Chuck: Listen to Martin, for he is wise.
Starting out, I did much the same as Martin did. The official manual is
more of an engineering reference manual, and of little help in learning
how to actually use the camera. I used the Dpreview listings of the
menus and buttons, plus their "how to set up the camera initially" page
that Martin cited. It helped that I'd used other Oly DSLRs, so I kinda
knew how the Super Control Panel (SCP) worked. I've turned that on, and
I think I turned Live Control off, since it's redundant with SCP.
What's weird about the OM-D is that there are options to turn the
visibility of other options on or off. Best bet is to leave on only the
options you will actually use. And... you can make the viewfinder and
screen show different sets of things, and even different basic views.
Which would drive me nuts, so I don't do it. Another "weirdity" is that
the function of the OK button and the Info button can seem to overlap,
so they can get you into a perceptual endless loop until you realize
what's happening. (Been there, done that!).
I usually keep the screen off and the viewfinder on (button to the right
of the finder controls that). That way, hitting OK brings up the SCP on
the screen, and a half-press of the shutter or two of the Menu button
makes it go away. In this state, the Info button only cycles options on
the viewfinder, and I can still review shots on the screen. I only turn
the screen on when I really need it to view it as a "ground glass." SCP
and chimping turn the screen on with their own discrete buttons, OK and
Play respectively.
I turned off auto-preview. I usually use the highlight-shadow warning
colors rather than the live-view histogram. In fact, I may have turned
the latter off.
On the top panel, I've made the orange Record button an MF-AF toggle.
Fn2 is for the focus magnifier.
Fn1 is AEL toggle.
Down Arrow is ISO select.
Left Arrow is focus point
Right arrow is white balance
(the arrows that can be programmed match my Panasonic G1 controls, so
less confusing).
I've turned the Anti-Shock delay to 1/8 and left it there. I can always
turn it off for decisive moment stuff, where it bothers me. But so far I
haven't. Time will tell on that one.
For other changes I just use the SCP. I almost always shoot RAW, so the
JPG-ish image controls are lost on me.
I've set MySet 1 to be my basic camera settings. The above, plus ISO
200, single center point autofocus, auto WB.
MySet 2 is for available light. Basic settings as above, ISO 1600, Face
Detection on, tungsten WB.
Hope this helps.
--Peter
Chuck wrote:
> The E-M5 has arrived but I am nowhere near figuring out how to use it.
--
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