't we do the same with our cameras now? Of course there should always be the 'Reset to Factory Defaults' button included."

Comments

[David Zivic]

Thank You for the insightful comments on these (complicated) systems...and all this time I thought it was me !

[Ricardo Silva Cordeiro]

Being a computer/software savvy myself I share the criticism on Olympus interfaces (well, my Sony a7II has a terrible menu system also).

But I also extend this to all the camera manufacturers, generaly their interfaces get the job done and most people can (eventually) find their way to the settings they're looking for. But almost all brands seem stuck on the same kind of "engineery" interface for years. They don't have basic notions of design like the fundamental "bauhauesque" elegance of simplicity.

I think it's time for companies to actually hire outside interface design teams, preferably non-photographic-driven ones.

From what I've seen online, the new Hasselblad X1D takes a bold step in the right direction in termos of interface/ergonomics design.

[Michael Perini]

Wonderful, thank you Gordon !
This is valuable for everyone, -including Camera companies.
Very often, you don't realize something is difficult or missing until you look for it and try to do it-BBAF a case in point. But it takes real time from thoughtful people to sus them out, and with the speed of today's camera iteration, I suspect it is one of those things that gets short changed.
The good news is that all these things are controlled in firmware which can be changed even after the camera is 'in the wild'
Camera companies could also help by listing common preferences and telling you how to get there. BBAF is certainly a common preference.
Now from a manufacturer's point of view, they have to account for many different kinds of feature preferences, which has led to capable cameras that mostly can do whatever you want, but getting there is becoming a nightmare. If you dive into AF modes and custom functions on some cameras you may never get out alive.
Even though if you can set everything right the results can be amazing.
Sadly cameras manuals are getting less and less helpful, and something needs to be done
Cameras need to be tools that perform the way their owners want and expect them to perform.
Wouldn't it be nice if we had a universal PDF type format for camera setup "Presets" where if I were so inclined I could pop in the $5 Gordon Lewis Street Preset and have it configure my camera.
And be able to switch to others with ease.
We already have the switching part on some cameras with user modes which is good but you still have to do all the menu diving. There is no doubt that understanding your camera deeply is still the best way, but for an awful lot of folks this kind of leg up would be very helpful.
The difference between a camera that is set up to enhance your own style of shooting, and one with default presets is Huge--- even if the setup is used to remove or dumb down some of the decisions already made for us at the factory, it is just as important.

When you are an engineer smart enough to design complex systems and who has lived within that complex system for years, it is very difficult to understand what will be intuitive to someone who just wants to use your creation. I appreciate that but manufacturers really meed to try a bit harder in this regard.
Pieces like Gordon's could be very helpful in that regard

[Andy F]

Why do you need Adobe RGB if you're shooting raw?

[Christer Almqvist]

Oh yes, it is so easy to take good pictures nowadays with those modern cameras. I wonder on what planet those people live that think so.

Missing my Leica M7s, one black for 400 ASA, one chrome for 100 ASA. Set aperture, check resulting speed, focus, release shutter. All that there was to it. Or almost all.

[Thom Hogan]

Not sure about your AdobeRGB requirement. You're shooting raw, so your raw converter will determine the Color Space you actually use, and it should be bigger than AdobeRGB (e.g. ProPhoto RGB, which is what Lightroom always uses).

By setting AdobeRGB in the camera, you're altering the histograms the camera reports, because they're based on the embedded JPEG for raw files.

All your camera settings will have an impact on the histogram, and it will start lying to you if you're not careful. That's why most of us shooting Nikons have been using UniWB and a Picture Control of Neutral with Contrast dialed down -1 to get a better approximation of the actual raw histogram.

In essence, if you value ETTR or want to be careful about dynamic range, you need to be very careful about how you set things that would apply to JPEGs, such as Color Space. If you've determined that AdobeRGB is what gets you closest--not my experience on the E-M1 for what it's worth--then great. But you really need to examine this relationship with a tool like RawDigger and set your camera accordingly.

[Tim]

FWIW I have much the same preferences in shooting controls, but the Pen-F's manual makes it pretty clear how to achieve AF-On with all the mode combinations nicely tabulated (p115 if you really want to know!).

[Crabby Umbo]

I could do with even less of this stuff, but as a guy that shoots for ad agencies and direct accounts, I always want, native tiff, native raw, and native jpeg, and then the ability to pick shooting any of the two formats together. I won't be alone when I say that shooting raw plus jpeg for ad clients is now pretty standard workflow (as well as just giving the client the low-rez jpeg SD card when they leave, so they can peruse and call in which files they want 'processed').

As far as I'm concerned, for my work, you can eliminate all auto-focus features and just go back and make decent focus-torque lenses and put a focus-able screen on the inside. Hell, put the f/stops back on a ring too.

Want to really make this an exercise? Do what I've done in the past, try to limit all settings of your dream camera in physical dials or switches alone! Now yer talking!

[Nigel]

A thousand times >yes!< to this article.

It took me very little time indeed to enable back button focus on my old GX7; year after buying it, focus is still coupled to my OMD EM5 ii's shutter...

[Dave Van de Mark]

I found Gordon's list of settings to be virtually the same as mine. Of all the cameras I have owned (I'm a one at a time man) the hardest to setup was the Olympus OM-D EM-5. After getting all the "My Sets" just as I wanted, I created a multi-page document listing each of the separate group's settings plus my rational for them. I also noted where each setting was to be found in both the menus & user manual and if that was the default or my change. The My Sets evolved over time and so did my document. And after firmware updates, I could get back to "normal" fairly easily as a result of my prior homework.

Finally, I made note of what settings I needed to occasionally change that always required my re-entering the menus. Format is always one of them. With my current Fuji X-Pro 1, I think the only other is when I need to adjust Auto ISO settings. Otherwise the dials and buttons have it covered.

Format is the one setting that bugs the heck out of me. It seems most camera makers want you to dig a little for that one.
Dave

[psu]

All of these setup UIs could be 50-60x better if implemented by competent interaction designers on a platform built for better interfaces, like your Mac or iPhone.

But if the camera companies tried to do it this way it would just turn into a huge but different steaming pile of crap because as they have shown over and over again, camera companies suck at software.

The Olympus Focus Mode Matrix is one of the worst things I've ever seen in a computer interface, which is saying something. I avoid it by never using back button focus. It's not worth the irritation, and that back button is too small anyway

[Chuck Albertson]

Gordon's list is pretty much the one I use to set up a Nikon D750 for the way I shoot, but that camera *does* have manual-focus assist, on by default (good thing, as most of the lenses I clamp on to the bugger are from my old manual-focus brigade). It took a bit of banging and crashing with Nikon's menu system to get the camera to the point where I can shoot without worrying about the settings, and the "personalized" menu on the camera allows quick access to the settings I most often make for unusual situations.

[David Dyer-Bennet]

As always, the answer is that my list differs slightly from Gordon's list.

Not as much as I might have expected, though.

And I haven't configured a back-focus button on my Olympus (not sure it's possible on my EM-5, but even if so there isn't a button I consider suitable; I do love the separate focus button on my Nikon though).

The sort of thing I immediately jump to is "why have any option other than RAW" and "why have any color space other than AdobeRGB"; but I know people who do use camera JPEGs, and arranging that Gordon and I don't have to configure these absolutely basic settings that all right-thinking photographers will want means other wrong-thinking photographers lose out—and a sad (or is it happy) fact of capitalism is that those wrong-thinking photographers' money spends just as well as mine does, so I can see why Olympus wants to support their preferences. In fact, if I had to bet, it'd be me and Gordon losing out if they had to choose one of only RAW or only JPEG.

People growing up with software probably take this kind of configuration a lot more for granted than oldsters like me do. Ask a handy five-year-old if they can find the settings for their favorite app on their tablet.

[Keith B.]

This article wasn't for me, since I already have well-developed camera setting preferences different than what Mr. Lewis has selected.
Isn't the selection of color space irrelevant if one is shooting ONLY raw files?

[Mark Sampson]

As long as camera companies are a small subset of the consumer electronics industry, we will suffer a proliferation of "features", because that's how consumer electronics are differentiated from the competition. More features=better! Same with automobiles and many other things. Simple, functional design is a hard sell to uninformed consumers... and that's the market. Actual photographers are a minority of camera buyers, sadly.

[Tom Passin]

I almost always shoot Aperture Priority and Raw Mode, unless I'm doing something sneaky in Manual. I virtually never use the other bells and whistles. I do like to set the auto focus point to the center of the screen, and that isn't always as simple as I'd like, but at least the camera will usually work fine out of the box.

So I need to learn how to set the ISO speed and how to get the histogram on screen, and how to do exposure compensation. Usually that's it for me. I just ignore all the other complicated things the camera might be able to do.

This approach turns most any camera into one ten times simpler.

[Don]

I've been using back button focus on my dslrs ever since I saw it in use on that Canon doco with Don McCullin. Worth half an hour of your time if you've not seen it:

http://cpn.canon-europe.com/content/Don_McCullin.do

However, I find the EM5 too small to make good use of a feature like that. Instead, I have it set all the time to AF with face and eye detect: it works brilliantly, very fast, accurate, nearly always selects the right object and far more keepers than I deserve. If I need to get something like back button, I just touch the back screen and a fixed AF point is selected which will lock focus and you can also re-frame while holding down the shutter button.

[Steven Willard]

THANK YOU GORDON! I've been trying to figure out how to set back button focus on my M1 to no avail. That one sentence was worth getting out of bed today! Thanks again. I miss your photo blog articles and hope one day you will come back to them.

[Lyn Rees]

I own Olympus, Fuji and Sony cameras, have done for a few years.

The Fuji, is by far the easiest menu system to use, for me anyway.

[DavidB]

"...Isn't the selection of color space irrelevant if one is shooting ONLY raw files?"

In theory—probably. In practice—I'm not sure based on the previous comment from Thom Hogan.

Why don't camera manufacturers provide a histogram from the raw image? And without a raw histogram, is the UniWB the best there is?

[Moose]

". . . arranging that Gordon and I don't have to configure these absolutely basic settings that all right-thinking photographers will want means other wrong-thinking photographers lose out . . ."

". . . since I already have well-developed camera setting preferences different than what Mr. Lewis has selected."

Isn't this the heart of the matter? We have a choice of complex settings choices or limited ways of operation - chosen by someone else. How many of us are happy with the default settings with which the camera came?

Really? You only want to change a couple of little things? But Bob only wants to change a couple of things, too, but different ones than you. And I want to change a few, but all different ones than you and Bob.

Olympus seems to me to have tried to meet the desire for simpler menus for some, more complete control for others - turn on or off the A-G 'advanced' menus. Then they offer rather complete control of major settings that are not set on the many buttons and wheels - with on screen settings controls.

Pressing the OK button when in shooting mode brings up the Super Control Panel on the screen, which allows immediate control, without going into the Menus, of essentially every setting that affects image capture. Even the High Res Mode may be set there.

With touch off, as Mr. Lewis and I prefer, the SCP is navigated with the control ring buttons, otherwise it may be operated by touch.

Personally, the only reason I need to go into the menus after initial set-up in ordinary use is to set Bracketing (for focus stacking) on and off. Since pressing the Menu button takes me back to where I last was making settings, this isn't a major problem, but I do consider this a shortcoming I hope they correct

I've personally been using both Oly and Panny menus for some years. Unlike Mr. Lewis, it's much easier for me to find the settings I want in the Oly menu structure, several menus and submenus, than in the Panny design of only a couple of major menus with endless seeming entires.

[Rusty]

For Olympus owners: http://www.biofos.com/
Both a how to and a very useful spreadsheet to help with recording your mysets. Yes it's complicated but these were helpful to me.

[Robbie Corrigan]

With exception of the touch screen you could setup a K-3 or later in about 2 mins to this state. Just saying ;)
AdobeRGB is an interesting if expensive option - 10-bit graphics cards = workstation class Nvidia or AMD cards with appropriate pricing and of course wide gamut monitors. €3,000 just to see your RAWs?

[Ann Peterson]

I could not come to terms with the EM-5 menu and it spoiled my enjoyment of the camera. I sold it for a good price a few months ago. Hopefully the new owner gets some pleasure from it. Ann

[Bruce McL]

It’s been frustrating to watch computers (including phones) get easier to use and cameras get harder to use over the last decade or so. I think last week’s post on USP (unique selling point) explains what is happening with cameras.

Somebody comes up with a quirky menu item to add to the camera in order to increase sales. Next year, a different quirky item for the same reason. Every year, employees work hard to get some fame and glory for themselves by coming up with a new menu item or button that demands the users’s attention more than last year’s item or button did. Inevitably this leads to a system that feels thrown together and not unified.

I suspect that removing, standardizing, and generally streamlining things that were added years ago is not seen as making a camera more sellable. Inside the company it may be seen as an insult to the people who came up with those items years ago. If those people are still around, they may be in positions of leadership by now.

[Dave Rogers]

I've been an Olympus user since 2008. Part of my reason for staying with the platform is the mental investment in understanding the interface, which has remained remarkably consistent even as it has expanded over the years; and, of course, being satisfied with the performance of the devices.

Bought a Panasonic GM1 once, sold it shortly after because the cognitive burden of using an unfamiliar interface was a distraction from my purpose in holding a camera, diminutive size notwithstanding.

It should go without saying here at The Online Photographer, that today one is seldom more than a couple of clicks or touches from posing a question in a forum of knowledgeable and experienced users, where many questions can be answered in very little time.

But everyone enjoys having their opinions validated. Nothing wrong with that.

[Peter Komar]

Gordon, I really enjoyed your website and I totally get it why you may not want to put in all the effort. I am sure the critics or readers that just want to complain about everything made you walk away from it or perhaps you had other reasons. Have you considered rebooting your site? We need your views, opinions, great photographs, I do hope you consider starting it up again.

[MikeR]

Puzzled, I am, about back button to focus. What's wrong with shutter button half-press to focus?

[toto]

What do the letters P,A,S,M stand for on the mode dial?

P = Professional. Set dial to P if you want your photos to come out like they were shot by a pro.

A = Advanced. Set the dial to A and set to the lowest number to get shallow DOF, 'coz that's the only thing advanced shooters care about.

S = Simple. Set to a large number and you won't get motion blur. Can't get any simpler than that.

M = Moron. Set it to M and your photos will probably be badly exposed and/or blurry. (But once in a while, you might get lucky and nail the shot.)

[John Robison]

I have no idea of what you are talking about. That tells you where I'm at in current camera knowledge. When I hear stories like this is it any wonder I want to hold on to my mid seventies all mechanical 35mm SLR? What a pile of fertilizer these new cameras have become. Sometimes I wish that a massive coronal mass ejection would selectively wipe out every digital camera on the planet.

[Rich]

My god, reading this I'm so glad I still mostly shoot Rolleiflex TLRs and film.

[Michael Farley]

Like others report here, the settings I use on the first version of the E-M10 are similar to Gordon's. There were so many options it took me a couple of hours to work through them all and set up the camera the way I wanted, far longer than any other camera I have owned.

Once done, I have hardly needed to go back into the menu and generally it is a camera I enjoy using. It has one foible though. Just about every control is configurable except the direction of the rear dial when used for exposure compensation in aperture priority mode. (Maybe shutter priority as well, but I don't use it and have not tried.) Olympus reps to whom I spoke at a trade show seemed to think setting it the way I wanted was possible, but the shop was less convinced. I sent it back to Olympus anyway as for me it is counterintuitive and I invariably turn the dial the wrong way. The repair department returned the camera with no fault found.

Given that the E-M10 was the third iteration of the OM-D models, I suspect this is a generic issue acros the range. Yet if Olympus wanted, it should be a simple update in the firmware.

[Mariusz]

Color space setting affects Jpegs only. For RAW it is irrelevant.

[Not exactly. See Thom's comment above. --Mike]

[D. Hufford.]

It has gotten to the point that I rarely bother with trying to decipher camera manuals. All I have seen are horribly written and often more confusing than enlightening. So nowadays, I google when trying to figure out a difficult to find setting. Faster and easier. (The Japanese versions aren't any better either, so it is more than a translation problem.)

After I have everything set up, sooner or later something will be accidentally changed. There was the time I somehow turned on the touch screen of the GX7 and got the focus point stuck down in the lower left hand corner. Couldn't fix that til I got home and googled. Then there was the dark, snowy night with the Fuji X100 when I my gloved hands somehow set it to video and I searched the menu system for 10 minutes to figure out how to shut it off. Then I recalled accidently setting it to video once before and that the video setting was not in the menu.

To this day, however, I can pick up my Nikon D300 and quickly remember where everything is even though I don't regularly use it anymore. It ain't the greatest menu system on earth, I suppose, but for me it beats any of the Micro 4/3 or Fuji systems that I have seen.

[M. Kay]

I agree entirely with the points you have made in your article. That is one of the main reasons I use cameras that just have a focus ring, an aperture ring and a shutter speed dial. And no menus at all.

And it is so much more like fun!

[Rob]

One of the most frustrating things on the otherwise very good Fuji X100S is the inability to set back-button focus in AF at all.

Yes, you can set it up so it focuses by the back button when in manual mode, but then you don't get the advantage of the perspective shift indication (the little green square).

I find this so baffling. To set this up on my Canon is easy, on my wife's Sony, a piece of cake, and yet Fuji is supposed to be the ergonomic marvel. Come on Fuji, this is one of two basic ways to set your camera up for AF, if others can do it why can't you?

[Tom Kwas]

..part of the madness of digital camera setting is how many give you choices for things like sharpening, where you really shouldn't have a choice, it should be however sharp film was!

I read an interesting column in the magazine Tape Op, where the editor was lamenting the fact that people kept sending him aftermarket sound altering devices for review, that contained settings that made the item sound from unusable on one end of the spectrum, to unusable on the other. He didn't have time to mess around with this stuff as a professional audio engineer, he just wanted settings within the usable range for professionals.

I had to send him an e-mail to commiserate and explain the same in imaging. Sharpness settings from unusably soft to unusably etched; with only about one of two (not necessarily in the middle), that would be "OK". Not to mention, no way to even read 'sharpness' on my computer screen, the only way to tell is to print something out! Want to cut down on settings? Cut down on all that stuff: contrast, too, and HDR for most uses. Let's not even talk about color space, that's a function of pre-press at the pre-press house! Here's the color space I want, the same as Kodak Ektachrome last gen E-100 transparency.

It's a joy to use film every time I do it because it's "f/8 and be there".

[Claman]

After spending a working life time with a Japanese company I can say that the way of thinking of Japanese and the rest of the world are completely different: what seems an arcane procedure for us it is very logical for them while what is so logical for us it is so hard for them to understand!
As simple as that.
Translating the manuals to English, or any other "foreign" language it is easy, the problem comes when the software should be re-written from head to toe according to "foreigners logic".
As long as they use their native softwares, "foreigners" will have difficult but if they would rewrite their softwares according to the "foreigners" logic the domestic customers will be in great troubles.
Japanese are extremely conservative people therefore they keep translating the language of their cameras, but the logic behind the softwares remain, firmly, Japanese.

[Doug]

The fundamental problem is that photographers refuse to be all the same as each other. They not only want their options set differently, they want different ways to set their options.

Personally, I think that Fujifilm has done a great job with their cameras: shutter speed dial, aperture ring on the lens (with a few exceptions), top dial for exposure compensation, a bunch of buttons and a 16-slot Q menu you can configure to have your favorite options.

And then someone comes along and says, "Who the heck thought that using a dial for shutter speed was a good idea? I want that to be in my loadable presets." Or some similar rant.

Of the list of 14 settings that Gordon Lewis gave in the article, the number of those that exist on older film cameras is zero. Later film cameras did have some autofocus capabilities.

We demand our complexities, then turn around and complain that it's all too complicated. Darned humans.

[Ken]

"Keep in mind that I’m mainly a street and travel photographer. ... If I shot sports my settings would be completely different..."

Therein lies the crux of the issue: we all want simplicity but not all of us want the same things. I suspect that when we talk about simplicity, what many people, myself included, really want is a clearer, more intuitive user interface that just gets out of the way.

[Juurikas]

Personally, the only reason I need to go into the menus after initial set-up in ordinary use is to set Bracketing (for focus stacking) on and off. Since pressing the Menu button takes me back to where I last was making settings, this isn't a major problem, but I do consider this a shortcoming I hope they correct

On E-M1 you switch 2x2 leveller to position 2 and then press a top front dual-button knob button (next to power switch) to turn bracketing On/Off. As it remebers your bracketing settings, you only need to go menu to change amount of frames or stepping, or if you want to change between bracketing or stacking.

Olympus has best menu next to Leica, but being on opposite side by offering more than others and Leica less than others.
Olympus is logical (with a couple exception) and clear, but their menu theme with background pictures is just bad my opinion.

[Dave New]

After I broke my Canon 7D on a workshop out west, and the only backup body I had with me was my 20D (I then punished myself by shooting Bryce Canyon with the 20D -- augh!), I decided to get a better backup body, and chose the 70D, reasoning that it didn't make sense to have two identical bodies (I've thought better of that since, I assure you).

The 70D sported a twistable screen on the back, which I thought would be really useful in tight places, like low to the ground, or pointed up high on a tripod (which it was). Little did I know, that aside from the menu/button changes between the 7D and the 70D, which causes me to have to pause and re-learn my muscle memory whenever I pick one or the other up, I also found that in Canon's great wisdom, they set the custom functions to automatically revert whenever the exposure metering timed out (?!).

I set C2 to do mirror-lockup with 2 second timer, Av, ISO 100, and C3 to do the same but to bracket exposure. So, I'm in the habit of keeping the camera in C2 and changing the aperture to suit the scene.

On the 7D, it remembers my aperture setting even when the camera times out and goes to sleep, but on the 70D, it keeps reverting to the f8 it was set to when I stored the custom function settings whenever the exposure meeting times out (currently set to a few seconds). What a mess.

It took me a while before I realized what was happening, and then when I figured it out, I searched through the 70D manual to figure out how to 'fix' it. I even tried a couple of settings that seemed to be what I was looking for, but alas, nothing helped.

How can some programmer write code like that? And how can it pass usability testing?

The mind boggles....

[psu]

The thing I hate most about modern cameras is that you have to fool with them to set the TIME ZONE if you want all your pictures (phone and camera) to match up in time. That any modern electronic instrument doesn't do this automatically is beyond annoying.

Also FWIW most of the settings in the original list would have existed on any modern AF film camera (Canon EOS, Nikon F5 and after).

[Brad Nichol]

Having recently purchased an EM5 mk2 and then taken the time to fully explore all the options the camera offers I can make a few comments:

It is easily the camera with the steepest learning curve of all that I have ever owned or come across in my photography classes, but it is also probably one of the most deeply featured cameras as well.

Olympus have added stuff that most photographers may never use or need, like focal length adjustable IS for legacy lenses etc. But here is the thing, some of us will find many of those odd little options to be incredibly useful, maybe even essential, we would feel short changed without them.

So what is the camera maker to do, it can't be easy. Do you bury it all deep down in some custom menu that no one ever finds, dumb the camera down, make the options downloadable as an app (like an iPhone).

I could take Olympus to task for not making it easier, I agree with Gordon on that but heck I am sure glad I'm not the one trying to please everyone in trying to sort out the interface.

The good news is that like many cameras once you have set things up the way you want you may not need to revisit the menu system very often and at least the "my-set" options make it easier in the end to get to that point.

In the end most mid to high end cameras are very sophisticated and targeted at keen and experienced photographers, I imagine the makers assume a certain level of proficiency on the part of the owner, but of course they can all be used very successfully used in the auto modes out of the box. In other words they have the depth and capability to continue to please as your skills and needs grow, which I think is a great idea. Still a little interface refinement wouldn't be wasted.

[PDLanum]

Strange, I have nearly all of the same settings on my Pentax K10D and K20D. I even set up my *istDs (2005) to be basically the same thing. Why do I get the feeling that other brands are finally getting around to doing this. It is sad when people set up arguments about how great their set up is and how it makes them a "better" photographer when my po-dunk brand camera has been able to do this for more than a decade.

[Tim]

MikeR: nothing wrong with keeping focus on the shutter button if that's the way you like it.

However, if you don't want to run an AF-search every time you release the shutter, the alternative is either learn how to use AF-lock (eek) or switch to MF at least temporarily. And then if you're in MF mode and you *do* want to auto-focus just once again, you have to switch out of it...

So AF-On is a hybrid mode, where instead of either doing AF for everything or switching back and forth, you're mostly in MF for the sake of the lock but you can run a single AF-S search whenever you want in the shooting process by poking a button on the back.

It suits me fine in landscape and nature work. Plonk tripod at side of loch; compose; move to place the centre focus-point on a third into the shot; poke the button on the back to auto-focus; recompose; click.

Try it for yourself and see how it feels after half an hour :)

[Steve W]

Back button focus: Why not keep it in continuous mode all the time? When you take your finger off the focus button the servo will stop, just the same as single servo mode. That way, best of both worlds.

[Thom Hogan]

I think Gordan's still missing something.

Yes, how you set the camera (sRGB,AdobeRGB) effects the exposure if you're judging exposure from histograms.

My suggestion of RawDigger is a one-time complication (just as UniWB would be). What I'm saying is that if you're shooting raw files, you need to figure out what camera settings provide you the most accurate histogram to the actual raw data. Once you know that, you set the camera that way and trust your histograms.

But if you're changing camera settings and shooting raw, as you seem to suggest you are, you're getting random changes to the histograms, thus your exposures aren't as dialed in as you think they are.

Now maybe you don't mind small exposure differences or a blown channel from time to time that you didn't know about. I do. I believe that "taking a photo" in the digital age is "optimizing the data captured," much as Ansel Adams believed that exposure/processing/printing had to be optimized to get best results in the film age.

[james wilson]

The real beauty is to set BBF and continuous at the same time. Touch the button and you are in focus. Hold the button and you are in continuous. It is 2 for one button.

[Dennis Ng]

Olympus is one of the most horrible design I have faced. Have done Canon, Nikon, Sony, Pentax, Sigma, Epson (the Leica digital when Leica said it can never be done), Leica, iPhone, Samsung, Blackmagic ... even Casio! ... Working in IT for 40 years and as a hobby of photography more than that. It is just ... who is the guy who design.

It takes good pic and video. And I can sense the guys who design and work on it have photographer elements (unlike say Sony). But really ...