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| LX100 |
The Custom Menu appears to be the repository for a large bunch of features and settings which don’t fit readily into one of the other menus.
As usual I will not dwell on features which I think are well described in the Operating Instructions for Advanced Features or which appear to be self explanatory.
The first item is Utilise Custom Set Feature closely followed by Cust Set Mem. Page 60 of the Instructions.
On other Panasonic cameras Custom Modes are located on the main mode dial. Here they are easy to access and you can see at a glance if a Custom Mode is in play.
But the LX100 has no mode dial. So Custom Mode access has been relegated to the Custom Menu and you cannot tell by looking at the camera if a Custom Mode has been set.
There are two ways to access the Custom Mode feature reasonably quickly.
The first is to bring up the [Utilise Custom Set Feature] tab in the Custom Menu then with [Menu resume] ON the camera will jump back there when the [Menu/Set] button is pressed.
The second is to allocate [Utilise Custom Set feature] to a Function button. It cannot be allocated to the Q menu. There are only 3 Fn buttons so you want to consider this option carefully.
The process for setting Custom Modes is well enough described in the Operating instructions.
Silent Mode
This activates the E-Shutter and switches off all beeps. Someone accustomed to the noise of a DSLR will wonder if the camera is operating at all. Operation is not entirely silent however. An ear pressed to the lens will hear the OIS module, focus motor, aperture motor and zoom motor.
I find that in most settings the mechanical shutter is inaudible to bystanders, so full silent mode is rarely necessary. Just switching off the beeps gives a very quiet camera.
AF/AE-Lock/Hold was discussed in Part 1 of this setup series.
The next 14 items are about focussing. Like other recent model Panasonic cameras the LX100 has a very advanced focus technology with so many options that the new owner is confronted by mind boggling complexity. Here follows my attempt to navigate a pathway through the tangle of options.
Shutter AF
This is the standard operation you expect from any camera except the antediluvian Leica M series which just does manual focus. Half press shutter button activates autofocus. But you can disable this in favour of one of the options below or AF-ON at the AF/AE-L button. This latter separates AF from AE and Capture.
When in doubt, just leave [Shutter AF] at the default which is ON.
Half Press Release
This one is slightly disconcerting. Half press fires the shutter instantly. Presumably one for the hyperactive user.
Quick AF
This has the AF system hunting constantly for focus before you touch the shutter button. In my experience it’s not all that quick and uses up battery to no particularly useful purpose.
Eye Sensor AF
This activates focus when you look in the viewfinder.
Quick AF and Eye Sensor AF are presumably intended to speed up AF acquisition. Fair enough but I never use them preferring the camera to focus when I instruct it to do so.
Pinpoint AF Time and Pinpoint AF Display
Panasonic has included pinpoint AF on its cameras for several years. It is selected via the Autofocus Mode portal. I have this on the Q Menu. It can be useful for focussing on a bird in a tree or similar situations where you want the camera to focus on a specific small subject element.
I rarely use it these days as ordinary [1-Area] AF on the latest Panasonic cameras now provides very small AF box sizes.
But pinpoint is there and it works as advertised. When the shutter button is half pressed (or AF/AE-L button is pressed if it was set up to focus) two things happen.
The camera focusses, a bit slower than regular [1-Area] but decently quick, and a magnified preview image pops up on the screen for a variable time, so you can check that your chosen subject element is really in focus.
The display can be [Full Screen] or [Picture in Picture]. Take your pick. I use PIP.
Display duration can be Long, Mid or Short. Mid is about 1 second which I find usually enough time to check focus.
AF Assist Lamp
Low light AF on all the recent model Panasonic cameras including the LX100 is so good the assist lamp is not required. In addition it will annoy anyone in front of the camera.
Switch it OFF.
Direct Focus Area
I discussed this at length in Part 1 of this series of posts. I set Direct Focus Area ON.
Focus/Release Priority
There may be some theoretical advantage to the [Release] setting when burst and AFC are in use, however I have never managed to convince myself of this.
So I just set [Focus] in the hope that this will encourage the camera to find focus before firing the shutter.
AF+MF
Recent Panasonic cameras including the LX 100 have a very sophisticated focus technology which allows MF in AF and AF in MF.
My practice with other cameras including the GH4 and FZ1000 has been to set [AF+MF] ON.
With the LX100 if [AF+MF] is ON you can AF with half press of the shutter button (or the AF/AE-L button if so configured) then turn the lens ring to touch up the focus manually.
The problems I have with the LX100 are
1. The lens ring is easily bumped while operating the aperture ring or the aspect ratio lever or just holding the camera with the left hand.
2. My experience is that manual focus on the LX100 is less reliably accurate than auto focus. The peaking seems not peaky enough at any setting.
Anyway the consequence of all this is that I set [AF+MF] OFF.
MF Assist, MF Assist Display, MF Guide
When manual focus is activated the camera displays an enlarged image of the subject to assist finding best focus.
[
MF Assist] determines which control will activate this display. The choice is between the lens ring, the left cursor button, either or OFF.
Trying to sort this out has me persuaded that the user would be better served by fewer options.
You can spend hours playing around trying to figure out what effect all the permutations and combinations of options have on the user experience.
For me the most natural setting appears to be [Lens Ring] since that is where my fingers go when I want to focus manually.
[MF Assist Display] is FULL or PIP. Either works but I find PIP less disruptive to the viewing experience.
The [MF Guide] is an analogue style display near the bottom of the screen with flower (near) and mountain (far) symbols. This provides some assistance to the user in determining the direction in which the lens ring must be turned.
Unfortunately it cannot be used to preset a focus distance by scale and is not accurate enough to set infinity focus.
Peaking Page 130 of the Instructions.
This is an electronic color display which shows where edge contrasts are highest. It uses the on sensor contrast detect focus system. In my experience its usefulness as an aid to improving manual focus accuracy and /or speed is variable.
On the FZ1000 it has worked well for me.
I have had less success on the LX100 with variable accuracy at any detect level setting or color. It seems to me that on the LX100 the peaking display is not peaky enough.
You can set the [Detect Level] to High or Low or switch the feature OFF. The Instructions say High is more accurate but I have had difficulty convincing myself of this.
You can also set any of 3 colors for each of the High or Low detect level settings. Selection is a matter of preference not function.
I have no idea why peaking seems to work less well for me on the LX100 than on other recent Panasonic cameras.
Unfortunately manual focus without peaking is not much fun either, providing similar difficulty assessing the best in focus point.
Histogram
Some users really like having the histogram on screen as an aid to correct exposure, in particular to prevent highlight clipping.
You can move it over to a corner with the cursor buttons. Set histogram ON and it will appear with a yellow bounding box and yellow directional arrows. To move it to a different location go to the Menu, switch histogram off, then on again and the directional arrows reappear.
The problems I have with the histogram are:
1. It is a big intrusive thing parked on the preview screen no matter where it is positioned.
2. I find it routinely impossible to figure out whether highlights are just at or beyond the clipping point.
3. Peering at the histogram is a distraction from the capture process.
So I always have Histogram off and Zebras, which I find more useful, On.
Guide Line
This is more useful. The choices are Thirds, Union Jack or one vertical one horizontal line.
I use the latter with the two lines intersecting at the center. This has a low clutter factor and high usefulness for evaluating vertical and horizontal lines in the composition. The lines can be moved about with the cursor buttons and repositioned on center with the Disp button.
Highlight
This flashes overexposed highlights at image playback. Always set this ON, especially if using JPG capture. You may be able to reshoot with negative exposure compensation to bring in the highlights.
Zebra Pattern
This is a recent introduction to Panasonic still/video hybrid cameras like the LX100. The zebra pattern lets you know at image preview whether highlights (or some other tonal value) will be blown out at the current exposure settings.
There are two zebras so you can set one for, say, highlights and the other for, say, Caucasian faces or some other subject which you know you will be photographing.
I use the feature for highlights. After much experiment I am currently using a setting of 105%.
For RAW capture I can usually pull in highlights in Adobe Camera RAW even if the zebras are flashing.
For JPG capture I click in negative exposure compensation until the zebras just stop flashing.
Monochrome Live View
This is one of those features I wish they would leave off the list to declutter the menus. Anyway it is there for those users who want to see in preview what the picture will look like in monochrome.
Constant Preview
This one is a bit confusing until you figure out how it works.
Constant Preview only works in Manual Exposure Mode. When set ON the live view screen (EVF or monitor) gains up or down to preview how over or under exposure will affect image brightness.
When set OFF the screen stays the same brightness regardless of the exposure setting.
The feature is automatically disabled if a flash is fitted and switched on. This makes sense as you need to be able to compose the picture at normal screen brightness.
In P, A, and S Modes Constant Preview is inactive but the live view screen will gain up or down to reflect settings on the Exposure Compensation Dial.
Expo. Meter
You don’t want it. When ON and the Disp button has selected the relevant screen, this huge meter display camps all over the lower half of the screen. Panasonic should get rid of this useless feature.
Dial Guide
When ON, this pops up a set of totally confusing symbols in the lower right quadrant of the screen when the aperture ring or shutter speed dial are turned. Switch it OFF.
LVF (a.k.a. EVF) Disp. Style and Monitor Disp. Style
At last we come again to something useful. You can set the EVF and monitor to “SLR” style (my term, not Panasonic’s) with the key exposure parameters displayed on a black strip beneath the preview image, or “Monitor style” (again, my term) with the same key parameters overlaid on the lower part of a larger preview image.
Some people say they like monitor style as a larger preview image is possible. But it irritates the heck out of me because I am frequently unable to properly see the readouts for aperture and shutter speed as they get lost in the image preview.
This is an example of the figure/ground phenomenon in cognitive psychology which I learned about in Psychology 1 in 1960. You might think that camera makers would have caught on to this by now but …………..
My strong recommendation is to set SLR style for both monitor and EVF.
Monitor Info. Disp.
Here, in my not so humble opinion is yet another useless feature. When the Disp button is cycled with this feature ON, a screen appears with information about camera data. But it is not a control screen. You cannot select and change any of the parameters. It is just information which is available elsewhere.
I switch this one OFF.
Rec Areaand Remaining Disp.
Select for still or video capture.
Auto Review
When ON, image review will appear for the set time after each still image capture. Most of the time I find this an irritating impediment to the capture flow.
However Panasonic fixed zoom cameras have another, even more annoying feature. If the Playback button is pressed after image capture to check focus, exposure, whatever, then some several seconds later the lens retracts to closed position then resets to the default position (which is the widest setting if zoom resume is OFF). At least that happens quite often but not always. It’s weird.
So if you had carefully set up composition and focus on a scene you lose all that and have to start over. I find this totally infuriating and have never seen any explanation from Panasonic as to the reason for this camera behaviour.
Anyway the lens retract problem can be avoided if Auto Review is set to ON.
I have no idea why but that’s how it works.
Panasonic should fix this nonsense with a firmware update.
Fn Button Set
I dealt with this in Part 2 of this series.
Zoom lever
You can select continuous or step zoom. Take your pick.
(Lens) Control Ring
I covered this in Part 1 of the series.
Zoom Resume
When OFF zoom resumes to the default position on startup which is the wide end.
When ON zoom resumes to the focal length in use when the camera was switched off or timed out.
Take your pick.
Q Menu
I dealt with this in Part 2 of the setup series.
iA Button Switch
Press and hold, otherwise it gets bumped accidentally.
Video Button
I don’t do video so have it OFF. Unfortunately as with the filter and iA buttons it cannot be reprogrammed to individual preference.
For me that is 3 wasted buttons on this camera.
Eye Sensor
As discussed in Part 2 of this series:
Sensitivity LOW
LVF/Monitor Switch [LVF/Mon Auto].
And that is your lot for this LX100 setup series
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