Sunday Sep 27, 2009 at 09:37
Nikon D700 Custom Control Settings
I never blogged it, but a few months ago I upgraded to a Nikon D700 from my trusty D200. Excellent image quality aside, I think the singular winning quality of the Nikon SLRs is their handling and overall usability. The camera hardly ever gets in the way of what I want to do with it.
A significant part of the usability for me is the custom control settings on the camera. Here’s how I have things set currently:
FUNC Button
The FUNC button sits comfortably under the fourth finger of the right hand on the front of the camera. Custom Setting #F5 allows it to be assigned to a number of functions in two separate modes – button press and button + dials (i.e. press and hold while you move the command dials).
Given that the D700 is missing a dedicated bracketing control, you’re pretty much forced to assign FUNC Button + Dials to “Auto bracketing”. With the button held, you can move the command dials to set the number of bracketed frames plus the relative exposures you’d like to capture. I normally leave it at five frames (0, -2, -1, +1, +2) but there a number of other options.
For the Button Press setting, I use “Spot Metering”. I find this incredibly useful. The camera is left in Matrix metering mode by default, allowing initial exposure settings to be dialled in quickly (I almost always work in Manual mode). But if you have the slightest concerns about dynamic range (i.e. is it too large, such that I either need to use an ND grad filter or to bracket my exposures for subsequent blending or HDR), it’s very useful to have the spot meter at hand to determine that.
Holding the FUNC button down, I’m able quickly to check where the sky or the dark trees sit relative to dialled in exposure settings. For example, if I matrix meter the scene and dial in exposure such that the meter reads 0, I can then point at the sky (or select focus point in that region), hold the FUNC button and obtain a spot meter reading instantly. If the exposure for the spot meter reading is several stops higher, I know that I’m likely to blow the highlights in the sky area with my current selected exposure.
The great thing about this setting is just how quick it is to use – you don’t need to take your eye away from the viewfinder (which you otherwise would if you had to switch back and forth between metering modes using the selector switch on the back of the camera).
One word of warning however: you need to be disciplined not to change exposure settings with the FUNC button pressed. Why? Because you wouldn’t be changing the exposure settings, you’d be changing the bracketing settings (if you’ve followed my choices so far). Believe me, that can get very confusing…
Preview Button
The Preview button lies above the FUNC button (under the third finger of the right hand). Custom Setting #F6 allows it be assigned to a number of functions again, just like the FUNC button.
In this case, there’s only one choice really and that’s to leave it at its default assignment of DOF Preview. Depth of field preview, when activated, stops the lens down to the selected aperture so that you can evaluate… the depth of field. Invaluable for landscape photographers (assuming your eyesight is good enough to determine precisely what’s in focus and what’s not through the viewfinder – not sure mine is any more).
You can’t always combine settings for Button Press and Button + Dials, so in this case DOF Preview is the only thing this button does.
AE-L/AF-L Button
Custom Setting #F7 determines what the AE-L/AF-L Buton on the back of camera does. Given that I generally want these controls accessible while looking through the viewfinder, I tend to think of them in terms of musical instrument fingerings – in piano terms, this is like reaching from C down to A with your right hand thumb.
Despite periodically re-reading the manual on what this button was originally intended to do, I must confess I never really got it. I can only assume others didn’t either and that’s why Nikon made it assignable to other functions.
I have it set to Virtual horizon. There’s a virtual horizon that you can display on the rear LCD, but that involves moving through the menus so, for me, is a complete non-starter in the field.
The Virtual horizon you get with holding AE-L/AF-L is in the viewfinder – the metering graph turns into a virtual spirit level indicating whether the camera is perpendicular to the ground or not. Accuracy isn’t perfect, but it’s definitely better than nothing. I have a tendency to think I have the camera level when I don’t, especially for those more awkward shots close to the ground in portrait mode where you have to twist to bring your eye to the viewfinder.
Setting virtual horizon precludes you setting anything for Button + Dials, so that’s it for this one.
That’s all. AF-ON isn’t an assignable button – it’s one of the ones that prety much only does what it says.
Remember, my settings are but one combination of a wide array of choices you could make. You may not be shooting the same material as me or with the same approach, so these choices may not work for you as well as they do for me.
Posted in Equipment
Stephen · Sunday, September 27, 2009, 09:37 · Permalink
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