Thread: X100 User Setup Preferences

Originally Posted by jonoslack

This sounds splendid Ray . . . but it's not my cup of tea, because although it's great for some situations it's not so good for others.

Me - I like the AFL/AEL button to lock exposure only - with the switch option. That way I can take and lock an exposure from a part of the scene I think will do well, then half press the shutter to lock the focus (with the nice green square) then recompose and shoot.

As for close up . . just flip to manual focus, and the AFL/AEL button changes it's function to focusing (whether it should or not is a moot point, but it does) - so, of course, you can focus close with it by pressing that button.

For me this presents a better set of compromises.

all the best

In a sense its kind of six of one, half a dozen of the other. You can set both focus and exposure independently and re-compose doing it either your way or my way. I just prefer to keep the focus away from the shutter button so that I have the option to re-focus or not. Its often not necessary and it generally takes less time to re-calc exposure than to re-focus. I say 'generally' because in really good light with a small aperture, the X100 does some trick of opening and then re-closing the aperture which can introduce lag that's as bad as, or sometimes worse than, refocussing. I've seen this explained and I can't remember why it does this. It hasn't really tripped me up yet, but I'm aware of it so I'll know what's going on if it ever does.

-Ray

Originally Posted by Ray

In a sense its kind of six of one, half a dozen of the other. You can set both focus and exposure independently and re-compose doing it either your way or my way. I just prefer to keep the focus away from the shutter button so that I have the option to re-focus or not. Its often not necessary and it generally takes less time to re-calc exposure than to re-focus. I say 'generally' because in really good light with a small aperture, the X100 does some trick of opening and then re-closing the aperture which can introduce lag that's as bad as, or sometimes worse than, refocussing. I've seen this explained and I can't remember why it does this. It hasn't really tripped me up yet, but I'm aware of it so I'll know what's going on if it ever does.

-Ray

OK - I understand the arguments (after all, this isn't a new discussion). But for most shots I'm not going to need to do either, so it's just a case of pressing the shutter and I get both focus and exposure - with your set up you ALWAYS have to make a focusing decision, with mine I still can separate focus and exposure, but I don't HAVE TO.

sense or nonsense?

Matter of priorities - I'd rather have the decision available than not. But either way, operationally, it becomes second nature pretty quickly. For street shooting, sometimes speed of operation is the key factor and being able to shoot without refocussing helps there. For other types of shooting it would be a non-issue. To each their own, just one possible approach, not for everyone, etc, etc, etc...

-Ray

Originally Posted by Ray

Matter of priorities - I'd rather have the decision available than not. But either way, operationally, it becomes second nature pretty quickly. For street shooting, sometimes speed of operation is the key factor and being able to shoot without refocussing helps there. For other types of shooting it would be a non-issue. To each their own, just one possible approach, not for everyone, etc, etc, etc...

-Ray

Ah, Yes, Street - I always need to refocus between shots - none of that hyperfocal stuff for me - but the discussion really is useful, even if old stuck in the muds like us aren't convinced by each other, it airs the possibilities, which is valuable, hopefully.

all the very best

Great thread. I've been watching this forum since I ordered mine on Amazon last week. No shipping info in sight, I cancelled my order today at 9:00 AM and took a chance with a local dealer, at least they only had 20 orders ahead of me. Paid up and they said they would call me when the shipments would come in. Got a call at 2:00 saying I'm in luck as one had just come in...and the person who ordered had not paid yet TA-DA! Fortunately I had.

Wow, are you a lucky fellow! So do you have the camera home with battery charging?!

Camera's home! One battery is charging, the spare I purchased I'm using in the camera right now, heck with charging it up first! When I picked it up at will call, the sales people said that it was amazing I was walking out of the store with the only one. Apparently of the 20 in line, I was the only one that paid up front so off I went!
Now I'm gonna sit down with the E-P1 and the Nex 5 and have a little man to camera chat...

Be gentle, Bruce, but straightforward.

Congrats again!

Right now, I have my AFL/AEL set to exposure lock, as well, Jono. However, I the more I think about this camera in use in different situations, the more I can see setting up some Custom Settings... On Sunday, I was in a situation in which I did OK with the camera...but there were some instances where I completely forgot what ISO I was using....and some times I did wish I could had been able to take pictures more quickly (without lag)...and I'm thinking that maybe hyperfocal might have come in handy - and so would having turned off the review. It takes me a while to catch on to different methods. Hindsight is always 20:20, in my case.

Forgive me if this has been covered...I cannot for the life of me understand how the manual focus is supposed to work. I set the switch on the side to MF, when I turn the focus ring, I hear incremental electronic focusing movements but it would take what seems hours to get from one focal length to the other....:-(