I have the feeling that the programmable user modes are likely one of the most useful features that I have never utilized. It seems that the premise is that there are certain setups that people use over and over, and you can pre program them so you only have to turn one dial rather than going through and setting several different things. I don’t know whether I just shoot in too many different situations to have standard setups, or I’m not smart enough to figure out what my several most common setups are. The things I will change are: exposure: In low light TAv, set the minimum shutter speed and aperture I can get away with and take whatever ISO I get. In bright light, Av at ISO 100-400, and let it boost the shutter speed so it doesn’t blow out the highlights In some situations manual exposure works best (strobes, night photography, weird lighting) In wonky dynamic range situations, I’ll bracket, usually nominal and -2 stops to make sure that one exposure doesn’t blow out the highlights. I prefer to bracket with Av rather than TAv. Whitebalance: I don’t worry overmuch about that because I fix things in post, but I will try to get it close in camera. I think that I might just come at photography from an all manual background and only begrudgingly admit that there are cases where the $3 microprocessor in the camera is smarter than I am. I am forced to admit that there are a lot of times when it comes to focusing that it has better vision than I do. How do you folks deal with the various modes on your Pentax DSLRs? Are there any features that you consider super handy? Are there any that you think might be very handy if you got off your butt and learned out how to make use of them? Or do you carry around a spot meter, manually meter, manually focus, and are still tempted to use bulb and manually do the shutter speed as well? -- Larry Colen lrc@red4est.com

User modes are very *useful*, I've learned. The most used one by me on the K-1 is the scenario with the tripod and live view: Av F11, ISO 100, focus single point select, remote control, 3 seconds timer, center exposure. This is a perfect starting point for landscape and close-ups and I can modify it easily from this setting if needed, e.g. to manual focus. When I see something out in the field I should shoot quickly such as an animal, all it needs is switch off this user mode. Henk Op 2021-03-02 om 23:38 schreef Larry Colen: > I have the feeling that the programmable user modes are likely one of the most useful features that I have never utilized. It seems that the premise is that there are certain setups that people use over and over, and you can pre program them so you only have to turn one dial rather than going through and setting several different things. > > I don’t know whether I just shoot in too many different situations to have standard setups, or I’m not smart enough to figure out what my several most common setups are. > > The things I will change are: > > exposure: > In low light TAv, set the minimum shutter speed and aperture I can get away with and take whatever ISO I get. > In bright light, Av at ISO 100-400, and let it boost the shutter speed so it doesn’t blow out the highlights > In some situations manual exposure works best (strobes, night photography, weird lighting) > In wonky dynamic range situations, I’ll bracket, usually nominal and -2 stops to make sure that one exposure doesn’t blow out the highlights. I prefer to bracket with Av rather than TAv. > > Whitebalance: > I don’t worry overmuch about that because I fix things in post, but I will try to get it close in camera. > > I think that I might just come at photography from an all manual background and only begrudgingly admit that there are cases where the $3 microprocessor in the camera is smarter than I am. I am forced to admit that there are a lot of times when it comes to focusing that it has better vision than I do. > > How do you folks deal with the various modes on your Pentax DSLRs? Are there any features that you consider super handy? Are there any that you think might be very handy if you got off your butt and learned out how to make use of them? Or do you carry around a spot meter, manually meter, manually focus, and are still tempted to use bulb and manually do the shutter speed as well? > > -- > Larry Colen > lrc@red4est.com > > > -- > %(real_name)s Pentax-Discuss Mail List > To unsubscribe send an email to pdml-leave@pdml.net > to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.

Larry, you shoot such a variety of stuff in many different scenarios so I am quite sure making use of stored user modes (& tweaking them from time-to-time) is the answer. Many years ago I used a H/H meter & Sunny-16 quite successfully. The ME Super coaxed me into AV mode which I still mostly use. The K7 had TAV but it was only useful in bright light because the ISO had to be kept below 800. The K5 is much better & I now use TAV H/H at 400-500mm. Jack Davis had a standard formula using TAV (f-8 &1/2000sec) with his K3 & D-FA 150-450. So, no need to save my settings. Alan C On 03-Mar-21 12:38 AM, Larry Colen wrote: > I have the feeling that the programmable user modes are likely one of the most useful features that I have never utilized. It seems that the premise is that there are certain setups that people use over and over, and you can pre program them so you only have to turn one dial rather than going through and setting several different things. > > I don’t know whether I just shoot in too many different situations to have standard setups, or I’m not smart enough to figure out what my several most common setups are. > > The things I will change are: > > exposure: > In low light TAv, set the minimum shutter speed and aperture I can get away with and take whatever ISO I get. > In bright light, Av at ISO 100-400, and let it boost the shutter speed so it doesn’t blow out the highlights > In some situations manual exposure works best (strobes, night photography, weird lighting) > In wonky dynamic range situations, I’ll bracket, usually nominal and -2 stops to make sure that one exposure doesn’t blow out the highlights. I prefer to bracket with Av rather than TAv. > > Whitebalance: > I don’t worry overmuch about that because I fix things in post, but I will try to get it close in camera. > > I think that I might just come at photography from an all manual background and only begrudgingly admit that there are cases where the $3 microprocessor in the camera is smarter than I am. I am forced to admit that there are a lot of times when it comes to focusing that it has better vision than I do. > > How do you folks deal with the various modes on your Pentax DSLRs? Are there any features that you consider super handy? Are there any that you think might be very handy if you got off your butt and learned out how to make use of them? Or do you carry around a spot meter, manually meter, manually focus, and are still tempted to use bulb and manually do the shutter speed as well? > > -- > Larry Colen > lrc@red4est.com > > > -- > %(real_name)s Pentax-Discuss Mail List > To unsubscribe send an email to pdml-leave@pdml.net > to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.

Several of my cameras have had customizable User Profile capabilities. Although I also shoot a wide variety of subject matter, it was only once I had the Leicas (SL, M models, and CL) that I have used them on a regular basis. That's because for most of my photography, I tend to work in the same way with respect to the camera configuration anyway (reduced to the basics, I almost always focus manually and use either aperture priority or manual set exposure; most of the other features just get in my way and distract me). What prompted me to learn and use the user profiles on the Leica cameras was the fact that I use lenses from two different families of mounts (Leica R and Leica M mounts) and Leica injects Lens Profile optimizations that affect the data captured, including into the raw files. The optimizations Leica provides make a difference, and for efficient use you need to set a lens profile for the specific lens you want to use on the body you're workin with. So my first use of user profiles was to create profiles for my most used lenses ... those that have the coding required so the body could automatically set the profile, and those that do not so the profile include the correct profile for that lens. What I'd do was set the body up for my use and my most used lens, save that as Profile 1, and then modify that setting for the next lens, save that as Profile 2, and onwards down through the four or six or eight available slots. This made selecting the right lens profile easier and gave me the opportunity to look at other settings that were better suited for one lens over another. So, over time, the profiles diverged a bit from that simple schema. Then I started thinking about my use cases ... I do a lot of negative and small print copy capture as part of my capture and rendering workflow for my film cameras, so I defined another profile set up the way I was tweaking the camera for that use to make it faster and easier to get to it. And then I figured out that having my other user profiles there represented a fast way to get back to my customized defaults for the more general case use of the camera ... two button presses and the camera is ready to go for a walk after a two hour session on the copy stand. And so forth. My Leica CL has my standard setup on slot 1 (for lenses which are coded or native), three standard setups for my most used alternative lenses (the 10mm, the R system macro, etc), and my digital neg/print capture setup. All are now slightly different. And Leica conveniently put a facility in so that I can export all my configurations to the SD card, and reimport them if I change everything (say, through a firmware upgrade or whatever). ... I wish Olympus had that facility with the E-M1 since that camera has close to 200 configuration options in the menus, many of which interact, and if I wipe the camera through an upgrade, I have to walk through all of the menus to return it to the way I want it set up. (I created a setup sheet for it long ago which articulated all the differences from the factory defaults I'd chosen, and that speeds the process, but I still have to walk through all the menu settings to set it up. Easy to make mistakes or miss something along the way.) I have described my use with the thought that it provides a framework for Larry and maybe others to think about what the user configuration capabilities of their cameras might be useful for, how it might prove to have some advantages for them, and how to begin to approach setting up such user profiles. It all seems rather complex when you first approach such a system, but once you get the basic notions down and start using it, it can actually make a camera faster and more convenient to use by a good bit. Frankly, I've been remiss and not spent the time learning how this system works on my new-ish Panasonic GX9 yet, and should. There's a camera that, seemingly simple, has a lot of complexity in how can be set up to operate that a customizable profile might make very simple once I get there with it. The Hasselblad 907x is at the far other end of the spectrum in this regard. I don't even know whether it has user profiles available yet, and it doesn't matter. The menu system on that camera is so simple and easy to understand, so quick to configure, that I've hardly had to even read the manual at all. It's absolutely no problem to completely re-configure the camera any time I use it and only takes a few seconds... despite it having most if not all of the modern conveniences and options. It's a pretty amazing piece of machinery. G > On Mar 3, 2021, at 9:21 AM, Alan C <cole@lantic.net> wrote: > > Larry, you shoot such a variety of stuff in many different scenarios so I am quite sure making use of stored user modes (& tweaking them from time-to-time) is the answer. > > Many years ago I used a H/H meter & Sunny-16 quite successfully. The ME Super coaxed me into AV mode which I still mostly use. The K7 had TAV but it was only useful in bright light because the ISO had to be kept below 800. The K5 is much better & I now use TAV H/H at 400-500mm. Jack Davis had a standard formula using TAV (f-8 &1/2000sec) with his K3 & D-FA 150-450. So, no need to save my settings. > > Alan C > >> On 03-Mar-21 12:38 AM, Larry Colen wrote: >> I have the feeling that the programmable user modes are likely one of the most useful features that I have never utilized. It seems that the premise is that there are certain setups that people use over and over, and you can pre program them so you only have to turn one dial rather than going through and setting several different things. >> >> I don’t know whether I just shoot in too many different situations to have standard setups, or I’m not smart enough to figure out what my several most common setups are. >> >> The things I will change are: >> >> exposure: >> In low light TAv, set the minimum shutter speed and aperture I can get away with and take whatever ISO I get. >> In bright light, Av at ISO 100-400, and let it boost the shutter speed so it doesn’t blow out the highlights >> In some situations manual exposure works best (strobes, night photography, weird lighting) >> In wonky dynamic range situations, I’ll bracket, usually nominal and -2 stops to make sure that one exposure doesn’t blow out the highlights. I prefer to bracket with Av rather than TAv. >> >> Whitebalance: >> I don’t worry overmuch about that because I fix things in post, but I will try to get it close in camera. >> >> I think that I might just come at photography from an all manual background and only begrudgingly admit that there are cases where the $3 microprocessor in the camera is smarter than I am. I am forced to admit that there are a lot of times when it comes to focusing that it has better vision than I do. >> >> How do you folks deal with the various modes on your Pentax DSLRs? Are there any features that you consider super handy? Are there any that you think might be very handy if you got off your butt and learned out how to make use of them? Or do you carry around a spot meter, manually meter, manually focus, and are still tempted to use bulb and manually do the shutter speed as well? >> >> -- >> Larry Colen >> lrc@red4est.com >> >> >> -- >> %(real_name)s Pentax-Discuss Mail List >> To unsubscribe send an email to pdml-leave@pdml.net >> to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions. > -- > %(real_name)s Pentax-Discuss Mail List > To unsubscribe send an email to pdml-leave@pdml.net > to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.