When menu shopping cameras do you go for Panasonic or Olympus

[GerrySiegel]

I find it interesting to compare these two camera brands when we go menu diving. It is true that one can set it

up as you like, usually with some help from a book or online spread sheet, and then save your choices as custom settings, but it

still helps to understand or appreciate the choices. I have been following David Thorpe's blog recently on

menus. Thorpe argues that Olympus is not quite as sharp as Panasonic on its choices and its icons. And he

attributes that to an engineering experience with broader array of consumer electronics. ( If a toaster oven had

menus like Olympus, we would soon surrender and buy a Kenmore). I have to agree with one or two features that

still annoy, even though i can live with them. I will cite just two for now. 1) In the Lumix GX 7 I spent a

while wondering why the flash settings were grayed out until I notice that I had set the HDR to ON. Why I do not

know...maybe it is too easy to do a contradictory thing and then you have to chase it down. But I can live with

that, once I used my noggin a bit. 2) For our friends at Olympus, with the EM-1 if you are in the menu and you

set something and then want to test it out and come back, so where do you wind up? You got it. Right back at the

top, and now got to go down to the cogs and sub cogs. Not so with Lumix where you can set a " menu recall"

function. How logical. How sweet. OK, true, Olympus learns slowly and I am told that the new EM 5 II has such a

menu recall feature. But not for the flagship...nuts, nertz and other cuss words. I give the devil its due,

because the buttons and functions are pretty well available without menu submersion.. But still.

 

Any other soft annoyances or brand "foibles " you have noticed between the micro four thirds companies that are worth mentioning in

passing. ( Yes, oh for the days when we just had Tv and Av..I know))?

[Mike Howard]

I've been with Olympus for years now and am so used to their menus that other makes seem completely foreign. I was in Vegas this year with my E-M10 shooting with manual focus lenses, and I noticed a man and his lady struggling with a shot with the young lady posing by the statue of liberty at New York. The sun was directly behind Lady Liberty, and all he could get was shadow and white out. He was shooting one of the Sony mirrorless (no viewfinder, don't know which model). It had very few buttons, so he needed to go menu diving. We stood there for 15 minutes trying to get the camera into Aperture mode and to select spot for exposure. I can do it blindfolded and drunk with my Oly, but we gave up on his Sony. Now I know there had to be a simple way to do it, but in the heat of the moment, as it were (114 degrees out), it couldn't be done. I took a shot of them together and emailed it to them. It's all about familiarity, I guess. Personally, I like the Oly menus, it must be the sadist in me. I'm kind of a one or two mode shooter, though, so I may be a bad example.

[GerrySiegel]

When you are setting the GX 7 to silent shutter, the flash settings are grayed out and there may be more conflicting menu items to note. This nixed combo probably makes total sense and I would not care to dispute. ( I wonder if a flash in the hot shoe would work, got to check that one out later) But it does lead to acute menuitis to coin an affliction. Oh. By the way, the silent shutter effect on this camera is terrific. Totally silent. Only the soft breezes or your tinnitis:-).

[GerrySiegel]

I love it Michael. Statue of Liberty in faux New York Las Vegas. Yes, cameras have outstripped our patience to learn them. Which may be a great opportunity for the vendors of books on each model. That plus the manuals have not gotten any more digestible. I wonder about Sony. Wonder if they have a good or involved menu structure. Methinks the operability and location of the functions on a camera brand are more vital than the sensor generation. I think you will agree. No fun of course arguing about who has the most livable menu. I am used to the location of the chimp arrow on the Olympus, which my muscle memory knows. The Lumix has green arrow crowded into a nook that I have to look for. Maybe it is just me and lack of muscle memory.

 

"I can do it blindfolded and drunk with my Oly.." What.Why, In Las Vegas naturally..:-) just kidding. Fun place.

[Sanford]

I switch between camera brands and models almost daily. Its usually not a problem as they are set up the way I

want and within a short time I familiar with how they work again. One time I accidentally hit the reset button on a

GX1 and was totally lost. I eventually got everything back but forgot to kill the focus confirmation beeper. I can't

hear that high pitched sound anymore but everyone else could-at a golf match.

[Sanford]

<p>P.S., I blame this on bad menu design. The "Reset" button and the "Number Reset" button are right next to each other. They shouldn't even be on the same page!</p>

[Ken Katz]

I don't compare menus when buying a camera. If I like the camera based on its ergonomics and performance, I learn to live with the menu system and hope it doesn't get in my way. Mirrorless cameras have additional complexity related to managing the EVF and or the display screen, which adds to the menu related challenges that DSLRs do not have, or which can be ignored if you don't care to use a DSLR's Live View features. I guess if I can survive the current Olympus OMD menu I can work with any system.

[AlanKlein]

<p>My friend just bought a Honda Accord with all of the features. The manual is so big, I think he uses it as a paper weight but hasn't read it yet. He still hasn't figure how to use the radio. Fortunately he knows how to drive so he keeps it in Auto and goes on his way. Seems to get where he wants to despite the GPS having never been used. Cameras and their manuals with all their menus seems to be designed and written by car engineers! Oh heck, just keep the cameras in Auto too.</p>

[GerrySiegel]

Robin Wong in his Olympus blog reminds us of the brand's feature of the Super Control Panel which gives a poster like display of all the settings you have in one look see. I think the trick is to check it now and then to see if all is where you want the menu settings to be. Another tip might be to set a custom setting to hold a fall back or default mix when you are out and about and unsure what might have changed. I lately tend to use Ps functionality more than the Auto mode I used to use. And am shifting away from center weighted to matrix metering. So much for those who advocate manual mode, which is still available. True, I think I know what shutter and aperture mean, so manual will remain for those who shoot with studio lighting for instance. I guess I am saying that cameras are getting more fail safe and smarter. My Lumix menu has a scrolling band that explains the setting I am looking at. What is next. Maybe voice control. Or as Alan Klein suggests don't tell anyone and just use iAUTO.... It is the selection of subject in the end, vice the raw converter or pixel count.... But familiarity and ease of design re the menu capabilities is still of interest if not a tipping point in brands,-. (If a function is getting obscure we will avoid it and never know its "gift" so to speak.)

 

 

Check out Wong Blog if this interests you. He has an informed if selective view on Olympus features and some useful photo advice in passing. Robin takes some pretty damn good photos too,=I mean by the way-- :

 

http://robinwong.blogspot.com/

[GerrySiegel]

And here is the essay " Menu Cheat Sheet " for OMD cameras I was looking for, before, on Robin's menu advice piece. Yeah , I never myself would have thought about the setting ON or OFF for Warm Color and even now will have to discover if it matters. Probably not.... We can fix anything in Photoshop,but I hate my computer even as I love it all the same. A paradox of course. And as for choices, there can be too many even for the young at heart...

 

http://robinwong.blogspot.com/2015/07/the-robin-wongs-om-d-camera-cheat-sheet.html

[Peter_in_PA]

<p>I found Nikon's menus much easier than my Olympus, but I'm so used to the Oly stuff now that it doesn't get in the way at all. I can do everything I need to in a moment, no problem.</p>

<p>It's all about learning your system.</p>

[Uhooru]

<p>I've found the panasonic menu on the GX7 to be very easy to navigate through and set the camera up as wished, actually in 3 different settings. Nikon similar in terms of the menu, Don't know Cannon, Olympus or Sony.</p>

[Uhooru]

<blockquote>

<p>I found Nikon's menus much easier than my Olympus, but I'm so used to the Oly stuff now that it doesn't get in the way at all. I can do everything I need to in a moment, no problem.<br>

It's all about learning your system.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>True from my experience, generally speaking (except never used an Oly:)</p>

[GerrySiegel]

---It's all about learning your system.-

 

Of course. But even granting that,,, We are each brought up to live in an operational system or structure of communication. Like the native French speakers. Give them Hebrew and they are all backwards... Not to mention the body language of Eu vs Islam for one example and there are many, I do not have the patience or time to to dig through the' cogs' menu (see Olympus OM D reviews) to find a setting or combo of settings like the remote flash funcitons for one, and I will pay someone, eg, Darrel Young, to be my Virgil. I will refer to his book over the printed manual in a pinch. My cells have only so many terabytes,,,, As for the GX 7 and Lumix in general, there is a decent cheat sheet by David Thorpe, who learned the whole 343 page menu over many days and explores and codifies the list for those who care not much about learning menus.

 

Ok,'nuther Analogy. Take your Apple OS Yosemite vs your Windows 10. My wife finds all Win's easy but I am now used to OS/ iOS. Same but different too. All GUI's not created equal.

 

So all I add is a simple note. There is for each brand name a style / approach of our communicating with the gear that is of some significance, a language actually, and that each company need heed to win us over.

[cegeiss]

<p>I've been modifying my E-M1 for over two years now, and it still does not quite work the way I'd like it to, but it's close. That is mostly a statement about the EM-1 high degree of programmability, which raises expectations about what could be done if the firmware were just a tiny bit more advanced, detailed, etc...<br>

As a result I have about a dozen sheets of notes. I pull out the latest version of notes after every firmware update (when everything is reset), spend half an hour on resetting the camera to my liking, and rarely go into the menu system again (I save my camera settings into two default settings - one for landscape and "slow" shooting, one for kids and family). Most parameters can be addressed via the control panel, the few things that can not are generally near the bottom of the menu structure. :-(<br>

My Nikon is much easier to program - but, wait - it's an old D90, and there's not much to program. :-)<br>

I don't own a Panasonic camera, so I can't compare them directly, but my suspicion is that you prefer the brand you're used to. I second Gerry's WIN/OS comparison: my wife owns a Mac and thinks it's amazing - I think its operating system leaves a lot to be desired. It's mostly a matter of habit and taste.</p>