Nikon Menu

Is there any way to keep the Menu from blanking out while you are making changes to a function ? I have a Nikon D7100 while Ii'm scrolling through the Menu system the camera gives you about 5 seconds to make the change, otherwise it blanks out and I have to start all over. This gets really frustrating especially if I'm on level 2 or 3 of the selected item and I happen to blink, then the Menu System automatically takes you back to level 1 ?

Check Monitor Off Delay > Menus in Custom Settings.

 

Thank you very much chulster. My Menu-off was set to 4S. I set to 1 minute. While I'm on lock-down, I'm trying to learn as much as possible about my camera(s). So I'm still struggling ...

Thank you very much chulster. My Menu-off was set to 4S. I set to 1 minute. While I'm on lock-down, I'm trying to learn as much as possible about my camera(s). So I'm still struggling ...

It doesn't hurt to get familiar with the manual. I totally understand it doesn't make sense to read the whole thing from cover to cover; I have never done that either. But I would suggest going through all the Custom Settings, from a to g. At least get an idea what options are available so that you can go back to adjust them in the future.

The quickest and easiest way to get answers to questions like this is to do exactly what he did, ask on a forum.

Heh, maybe...until your questions become much harder to answer!

The quickest and easiest way to get answers to questions like this is to do exactly what he did, ask on a forum.

For people in the post-literate period of modern history, there are myriad Youtube presentations, some excellent, some awful..

for Nikon D7100 see for a start"

LINK Nikon D7100 youtube - Google Search

You can also download the manual from Nikon's website, and I think they have some app for putting it on a phone. I haven't tried the latter, but find the PDF pretty convenient on a computer. Some Nikon manuals are better than others. The D7100 one is not too bad, and the PDF allows you to jump directly to a section from the contents sidebar or the menu.

I too have the pdf manuals for my camera on my phone. There is indeed some proprietary Nikon software viewer, but given the choice of something slapped together by a camera company and one of the existing perfectly serviceable ways of reading a PDF already installed (and fully maintained by companies who actually have engineering expertise in this kind of thing), I'm not inclined to let the Nikon software on my system.

 

If you're comparing, some of the older pdf manuals don't always cross link properly, so you may have to find pages directly; newer ones are better. The latest bodies have an online chunked html manual as well, which is nice, but no use if you're in the middle of Yellowstone with no reception; it doesn't currently add much, although maybe Nikon plan some more dynamic content in the future which justifies it.

 

I find reading the manual before buying to be useful (Nikon at one point blocked you from doing this, then came to their senses); it's a much more reliable way of describing how things work than most launch marketing fluff. I don't necessarily remember if all, especially if I'm comparing across bodies. Thom Hogan's guides seem well-received; I only have the D850 one, and it's certainly not perfect, but it's pretty good, and he covers a lot of cameras - if you'd like another source than Nikon.

 

The manuals don't really have a very exhaustive index, sadly - certainly not when it comes to synonyms for a feature. If you're just trying to look up a solution, they may be less useful, because you won't know what to search for. The same applies to the interactive help in the menu system. Better that it's there than not, though.

 

Enjoy the reading. :-)

...given the choice of something slapped together by a camera company and one of the existing perfectly serviceable ways of reading a PDF already installed (and fully maintained by companies who actually have engineering expertise in this kind of thing), I'm not inclined to let the Nikon software on my system.

 

Excellent burn.

Excellent burn.

 

To be fair, I'm not particularly picking on Nikon's software team. I've heard historical complaints about the stability of some Nikon software, but I wouldn't let Canon software on my computer either, and I don't install mouse drivers when I can avoid it; I've never used the Nikon software, so I haven't had a bad experience.

 

There was (is?) a fixation over producing mobile (and PC) apps to do something that you can do perfectly well with a web page or other software, and the companies responsible for web browsers and PDF readers or whose entire business model is based around image editing software are much more equipped and motivated to do these well. Apps, especially poorly-maintained ones, are much more likely to be a security risk, have user interface inconsistencies, and become outdated - and any functionality that relies on an app would typically be better served by allowing capitalism to motivate improvements as competing companies fight for users. It's just not the right solution for a company whose focus should be elsewhere to be trying to do something that requires substantial investment and expertise, especially when other companies are willing to do the work for them.

 

It's not just camera companies - a lot of online services have an app which is of limited benefit (and don't get me started on the time I downloaded a 50MB printer driver over a 9600baud mobile phone connection and IrDA; it was 50MB because the driver was full of installation images - the actual functionality was tiny). Picking a popular one, of those using a Zoom app on a PC or Mac during lockdown, has anyone noticed it saturate a CPU when someone else is screen sharing? (All the fans spin up, my MacBook gets painful to touch. Apparently this applies to Windows too.) The web browser interface doesn't do that, at least to the same extent. I have a suspicion that something might be trying to update the screen as fast as possible: web browsers are written not to cripple the computer when someone's badly-written JavaScript app tries to hog all the CPU cycles (I'm not a huge fan of JavaScript, but providing an interface which idiots can use to write bad code has done wonders for motivating web browser authors to be resilient against it). It might be something else to blame.

 

So I'm sure the Nikon manual browsing app is great. It probably even works, since it's not that hard to render a PDF, especially if they're just using existing services to do it (hopefully not a random PDF renderer library downloaded off the internet and repurposed). It's possible that it has a wide range of useful additional features, but until Nikon tells me what they are, I'm inclined to ignore the hard and I'm sure dispiriting work of whichever team put it together, despite my solidarity with software developers. There needs to be a clear benefit to installing a proprietary app - because there are definitely disadvantages.

 

On the plus side, at least the manual is available as a PDF. I'd just rather Nikon software developers with time on their hands went through the list of things that could be added to the firmware instead.

By the way, just for the record, though I've mentioned it before, if you have one of the lower end models, like the D3x00, the printed manual is abridged and only the PDF is complete. My D3200 came with the PDF on a CD, but no mention that it was different.

BTW - if you have a Kindle, you can easily download & use Nikon manuals. I have 4 cameras worth loaded just for travel.

By the way, just for the record, though I've mentioned it before, if you have one of the lower end models, like the D3x00, the printed manual is abridged and only the PDF is complete. My D3200 came with the PDF on a CD, but no mention that it was different.

Using a CD to distribute software and PDF files is showing the date of the product. In the last few years, it is all download now.

DPR used to go through the menu item by item in their camera reviews. Much better than trying to navigate the manual. You should at least know how to set up your camera from scratch without a manual if you were to, lets say, accidentally hit the camera reset button. Yes, I've done that and was lost!

DPR used to go through the menu item by item in their camera reviews. Much better than trying to navigate the manual. You should at least know how to set up your camera from scratch without a manual if you were to, lets say, accidentally hit the camera reset button. Yes, I've done that and was lost!

Once you have customized your Nikon camera settings to the way you want, you can always save those settings to a memory card, and then copy those settings to a hard drive. Use "Save/load settings" in the SETUP MENU, not to be confused with "Save user settings" to U1 and U2:

 

The convenience of Using Save/load Settings—Smart! | Benefits of using the Save/Load Settings Feature from Nikon

 

Panasonic isn't so accommodating. On their menu they put the total camera reset in between card format and number reset. I got it all back to where I wanted it except that shrill tone that lets you know you've focused. A tone I can't hear myself but loud enough to disrupt a golf match.

One advantage I have found with the PDF form of the manual is that it is searchable. Adobe Reader has a FIND and FIND NEXT function as does EDGE which is the default reader on Windows 10. I assume there is a similar function on Macs. You do not have to use the index and FIND will find the word even if it is not in the document index.

One advantage I have found with the PDF form of the manual is that it is searchable. Adobe Reader has a FIND and FIND NEXT function as does EDGE which is the default reader on Windows 10. I assume there is a similar function on Macs. You do not have to use the index and FIND will find the word even if it is not in the document index.

 

Agreed (and used regularly, so long as you can work out what the term you're searching for is). It's one of the things which tends to get ignored by people offering chunked web pages as an alternative. (Nikon's one for the D850 does have a search at least, but I wouldn't say it's any more convenient.)

Using a CD to distribute software and PDF files is showing the date of the product. In the last few years, it is all download now.

True enough. I wonder if the newer ones have any indication that a full manual exists somewhere. I don't recall that the D3200 did, but fortunately since the View NX-2 software was on the CD I found it there. From a couple of other forums as well as this one, it seems many did not.