Have a Get-Out-of-Jail-Free Strategy

Apropos yesterday's post, Thomas Mc Cann said: "Don't you have memory buttons where you can store presets? My Panasonic G9 has a get-out-of-jail-free button marked iA (Intelligent Auto) which I resort to when I get flustered."

I'd say that's an important element of camera setup for anyone who either doesn't use their cameras every day or isn't naturally an electronics maven (some of you have an aptitude, I know). Start by assuming that occasionally things will go wrong and you'll inadvertently and unintentionally set something on the camera without realizing what you've done or how to undo it. Having and knowing a quick way to reset the camera to a familiar basic setup is a good failsafe. You might never need it, but you'll know what to do if (or, in my case, when) the need arises.

I've set up various cameras that way but I hadn't done so on the X-T1, which I was was using when I got "stuck in Sepia." For all its knobs and dials and its basic transparency, The X-T1 is still a computer.

Carl Weese wrote an article for us about using Custom Modes in 2015. It's worth reviewing. I'm going to.

Memorable
It's worth noting on the way by, however, that sometimes bad things are good things. Cold and flustered, I accidentally put the camera into sepia mode and then didn't know how to undo it. But that made me think okay, so what can you do with sepia then? I don't usually take pictures of barns. But a barn is a conventional pictorial subject and sepia is a signifier that telegraphs "picturesque" and "old-timey," appropriate for Americana, so I figured I'd put the two together. I'm not making grand claims for the picture, but it's now a memorable one for me. All my photographic life I've liked the idea of trying things at least once. I made a sepia-toned darkroom print once—just one, to try it. So now I've shot a digital picture in sepia mode. I'll remember it.

Mike

Book Product o' This Week:

Is it too late for this? 2021 is still young. There are two reasons to value these Michael Kenna calendars from Nazraeli Press: one is that his originals are 8x8", so these pictures are meant to work at wall-calendar sizes. The other is that Michael's calendars can actually increase in value! Dan Smith suggested this, and he reports that some older ones sell in the hundreds of dollars. "The printing is excellent," Dan wrote, "and the calendar is beautiful."

The above link takes you from TOP to Amazon. This week's pick is not available at Amazon Canada, but 2019 is. Hey, the pictures are still good. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

 

Original contents copyright 2021 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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Featured Comments from:

Comments

[Henk]

Every Panasonic camera has the possibility to save a combination of nearly every menu settings in one of the custom settings C1, C2 etc.

If you set the camera menu to your favorite setup and save it to a custom setting you can get the camera back to "normal" with a few clicks.

Fuji cameras are a different story, here you only can save a limited set of settings in the custom settings.

[Jim Freeman]

I'd buy the barn in a print sale.

[Huw Morgan]

These days, I've been doing a lot of walking (like everyone else in the world) and have been carrying my camera with me. I have the camera on a Peak Design strap around my neck and over my shoulder. It's very comfortable, but the camera settles in with its back on my lower hip. If I forget to turn the camera off after using it, the buttons and controls get jostled and, the next time a photo opportunity arises, the camera is in a perfectly random state. At one point, the shutter had been accidentally set to a 10 second delay and I couldn't for the life of me figure out what was wrong with the camera. No matter what I did, the shutter would not fire. It wasn't until I noticed the red light on the front of the camera flashing that I figured out what had happened.

[Albert Smith]

Speaking just for Fuji, I have 4 cameras, two X-T class (2 and 3), an Xpro2 and an X-E3 and the one thing that is great is the menu systems are (mostly) identical.

I have every camera set up exactly the same, so that simply hitting the Q button allows me to scroll through the 8 film simulations that I have entered into the user settings. The menu even let's you enter a narrative heading, such as "high contrast color" (Velvia), "B&W daylight" (Acros plus red filter), etc.

I shoot digital exactly like I'm shooting slides... get it right, or it's wrong. I shoot Jpegs, and Fujifilm let's me do that with terrific consistency across my arsenal of bodies.

Mike, take some time and set a few profiles into your X-T1 (might need a few outings to tweak the highlight, shadow, color, etc) and you will find that Q button is very useful.

[Daniel]

On the smaller camera bodies. Some of us with larger hands just can't use them. Too often we brush or push buttons not wanted. X-E series is smaller than X-pro and X-H bodies. It does make a difference.

[Bill Skones]

Thanks for the Michael Kenna calendar tip, mine is on its way. Of course in 2021 I no more need a paper calendar than I need a paper telephone book, so it will simply serve as displayed photo that changes every month. And, since there are only fourteen possible calendar configurations and it does not show the year on each page, I can use it again in the future.

[Richard Man]

As I oft-said, I wish I have the eyes oh Henri Cartier-Bresson, the minds of Ansel Adams, the heart of Sebastiao Salgado, and the soul of Michael Kenna. A few years ago, when Mr. Kenna was signing at the Weston Gallery, I hauled close to a dozen books and he signed them all. A very nice gentleman.

[MikeR]

Mike, you can visualize bank angles, reverse "English", where to strike for a good break, how to gauge roll distance on the table, and so on and on and on. Your camera is simple compared to that. It "tells" you what it's doing. In text. Still on Sepia?

On your X-T1, press Menu/OK, Shooting Menu #1, at the bottom find Film Simulation, press OK, Sepia is at the bottom of a vertical list, press the down or up arrow until you get to a film you like. I believe the "standard" one is Provia. (Also, view that vertical list as a wheel where if you keep going in one direction, like down arrow, you'll come back around to where you started.)

[Brian Stewart]

Using custom settings as a get-out-of-jail-free card has serious limitations for most Fuji X cameras, because of all those knobs and dials and buttons - one of the main reasons we bought Fuji in the first place. As a general rule, Fuji takes the view that it won't let you override the setting on a dial, e.g. ISO or shutter speed, with a menu setting, as it would mean that you couldn't then rely on the dial setting to know the actual setting in use. (There are some exceptions to this, and I assume it's much less of an issue with the X-S10.) You can't quickly fix this type of problem with a custom setting.

There are two ways that I find myself with the camera accidentally with the wrong settings. One is if I bump or knock one of those dials, which is easy to do when pulling the camera out of my Billingham Hadley Pro. Since sometime around the X-T2 there has been a lock button on the ISO and shutter speed dials, but you have to remember to press it. But there are still the exposure mode and shooting mode dials underneath them. These are harder to knock, and I think Fuji has stiffened them over time, but it's not always obvious if they're not set correctly.

The other way to get incorrect settings is via the touch screen. It's not hard to accidentally change a setting, and noses are prone to do this. I generally turn my touch screens off, although the one on the X-E3 is useful. This wouldn't have been a problem on your X-T1 but it could be on the X-H1. A custom setting would fix most instances of this.

[James]

If available, have your camera set to raw plus jpeg. Then you will never be stuck with any setting you don't want. You just use the Raw file and develop from there.
You never know, you may even choose the sepia option. Wouldn't that be fun?

[Merle Hall]

I must've read Carl's article back then as that's very similar to what I do, though with different purposes for the custom settings.

Something else that's helped me, since I have essential tremors, is to turn off the screen and only use the physical buttons. I kept hitting the wrong thing, hitting it twice, whatever and going down some hole not knowing where I'd started nor what I'd done.

[John McMillin]

Pentax DSLRs have the "Green Button," which can reset the camera to default parameters with one push. Program exposure is selected, and most menu selections for exposure and AF revert to defaults, too. Beautifully simple!

But Pentax, those ever-daring innovators, couldn't stop there! The Green Button's functions change with certain settings of the E-Dials, a process that takes several screens to explain over at pentaxforums. So I'm kinda afraid to press the Green Button. I feel like the guy who grew up driving manual transmissions but won't try an automatic because it seems too complicated.

[Moose]

All my cameras, Oly, Panny and Sony, have my standard settings stored to C1, and the dial or quick menu set to C1.

Several comments to Mr Weese's essay are upset that letting the camera go to sleep or turning it off loses the immediate settings.

My opinion is the reverse. I Love that I can be sure when I pick up a camera and turn it on, the settings will be in a known, general purpose state.

Gone are the days of forgetting to reset something(s, then getting blindsided later.

[Tom Duffy]

Could have been way worse than sepia. You camera could have gotten stuck in Thomas Kinkade mode. :)

[David Dyer-Bennet]

Try any new thing twice—it might be an acquired taste! :-)

[Bob G.]

Aren’t there two green dot, simul-press buttons on just about every recent decent camera that reverts to default setups? My Nikon/Oly/Pany has them...

[hugh crawford]

Many cameras have a green box point and shoot position on PASM-presets-movie-panorama and feature from hell knob.

It’s great for handing the camera to someone to use without explaining beyond “this button makes pictures happen, keep the strap around your neck“

It’s also great for when you have the camera set up in some arcane way for some specific use case and something happens unexpectedly that you want to take a photo of; I call it flying saucer mode.

You know what’s not great? When the camera designer puts the green box setting in the middle of the other settings so that you have to remember that it’s the fifth one in from the stop if you are trying to set your camera up without making a fuss and looking at what you’re doing.

A really despicable design is when the knob can spin around without a stop so that you can’t tell what it’s set to without looking. I understand that this actually costs a bit more than having a stop. I can’t imagine how someone thought a control that can spin continuously in one direction was a good thing.

[Andy F]

But a barn is a conventional pictorial subject and sepia is a signifier that telegraphs "picturesque" and "old-timey,"

So does the word ‘telegraphs’ ;-)