Jock Elliott
Hall of Famer
- Location
- Troy, NY
The sheer complexity of today's cameras can induce panic in a guy like me. I live in fear of inducing some combination of commands that will render my camera as eccentric as an ancient bachelor uncle and that I cannot figure out how to undo. This isn't just a theoretical fear; I had to do a full reset on a camera that exhibited high strangeness after I handled it with my winter gloves.
So when I get a camera, I tend to leave it the heck alone. Instead of customizing the camera to my preferences, I customize myself to work with its default settings. That was one of the attractions of the LX100 -- it had readily accessible controls that I remember from the good ol' days: aperture, shutter speed. I didn't use them much, but it was very comforting to know they were there.
The LX100 has a trick autofocus system (dfd?) that works really fast and really well, but it doesn't always focus on the thing that I wanted to focus on. Fortunately, if you throw a switch on the side of the lens barrel, you can select manual focus, turn a ring on the lens barrel (this same ring controls the step zoom by default) and focus on the desired subject. A magnified section pops up in middle of the viewfinder, and blue sparklies appear on the thing that is in focus. To get back to autofocus, you have to move the switch back to its original position.
Today, however, I discovered something that really made me grin. I was cruising the menus, looking for some other function, when I noticed, on page 3 of the Custom settings menu, a thing called "AF + MF." Activate it, and autofocus works as usual.
The image below shows a shot taken through the window at my neighbor's house. The autofocus locked onto the window.
But what I really wanted was the neighbor's house. With AF + MF activated, while pressing the shutter button halfway down (which activates autofocus) I just rotate the focus ring, the camera instantly switches to manual focus, pops up the magnified view, and lets me focus on the house:
This also works if you use the AF/AE lock button for back focus. When you let off the shutter button, the focus ring around the camera barrel goes back to its original function. This is really slick, really easy, and as far as I can tell, has no downside.
Cheers, Jock
So when I get a camera, I tend to leave it the heck alone. Instead of customizing the camera to my preferences, I customize myself to work with its default settings. That was one of the attractions of the LX100 -- it had readily accessible controls that I remember from the good ol' days: aperture, shutter speed. I didn't use them much, but it was very comforting to know they were there.
The LX100 has a trick autofocus system (dfd?) that works really fast and really well, but it doesn't always focus on the thing that I wanted to focus on. Fortunately, if you throw a switch on the side of the lens barrel, you can select manual focus, turn a ring on the lens barrel (this same ring controls the step zoom by default) and focus on the desired subject. A magnified section pops up in middle of the viewfinder, and blue sparklies appear on the thing that is in focus. To get back to autofocus, you have to move the switch back to its original position.
Today, however, I discovered something that really made me grin. I was cruising the menus, looking for some other function, when I noticed, on page 3 of the Custom settings menu, a thing called "AF + MF." Activate it, and autofocus works as usual.
The image below shows a shot taken through the window at my neighbor's house. The autofocus locked onto the window.
But what I really wanted was the neighbor's house. With AF + MF activated, while pressing the shutter button halfway down (which activates autofocus) I just rotate the focus ring, the camera instantly switches to manual focus, pops up the magnified view, and lets me focus on the house:
This also works if you use the AF/AE lock button for back focus. When you let off the shutter button, the focus ring around the camera barrel goes back to its original function. This is really slick, really easy, and as far as I can tell, has no downside.
Cheers, Jock
