E-M5 II settings

mchnz wrote:

For what it's worth I've appended my settings. But some background first...

I shoot mainly scenery and birds (while hiking). I like to capture what I see. There's not much that's artistic/photographic in my images. I mainly stick to A-mode. I'm pretty much a full time EVF user with the LCD only being used in tricky situations.

My E-M5 II settings are based on what I used on the E-M5. Unless the situation looks tough, I mainly shoot jpegs and I find the Olympus out-of-camera jpegs are pretty good. I do post-process, mostly contrast, brightness, and saturation. Because I PP I mainly stick to Picture-Mode Natural and sharpness is dialled back a little. The E-M5 settings I use often result in a smidgen of unused area at ends of the histogram, and a little PP can make use of these.

I have one MySet for each kind of shooting (scenery, birds). The MySets are set to override the mode-dial iAuto and Photo-Story. If you have more than a couple of mysets, you should consider keeping a big-font picture of what each myset does in the camera. On the E-M5 I had four: birds, scenery, scenic-bracketing, and negative scanning (Olympus should allow MySets to have names).

I keep a CSV file of all settings so I can easily restore them after a firmware upgrade. I keep a photo of the settings in the camera and the CSV file and manuals in my phone.

I keep ISO, White-Balance, Shooting Rate on the arrows so I can quickly adjust to circumstances. I struggled to find a useful function for the lever, but settled on having it change between single-auto-focus and continuous tracking (it would have been great for switching mysets, but it can't do that).

Mostly I just made adjustments by working my way through the Olympus full manual (not the short printed one that comes in the box). I also bought the e-book The Complete Guide to the Olympus E-M5 II, by Gary Friedman and Tony Phillips and found it useful (but given I already owned an E-M5, perhaps I got less out of it than someone coming in cold). ( https://books.google.com/ebooks/app#reader/HKQ5CgAAQBAJ )

Here's my full list of customisations (using the common conventions for describing the icons such as the Cog icons):

• Camera 1,Image-Quality-Icon,Still Picture,LF
• Camera 1,Picture Mode,Mode 3 Natural,Sharpness,-1
• Cog A,AF Mode,Still Picture,S-AF+MF
• Cog A,Manual Focus Assist,Peaking,On
• Cog B,Button Function,Fn1,AEL/AFL
• Cog B,Button Function,Fn3,View Selection
• Cog B,4 Arrows Function,Direct Function
• Cog B,Right Arrow,Dial WB/Dial ISO
• Cog B,Down Arrow,Sequential Shooting Rate/Self Timer
• Cog B,Mode Dial Function,Myset1,Photo Story
• Cog B,Mode Dial Function,Myset2,iAuto
• Cog B,Lever Function,mode5 (switch AF modes)
• Cog C,RLS Priority S,Off
• Cog C,RLS Priority C,Off
• Cog C,Sequential FPS Image Stabilization,On
• Cog C,Image Stabilizer,Movie,M-IS 2 (Sensor Shift Only)
• Cog D,Info Settings,Playback Info,Highlight&Shadow
• Cog D,Info Settings,LV-Info,Custom1,Highlights&Shadows
• Cog D,Info Settings,LV-Info,Custom1,Level Gauge
• Cog D,Info Settings,LV-Info,Custom2,Histogram
• Cog D,Info Settings,LV-Info,Custom2,Level Gauge
• Cog D,Display Grid,Off
• Cog D,Sleep,1 minute
• Cog D,Auto Power Off,4 hours
• Cog D,Sound,Off
• Cog E,AEL Metering Spot
• Cog E,Noise Filter,Off
• Cog H,Copyright settings,Copyright Info,On
• Cog H,Copyright settings,Artist Name,Anon
• Cog H,Copyright settings,Copyright Name,Anon (anon@anon.blah)
• Cog I,Wind Noise Reducton,Off
• Cog K,Quick Sleep Mode,Off
• Cog J,EVF Auto Switch,Off
• Spanner,Rec View,Off
• Myset1,F5.6,ISO 200,Centre Normal Focus Target,iFace,Low Speed Anti Shock
• Myset2,F8.0,ISO 800,Centre Small Focus Target,Low Speed Anti Shock

I hope I haven't forgotten any, because this is the list I use to restore the camera.

You leave evf auto swithc off? So you swithc manually with the view button. How does that affect battery life? With the switcher on the evf stays off until you use it but with the auto switch off the evf just stays on.

i know its faster to adjust set like that though