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Nikon D800 and D800E User's Guide: Custom Settings Menu (pencil icon)
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Nikon D800 and D800E

Nikon D800 and 50mm f/1.4 G. enlarge.

 

July 2012    D800 and D800E Review  Nikon Reviews  Nikon Lenses  All Reviews

Top of D800 and D800E User's Guide

User's Guide Page Index

 

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Custom Settings Menu

 

Want free live phone support? In the USA, call (800) NIKON-UX, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

 

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.

 

What it Does

The Custom Setting Menu lets us optimize the camera's knobs, buttons, meters, timers, focus and more to our personal preferences.

Nikon has subdivided these various menu functions into groups, and color coded them as:

a Autofocus

b Metering/exposure

c Timers/AE Lock

d Shooting/display

e Bracketing/flash

f Controls

g Movie.

The seemingly unrelated things separated by slashes (/) are Nikon's grouping.

I use Nikon's names as headers for each section, so please excuse me if they make little sense.

 

What I Change

I change a zillion things, all explained on the next pages where I detail everything.

 

Complaints and Organization

Nikon is pretty sloppy about naming and organizing the menus, sorry.

This menu is also all about shooting, just like the Shooting Menu. It's tricky to remember if something is in the Shooting Menu or the Custom Setting Menu.

I use the D800 and D800E daily and rarely can remember in what menu Nikon has hidden what. I use the My Menu menu for the items I use often.

 

Custom Settings Bank       top

There are four selectable memory locations which store all the settings in this menu. They are called A, B, C and D. You may add your own names to them for convenience. I name my A as KenRockwell.com for my wild color shots, and I call B "Family" for my family shots with normal colors.

Nikon did another bone-headed thing by naming the Shooting Menu Banks A, B, C and D, and then using the same names (A, B, C and D) for these Custom Menu Banks. They should use 1, 2, 3 and 4 for one of them to prevent confusion. Don't worry: I have an engineering degree and patents, and I get confused, too.

There is no "SAVE" command. The bank you have selected is updated immediately as you change settings. If you've never selected one then you've been working in the A bank all along.

You can save names for each, but you can't lock any of these banks. If you have a bank you don't want altered, don't shoot actively with it. Anytime you change anything in the Custom Setting Menu you are changing the settings of whichever bank you have selected. To save a Bank you must work in another, since there's no way to lock them. Nikon confuses us all by letting us save names which stay locked while the settings wander all over the place as we change them in shooting.

I ranted about this back at Shooting Menu Banks.

 

How to Recall a Setting       top

Easy: MENU > CUSTOM SETTING MENU > Custom Settings bank > (select one) > OK.

You'll see CUSTOM and A, B, C or D on the INFO screen.

 

How to Save a Setting       top

You can't save or lock any of these settings. This is a design defect and confused me at first.

The D800 and D800E continuously alters whichever Custom Settings Bank is selected. Choose a different Custom Settings Bank and you're changing that Custom Settings Bank as you're shooting.

Custom Settings Banks are confusing because all they do is return you to where you were when you last left them.

If you haven't selected a bank, the D800 or D800E defaults to Custom Settings Bank A. You see that on the INFO screen as "SHOOT A."

As you tweak settings, these are updated for the currently selected Custom Settings Bank.

If you choose Custom Settings Bank B, the settings for A are saved until you select Bank A again. Bank B is then modified as you work with the camera.

When you switch to a different Custom Settings Bank, the D800 or D800E recalls whatever settings you had when you left that Custom Settings Bank for a different one.

This is idiotic, but it's the way the D800 and D800E work. I only figured this out by having to explain it. This is why my settings were always changing all by themselves. If you are using a bank and change your WB, you just changed that bank. Sorry. If you change a setting and then realized you were in the wrong bank, sorry again. You just screwed up the wrong bank. There is no "back" button.

If you want to reset a bank to its defaults, select it, then use the next menu item to reset it.

 

How to Name a Setting       top

You can save a name for the setting, even if you can't save the setting itself.

Choose MENU > CUSTOM SETTINGS MENU > Custom Settings Bank > (Choose the bank you want to rename) > Rename.

Enter the name, and remember to press OK when done. If you forget to press OK, it forgets the name and you have to start over!

Hint: there's no obvious way to delete a character if you make a mistake. Use the Trash button to delete characters.

 

How to Reset a Custom Settings Bank        top

This resets everything in the selected Custom Settings Bank (just explained above) to the defaults. You reset only the bank in which you're working.

To reset a bank, press MENU > CUSTOM SETTING MENU > Custom Settings bank > (select one of them) > (press the trash can button).

Play with everything to your heart's content, since if you do screw anything up this reset will fix it. Choose a bank you don't use and you won't change the bank you do use.

 

Top of D800 and D800E User's Guide

Nikon D800 and D800E Review

 

AUTOFOCUS

Setting the D800 and D800E's Autofocus System

 

KNOBS and BUTTONS

     FRONT

     TOP PANEL

     BACK

 

MENUS

     PLAYBACK   

     SHOOTING MENU

     CUSTOM SETTING MENU

          a Autofocus < < NEXT

          b Metering/Exposure

          c Timers/AE&AF Lock

          d Shooting/Display

          e Bracketing/Flash

          f Controls

          g Movie

     SET UP MENU

     RETOUCH MENU

     MY MENU MENU

 

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