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GF1: in 1-Area Focusing, how would one use the directional buttons...

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vincentnyc

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Hi All:

Just got my GF1. Confused about this: in 1-Area Focusing, how would one use the directional buttons (the main 4 buttons surrounding the Menu/Set center button) when one is in the 1-Area Focusing mode?

I chose the 1-Area Focusing mode because it allows me maximum control over where the focus is, rather than letting the camera "try" to anticipate what I'd like to choose as the main area of focus.

Once in this "1-Area Focusing" mode, I've discovered that you cannot use the 4 directional keys to choose the default uses for those keys as printed ON those buttons! I.E. top botton = ISO, right button = White Balance, etc.)

May I ask if anyone can kindly shed some light on this please?

I find the "spot focus" mode (in Lumix speak: 1-Area Focusing) very important for me, but that causes the 4 buttons (surrounding the main Menu/Set button) to be merely directional buttons for moving the spot focus area!

Thanks in advance.
 
I had the same problem with the GH1 but found out you had to turn off this function: Go to the CUSTOM menu and set DIRECT AF AREA to OFF. I suspect the GF1 has a similar feature.
 
You seem to have it down -- you have to choose between directing the focus point or the button functions. The functions are available through the Quick Menu (button on top of the camera), though perhaps not as quickly accessible.

Gato

--
Street Fashion and Alternative Portraits:
http://www.silvermirage.com
 
Gato Amarillo said:
You seem to have it down -- you have to choose between directing the focus point or the button functions. The functions are available through the Quick Menu (button on top of the camera), though perhaps not as quickly accessible.

Gato
Click to expand...
That is so inconvenient! The firmware ought to allow one to choose between simply "fixing" the focus point and still allow us to use the 4 "function buttons"!! What a waste of the 4 highly useful "direct" function buttons.

The other point is how iISO or Auto ISO BOTH limit the upper ISO. If i recall correctly, the limits are ISO 400 or 800 for iISO and Auto ISO. That doesn't make sense whatsoever. They ought to allow us to set the highest limits! This is totally limiting for me. Frustrated here.
 
vincentnyc said:
That is so inconvenient! The firmware ought to allow one to choose between simply "fixing" the focus point and still allow us to use the 4 "function buttons"!! What a waste of the 4 highly useful "direct" function buttons.
Click to expand...
How would one do that?? As far as I can figure out, you would need another button push on something to change from one to the other or change something in menu which would be inconvenient also. You have to use the 4 way to move the focus area. Q menu for me is a quick access to any of the functions if I choose to use the direct focus (if you want to change ISO, for instance, set it in Q menu and when you click on that button, it goes right back to that--even resumes after off/on of camera to that).. An alternative is to use MF and then with a touch of the focus ring, the focus square jumps up, you can put any place and focus manually. Just a thought.
vincentnyc said:
The other point is how iISO or Auto ISO BOTH limit the upper ISO. If i recall correctly, the limits are ISO 400 or 800 for iISO and Auto ISO. That doesn't make sense whatsoever. They ought to allow us to set the highest limits! This is totally limiting for me. Frustrated here.
Click to expand...
Don't know about iISO, but for auto, you can choose ISO1600 as top limit in A & S. If you have it set to P--top limit is ISO800 I believe. In M, default is ISO100 and auto is not functional (for good reason--its M).

--
Diane B
http://www.pbase.com/picnic
G1 gallery http://www.pbase.com/picnic/temp_g1
 
Diane B said:
vincentnyc said:
That is so inconvenient! The firmware ought to allow one to choose between simply "fixing" the focus point and still allow us to use the 4 "function buttons"!! What a waste of the 4 highly useful "direct" function buttons.
Click to expand...
How would one do that?? As far as I can figure out, you would need another button push on something to change from one to the other or change something in menu which would be inconvenient also. You have to use the 4 way to move the focus area. Q menu for me is a quick access to any of the functions if I choose to use the direct focus (if you want to change ISO, for instance, set it in Q menu and when you click on that button, it goes right back to that--even resumes after off/on of camera to that).. An alternative is to use MF and then with a touch of the focus ring, the focus square jumps up, you can put any place and focus manually. Just a thought.
Click to expand...
The way to "fix" the focus point is merely to have an option in the main menu (where you find the "Setting AF area" option (see page 74 of manual). All it needs is to have an option there, AFTER one selects the single area option, of whether one wishes to be able to move it via the 4 directional buttons, or, alternatively, to choose not to move it in certain circumstances so the 4 top/bottom/right/left buttons have their printed, original functions, i.e. ISO, White Balance, etc. This will allow the user to decide if the situation requires more quick setting of ISO or White Balance, rather than moving the single focus point, to choose one set of use for the 4 directional buttons or another set of use.
Diane B said:
Diane B said:
The other point is how iISO or Auto ISO BOTH limit the upper ISO. If i recall correctly, the limits are ISO 400 or 800 for iISO and Auto ISO. That doesn't make sense whatsoever. They ought to allow us to set the highest limits! This is totally limiting for me. Frustrated here.
Click to expand...
Don't know about iISO, but for auto, you can choose ISO1600 as top limit in A & S. If you have it set to P--top limit is ISO800 I believe. In M, default is ISO100 and auto is not functional (for good reason--its M).

--
Diane B
http://www.pbase.com/picnic
G1 gallery http://www.pbase.com/picnic/temp_g1
Click to expand...
vis-a-vis your reply, Diane, my point is precisely what you wrote:

that the upper limits for ANY Auto ISO should be user determined. Why should Lumix decide that for Auto ISO, the uppermost limit is ISO 400??? For iISO, they decided the upper limit should be 800. Why? For me, judging from the higher ISO results, I like the GF1 up to ISO 1600. ISO 3200 is not really for me, other than in extreme circumstances. So for me, I'd set the upper limit for Auto ISO and iISO to 1600, not the 400 and 800 that Lumix chose FOR me.

I'm so comfortable with my D700's implementation of the Auto ISO function and love it so much. It is tantamount to having yet a third parameter equal to shutter speed and aperture!

Sigh. Maybe Lumix can read this and see if they'll include this option in their next firmware?
 
Would one not still need some way to tell the 4 way NOT to funtion in the matter you say--you can select that 'option' in the menu--but you still would have to implement it in some way--so it would take a 'button' or something to do that--how else would the camera know to use direct AF in one instance and use the 4 way in other circumstances? I doubt this is something that concerns many to be truthful. You choose whatever camera to suit and adapt.

As to ISO--just don't use iISO_-use auto and choose 1600. If you choose iISO, the camera probably has other factors that it uses to make the settings selections. Its an all automatted thing with really no setting choices at all--when one chooses to let the camera do everything, then there's likely to be compromises--why worry about ISO when you can't choose aperture or shutter either? Choose P and you can use 1600 as top limit and at least you have some input into settings choices.

Diane
--
Diane B
http://www.pbase.com/picnic
G1 gallery http://www.pbase.com/picnic/temp_g1
 
vincentnyc said:
Diane B said:
vincentnyc said:
That is so inconvenient! The firmware ought to allow one to choose between simply "fixing" the focus point and still allow us to use the 4 "function buttons"!! What a waste of the 4 highly useful "direct" function buttons.
Click to expand...
How would one do that?? As far as I can figure out, you would need another button push on something to change from one to the other or change something in menu which would be inconvenient also. You have to use the 4 way to move the focus area. Q menu for me is a quick access to any of the functions if I choose to use the direct focus (if you want to change ISO, for instance, set it in Q menu and when you click on that button, it goes right back to that--even resumes after off/on of camera to that).. An alternative is to use MF and then with a touch of the focus ring, the focus square jumps up, you can put any place and focus manually. Just a thought.
Click to expand...
The way to "fix" the focus point is merely to have an option in the main menu (where you find the "Setting AF area" option (see page 74 of manual). All it needs is to have an option there, AFTER one selects the single area option, of whether one wishes to be able to move it via the 4 directional buttons, or, alternatively, to choose not to move it in certain circumstances so the 4 top/bottom/right/left buttons have their printed, original functions, i.e. ISO, White Balance, etc. This will allow the user to decide if the situation requires more quick setting of ISO or White Balance, rather than moving the single focus point, to choose one set of use for the 4 directional buttons or another set of use.
Click to expand...
I'm not sure I am understanding this conversation. As I use the camera there are two choices. You can use a single point AF with two choices a)make the point movable but this forces you to on the direct area AF and use the four buttons b)keep the single point in the center and turn off the ability to move it which allows the four buttons to be used for their respective functions.

Not sure what is objectionable to that. In addition if you don't want to hold the half press of the shutter when you recompose you can set the AE/AF Lock to lock and hold focus.
vincentnyc said:
vincentnyc said:
vincentnyc said:
The other point is how iISO or Auto ISO BOTH limit the upper ISO. If i recall correctly, the limits are ISO 400 or 800 for iISO and Auto ISO. That doesn't make sense whatsoever. They ought to allow us to set the highest limits! This is totally limiting for me. Frustrated here.
Click to expand...
Don't know about iISO, but for auto, you can choose ISO1600 as top limit in A & S. If you have it set to P--top limit is ISO800 I believe. In M, default is ISO100 and auto is not functional (for good reason--its M).

--
Diane B
http://www.pbase.com/picnic
G1 gallery http://www.pbase.com/picnic/temp_g1
Click to expand...
vis-a-vis your reply, Diane, my point is precisely what you wrote:
Click to expand...
that the upper limits for ANY Auto ISO should be user determined. Why should Lumix decide that for Auto ISO, the uppermost limit is ISO 400??? For iISO, they decided the upper limit should be 800. Why? For me, judging from the higher ISO results, I like the GF1 up to ISO 1600. ISO 3200 is not really for me, other than in extreme circumstances. So for me, I'd set the upper limit for Auto ISO and iISO to 1600, not the 400 and 800 that Lumix chose FOR me.

I'm not sure what you are talking about here, you can set Auto to 1600. You need to go to the menu and change the default max setting. Very simple.
vincentnyc said:
I'm so comfortable with my D700's implementation of the Auto ISO function and love it so much. It is tantamount to having yet a third parameter equal to shutter speed and aperture!

Sigh. Maybe Lumix can read this and see if they'll include this option in their next firmware?
Click to expand...
--
terry
http://tbanet.zenfolio.com/
 
Regarding the 4-way, another option is to use the My Menus function for quick access to frequently used settings. This would be even better if Panasonic allowed us to program or lock the settings, but even without that it is a pretty handy feature.

Gato

--
Street Fashion and Alternative Portraits:
http://www.silvermirage.com
 
TEBnewyork wrote:
...
TEBnewyork said:
I'm not sure I am understanding this conversation. As I use the camera there are two choices. You can use a single point AF with two choices a)make the point movable but this forces you to on the direct area AF and use the four buttons b)keep the single point in the center and turn off the ability to move it which allows the four buttons to be used for their respective functions.
Click to expand...
...
TEBnewyork said:
terry
Click to expand...
Thx Terry for pitching in to help me out.

I'm interested in your scenario "b" above. How would you KEEP the single point in the center (no need to move it for my personal preferences typically and for my personal uses), so i'd like to turn OFF the ability to move it via the 4 directional buttons. So, how would one "turn off the ability to move it", thus allowing for the 4 buttons to be used for their original, "printed (on the button themselves)", intended, respective functions?

thx again and look forward to hearing back. i'll implement that right away!
 
I am not a fan of the way this af spot movement contol is set up, it would have been nice to have had a button to turn this on and off like with the LX3/DLux4
Bob
http://www.bobdamico.com
 
You're correct (i'll have to test this out later...it's raining out in nyc today or at least drizzly). One can set the single point to the smallest size (my personal preference), and then keep it in the center, and allow the 4 directional buttons to be used as their default, printed (on the keys themselves) functions, i.e. ISO, White Balance, etc.

I've also gone to the highest ISO setting screen to set AutoISO to 1600.

Thx for your pointers.
 
Thanks--I didn't realize he didn't understand that that function was in the menus. The default is to have the 4 way on, so at some point the option was changed--but perhaps the 'direct AF' on/off menu option is confusing. It really is important to read the manual and to experiment with the settings to see all the possibilities. Though there aren't nearly as many as with the E-P1, you still need to try them to see how they work for you--and then once you are set up, you are generally just good to go.

Diane
--
Diane B
http://www.pbase.com/picnic
G1 gallery http://www.pbase.com/picnic/temp_g1
 
Sorry I don't have GF1 but it appears the GF1 functions similar to the GH1. To change the size or move the AF box with DIRECT AF function OFF, use the left directional button (ie, AF) and press the down directional button (ie, FN). No reason to enter the MENU interface, although, its a two-button step.
 
Wouldn't it be quicker, took less time - just to read the manual?
And less frustrating?

--
Best Regards,
Jerry_R
 
miniviews said:
Sorry I don't have GF1 but it appears the GF1 functions similar to the GH1. To change the size or move the AF box with DIRECT AF function OFF, use the left directional button (ie, AF) and press the down directional button (ie, FN). No reason to enter the MENU interface, although, its a two-button step.
Click to expand...
That is one very cool tip. Thanks so much. I've always done 'either/or'--and since I shoot a lot with legacy lenses, it hasn't bee too much of an issue. With the 20 this will be just very nice--so, as you say, a, 2 button push, but its so quick and easy--no matter how one would change it through a firmware upgrade, I just don't see a way without an implementation with one of the buttons. This does it--quick and easy.

Thanks so much. Did I miss it in the manual?? I must have LOL.

Diane
--
Diane B
http://www.pbase.com/picnic
G1 gallery http://www.pbase.com/picnic/temp_g1
 
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