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Nikon
D300s User's Guide:
Custom Setting Menu: Controls
© 2009 KenRockwell.com. All rights reserved.
Nikon D300s and 35mm f/1.8 AF-S. enlarge.
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f1 - f11: Controls
How to Get Here
Press MENU, go to the left and select up and down to the pencil icon. You'll then see CUSTOM SETTING MENU on the color LCD. Click down to f CONTROLS and click to the right.
What it Does
Here lie some of the most important tricks I use on my D300s. These change what some of the buttons and knobs do.
What I Change
I change a lot of these. Read on.
f1 Light Bulb Switch top
This is a very clever option.
If you set it to Light and Information display, when you swing the power button, you'll light up the rear INFO panel.
Once you've done that, tap the INFO button to change the items along the bottom.
Set any of the FUNCT, PREVIEW or AE-L/AF-L buttons to ACCESS TOP ITEM IN MY MENU to give one-handed acess to the complete menu system!
f2 Multi Selector Center Button top
This is a cool one. People see this on a workshop, and think that this trick alone just made the whole workshop worthwhile.
This lets you select what happens when you press the center of the rear thumb selector.
You may select different things for shooting and for playback.
In shooting I prefer to have mine select the center AF area.
In playback there is a very clever trick I suggest everyone set:
Trick: under playback mode, select ZOOM ON/OFF. Now pressing the center of the selector zooms in! I choose MEDIUM.
Trick of tricks: Once you set this and use it, the rear dial flips through all the shots at the same position and magnification (presuming you turned on this feature)! I do this all the time.
It's great for selecting which shot is sharp or not. Sadly once you use the Delete key the D300s reverts to non-zoomed mode, so you'll have to zoom and scroll back to the same spot to continue in-camera editing.
f3 Multi-Selector top
You can set the rear thumb selector to turn on the meter or the AF system.
I never use this.
f4 Photo Info/Playback top
This lets you choose which directions do what on the rear thumb control when playing back.
You can select this switch to match either Canon or Nikon's convention.
In other words, it's your choice of tapping left and right or up and down to go forwards and back or to see the data about an image.
f5 Assign Fn button top
This selects what the magic Function Button does. These settings are so helpful I wish I had several FUNC buttons, or the ability to assign these to other buttons I don't use.
You only get one choice at a time. The D200 let you do two things at once, but not on the D300s, D300, D700 or D3.
Using the Fn button to get to the top item in MY MENU is a clever trick to let you get into the entire menu system using just one hand.
Here are what they do:
FUNC button press
Preview
Depth-of-field preview.
Fv lock
Tap the FUNC button, the flash goes off and meters itself - once. Now every succeeding shot needs no preflashes! This means that, so long as your distance stays unchanged, that you'll get instant shutter release, and more importantly, no blinking from the preflashes. This choice fires the preflashes only once, and uses that information for every succeeding shot until you reset it.
It resets itself when the meter turns off, or if you tap the Function Button again.
AE/AF lock
Locks exposure and focus.
AE lock only
Locks exposure.
AE lock (Reset on release)
Locks exposure and holds it until you take a picture, the meter turns off or you press FUNC again.
AE lock (Hold)
Locks exposure and holds it until the meter turns off or you press FUNC again.
AF lock only
Locks focus.
Flash Off
Doesn't fire the flash so long as you hold the FUNC button.
Bracketing burst
In single frame mode, the D300s goes off and shoots an entire bracketing sequence as set elsewhere.
Matrix Metering
Goes into Matrix metering.
Center-Weighted Metering
Goes into CW metering.
Spot Metering
Goes into spot metering when held
Playback
Now the Fn button does the same thing as the regular PLAY button.
Access top item in MY MENU
Overrides anything else, except picture taking, and brings you to your top menu item.
This is the key to getting into anything in the menu system with just one hand. Try it.
You also can assign the PREVIEW or AE-L/AF-L buttons to do this.
+ NEF (RAW)
When you hold the FUNC button while taking a picture, or press it before, you'll also get an NEF file along with your JPG. This only works while shooting JPG, not with TIFF.
FUNC button + dials
1 step spd/aperture
I select this in the exposure CSM, but here you can force the D300s to shift in full stops as long as you hold the FUNC button.
Chose non-CPU lens number:
You use this to select easily among the various manual-focus lenses you've programmed under enter non-CPU lens data.
Auto Bracketing
Press the FUNC button and spin the dials to select how many bracketed shots, and at what increments.
Dynamic AF Area
Hold FUNC and spin the dial to select Dynamic AF Area mode (the crosshair position of the AF Area Mode Switch).
f6 Assign preview button top
This selects what the depth-of-field preview button does. If you chose anything other than Preview, you usually lose the preview function.
Many of these are the same as the options for the FUNC button. There are more clever functions than there ar buttons to which to assign them.
I leave this one on preview.
Preview button press
Preview
Depth-of-field preview.
Fv lock
Tap the preview button, the flash goes off and meters itself - once. Now every succeeding shot needs no preflashes! This means that, so long as your distance stays unchanged, that you'll get instant shutter release, and more importantly, no blinking from the preflashes. This choice fires the preflashes only once, and uses that information for every succeeding shot until you reset it.
It resets itself when the meter turns off, or if you tap the preview button again.
AE/AF lock
Locks exposure and focus.
AE lock only
Locks exposure.
AE lock (Reset on release)
Locks exposure and holds it until you take a picture, the meter turns off or you press preview again.
AE lock (Hold)
Locks exposure and holds it until the meter turns off or you press preview again.
AF lock only
Locks focus.
Flash Off
Doesn't fire the flash so long as you hold the preview button.
Bracketing burst
In single frame mode, the D300s goes off and shoots an entire bracketing sequence as set elsewhere.
Matrix Metering
Goes into Matrix metering.
Center-Weighted Metering
Goes into CW metering.
Spot Metering
Goes into spot metering when held.
Playback
Now the Preview button does the same thing as the regular PLAY button.
Access top item in MY MENU
Overrides anything else, except picture taking, and brings you to your top menu item.
This is the key to getting into anything in the menu system with just one hand. Try it.
You also can assign the FUNCTION or AE-L/AF-L buttons to do this.
+ NEF (RAW)
When you hold the FUNC button while taking a picture, or press it before, you'll also get an NEF file along with your JPG. This only works while shooting JPG, not with TIFF.
Preview + command dials
1 step spd/aperture
I select this in the exposure CSM, but here you can force the D300s to shift in full stops as long as you hold the FUNC button.
Chose non-CPU lens number:
You use this to select easily among the various manual-focus lenses you've programmed under enter non-CPU lens data.
Auto Bracketing
Press the FUNC button and spin the dials to select how many bracketed shots, and at what increments.
Dynamic AF Area
Hold FUNC and spin the dial to select Dynamic AF Area mode (the crosshair position of the AF Area Mode Switch).
f7 Assign AE-L/AF-L button top
This sets the function of the AE-L/AF-L button on the rear of the D300s. It also can be set to many of the same functions as the other buttons.
I set mine to AE lock only. This way I point the camera where I want my exposure, and hold the button until I recompose and make my exposure.
AE-L/AF-L button press
Preview
Depth-of-field preview.
Fv lock
Tap the AE-L/AF-L button, the flash goes off and meters itself - once. Now every succeeding shot needs no preflashes! This means that, so long as your distance stays unchanged, that you'll get instant shutter release, and more importantly, no blinking from the preflashes. This choice fires the preflashes only once, and uses that information for every succeeding shot until you reset it.
It resets itself when the meter turns off, or if you tap the AE-L/AF-L button again.
AE/AF lock
Locks exposure and focus.
AE lock only
Locks exposure.
AE lock (Reset on release)
Locks exposure and holds it until you take a picture, the meter turns off or you press AE-L/AF-L again.
AE lock (Hold)
Locks exposure and holds it until the meter turns off or you press AE-L/AF-L again.
AF lock only
Locks focus.
AF-ON
Focuses while you press the AE-L/AF-L button.
Flash Off
Doesn't fire the flash so long as you hold the AE-L/AF-L button.
Bracketing burst
In single frame mode, the D300s goes off and shoots an entire bracketing sequence as set elsewhere.
Matrix Metering
Goes into Matrix metering.
Center-Weighted Metering
Goes into CW metering.
Spot Metering
Goes into spot metering when held.
Playback
Now the AE-L/AF-L button does the same thing as the regular PLAY button.
Access top item in MY MENU
Overrides anything else, except picture taking, and brings you to your top menu item.
This is the key to getting into anything in the menu system with just one hand. Try it.
You also can assign the FUNCTION or Preview buttons to do this.
+ NEF (RAW)
When you hold the FUNC button while taking a picture, or press it before, you'll also get an NEF file along with your JPG. This only works while shooting JPG, not with TIFF.
AE-L/AF-L button + dials
Chose non-CPU lens number
You use this to select easily among the various manual-focus lenses you've programmed under enter non-CPU lens data.
Auto Bracketing
Press the FUNC button and spin the dials to select how many bracketed shots, and at what increments.
Dynamic AF Area
Hold FUNC and spin the dial to select Dynamic AF Area mode (the crosshair position of the AF Area Mode Switch).
f8 Customize command dials top
This allows some very clever things you'll appreciate, like let you swap images on playback using the dials.
Reverse Rotation
So what.
Change main/sub
So what.
Aperture Setting
Lets you set apertures with the rings on the lens if you desire.
Menus and playback
Set this!
If you do, the rear dial now can scroll quickly among your shots, and the front dial scrolls among the various data screens. This is another trick that workshop participants say makes the whole trip worthwhile.
f9 Release button to use dial top
This lets you tap a button once to adjust instead of having to keep holding it. You can keep adjusting until you tap the shutter, at which time it cancels.
I don't use this.
f10 No memory card? top
Nikon defaults this to the wrong position so that D300ss can be shot in camera stores without memory cards.
Be sure to set this to LOCK so that you'll never be shooting blanks!
If you don't set this away from the default of OK, you could shoot for a week and, if you don't try to play back other shots, might not notice you have no card!
Nikon does put up a red DEMO warning flag on playback, and the fact that they call it Demo means that you know it was done to help old-style retail camera stores that no longer exist, not to help photographers.
Earlier model cameras used to default to the correct LOCK position, but this meant that retail camera stores needed salespeople who knew how to use a camera to set it up so it could shoot in-store. Those days are gone: the default of ENABLE is so these can be put out by the janitor at Best Buy today for people to try.
Don't forget to set this to LOCK!
f11 Reverse indicators top
Nikon's exposure meters have always read backwards. More exposure goes to the left, and less exposure goes to the right. Huh?
Nikon's rangefinder cameras of the 1940s had shutter dials and aperture rings which rotated in one direction. No big deal, but when Nikon added meters to cameras in the 1960s, the meters had to read to make sense as you moved the dials, so Nikon's meter needles and bar graphs have always gone in the wrong direction. (The superior vertical bar graphs of the D3, D2 and F6 don't have this problem: up is more.)
Thankfully Nikon has never changed this, since in whatever decade they do, there will be massive confusion among all Nikon users familiar with the (wrong) way it's been forever.
For newcomers, you can use this menu to flip things back to normal, as Canon has done it since their EOS cameras of the 1980s. If you do, more goes to the right.
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