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What's your favourite camera setup/settings?

M

mrmachine

New Member
I started writing this in reply to the thread about favourite settings for shooting JPG, until I realised that I don't shoot JPG and none of these settings are about shooting JPG :)

I love the new AFL button. I have it set to lock focus until it is pressed a second time. This effectively gives me a full time focus button (even when in SNAP mode), that when pressed will lock me into manual focus (a tweak-able SNAP focus that can go below 1m). Reminds me of my 5dm3 where I shoot all focus points with the shutter button half down and the centre point only on the back AF button.

It also seems to focus quickly (if it can), and if it can't lock then it drops down into macro mode. No fiddling around switching to AF, trying to focus, and then switching to macro when it fails when too close. And it even remembers if you were in pinpoint AF before going into SNAP. Amazing feature.

I also have FN1 set to AF/SNAP and FN2 set to MultiAF/PinpointAF. Super quick and easy to jump between focus modes. I wish I could long press FN2 for self timer and assign interval shooting or 1st/2nd curtain flash to the effect button. I don't use self timer often, but there's no way to activate it at all if it's not programmed to one of the FN or effect buttons.

On the ADJ lever I have focus, expo. metering, cont. mode, flash comp. and effect. I never use effect (shoot raw and process in Aperture), but I can't think of another useful 5th setting. Sometimes composing in high contrast BW is nice. I'd really love to be able to assign a shooting mode menu as the 5th setting. It would have options to initiate multiple exposure shooting, interval shooting, interval composite and self timer.

For MY1 I have TAv mode at f8/500 and 1.5m SNAP for big DOF and continuous shooting enabled for quick street snaps in good light.

For MY2 I have Av mode at f8, 1m SNAP and auto 3200 ISO with flash synchro (2nd curtain) for close up flash work.

For MY3 I have a stealth mode - no LCD, Av mode at f4.5 and 2.5m SNAP with auto 6400 ISO (for sneaky shots in a theatre or other events). Love that I can change to this mode while the camera is off and power up dark.

For the regular Av/Tv/TAv modes I try to leave the camera set to f8/500, 1.5m SNAP, auto 3200 ISO, flash synchro (1st curtain).
 
Thanks for the great write up! Interesting about your use of the AFL button. I'll have to try using it that way. One thing, have you noticed that the lens seems to re-focus when you press the AFL button? I can definitely feel the motor, at any rate. I don't know if the focus actually changes. It's interesting that if one has a Fn button set to toggle on MF (in order to lock focus, tweak AF focus, or use the distance scale), that same "re-focussing" motor doesn't seem to happen when you switch from AF to MF.

-Agree about the long press for the Fn buttons. That (or something similar) seems to be a good idea to get a second function. And as it happens, I recently discovered for myself the restrictions on where the timer On/Off button can be mapped. Not a huge deal but a I guess it's less than ideal. I was doing long exposures on a tripod in dim interiors recently (not something I do that often) and using the timer was helpful for stability on my Five Dollar Tripod.

-ADJ lever - how about using the remaining setting for manual flash adjustment?

-Your MY's seem very well thought out and functional. Never thought about having a setting like your My3 where you can power up dark and ready. Nice one.

-I think I understand your MY2 set up for flash, and it sounds like it makes sense. But can I ask why 2nd curtain synch in that situation? I honestly don't know, I'm not saying I have a better idea (I'm pretty new to flash). PLus wouldn't you want to try to ensure a high shutter speed?
 
Thank you mrmachine for the awesome write up.

I just got my GR yesterday and have spent some time shooting with it. It wasn't until I saw your post last night that I realized to assign pinpoint/multi as one of the F buttons. How it feels so much more intuitive! Also having a daylight preset is awesome too, switching from indoor to outdoor, I am able to just flick to MY and have my aperture and snap distance set.

Anyway, just want to write to thank you for the informative post!
 
Thanks Mr Machine,

You've inspired to try your suggested settings. See how we go.

rgds,
FrankOz
 
This is great. I just got my GR and find the instruction manual difficult to follow. I like the way you set up your My Settings. I generally shoot urban landscape, so what would you suggest for these types of settings: 1. Sunny Day, 2. Cloudy Day, 3. Indoor Incandescent light, 4. Night
 
Tv / Av : Generally will float settings around... Auto WB, DNG-only, Matrix metering, Auto ISO-Hi (6400 max, min shutter 1/80th) and in Av @ 2.8 most of the time.

The three MY presets I use as film emulations. These are strictly for fun, but I've found it really helps better my photographer overall.

MY1 : Tungsten-balanced ISO800 film - ISO locked at 800, WB locked at 3200. DNG+JPG, Av mode @ 2.8 mostly.
MY2 : Daylight-balanced ISO400 film - ISO locked at 400, WB locked at 5600. DNG+JPG, Positive Film effect mode. Av mode @ 2.8 mostly.
MY1 : My Delta 3200 emulation - ISO locked at 3200, Auto WB. DNG+JPG, B&W or Hi-Con B&W.

My day-to-day shooting is DNG, but when playing around with the film emulation modes I like to stick with the JPEGs as much as I can... DNG for archival/backup. It really helps lock you in to a look. Ricoh has some pretty cool image science going on in their cameras and it's fun to benefit from that. In DNG world you're basically relying on Adobe's starting point and customizing from there.
 
Just some simple feedback from me:

FN2: Focus assist, I forgot the forum I read this assignment and borrowed the idea from, but it made sense to me as you can then press the same button a second time to go into the Detail page.

the AF level/button combo: Can't believe it took me so long to finally realise this, but pressing-and-holding the button with the level set to C-AF jumps into continuous shooting. All along I thought it meant "continuous AF aka AF tracking" and figured I didn't need that feature baked into a lever. I should have trusted the Ricoh engineers better! :D Hence, I re-configured one of the ADJ positions from continuous shooting mode to exposure metering.
 
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