Saturday, April 28, 2012

Nikon Custom Memory Banks are USELESS ! guess I am not alone

Nikon's current Custom Memory Banks are USELESS ! guess I am not alone :)

I have actually grown to "Hate" the Custom Memory Banks , just because it's there.
It "could" be great , but on my Nikon's it sits there Unused. Period. And it makes me SAD.
Probably should be a feature that the Overwhelming Majority of Nikon shooters use, Every Day, But I doubt it. Seriously.
  • I am not a Landscape shooter , and I actually "thought" Michael Reichmann was a Canon guy (that's a joke). But, I was soooo , soooo happy that he articulated in print what i have been feeling from the very beginning. It could be great , but it's LAME instead.
* IN FACT, I will go a step farther: Let me put the Custom Memory Bank on the Q DIAL (replace) , that I can simply Record ALL my camera settings to 5 or up to 8 Named Sets. THEN, let me Push the MODE button and ROLL the BACK Wheel. to Quickly go thru my SAVED Settings. The name and number of the Set up can appear on the LCD screen.
Once I release my mode button I can change at will. All I need is a FAST starting Point with EVERYTHING set on a roll of the wheel.
Give me that , and I will be in that mode All Day long!
  • Let me SAVE the Settings , SO when I go back to it ... IT goes back to my ORIGINAL settings , NOT my last settings in the set up. (I prefer it to reset to my Preferred settings , so I have a CLEAN set up again.)
Think about it for a second. IF you have all the possible MODE settings , complete down to the Auto ISO setups, and maybe Card slot set ups ... WHY would you then need the MODE button (other than to ROLL thru the different set ups)
YOU can have a Shutter Priority Set up ... a Aperture Priority Set UP .. a Manual Set UP .. a Wedding Church Q , Quiet Mode setting ... a Sports Set UP .. a Night Manual Set up. On and ON ...
At that point , why use the mode dial again?
And if you really want to , you can just move the Dial Off the programed Q on the Dial.
Now is there Any way currently in Nikon that you can Change ALL your settings so completely SO FAST ?
Let's get off the Old School Nikon Custom Memory Banks that do not make logical sense if the goal it to change your settings Quickly, and Completely. AND, to be able to actually use it ALL Day, Every Day.


Below is LL link, and quote
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/.../nikon_d800__e_initial_impressions.shtml
You Can't Take it to The Bank
Sorry for the pun (I think it's actually pretty clever), but let's talk about Memory Banks. The Nikon D800/E has what could be the world's best custom memory settings system. Regrettably though, it fails pretty badly in terms of convenience and functionality.
There are only a couple of settings that are purely mechanical; metering mode and shutter activation. Everything else is firmware controlled, which means that everything else should be settable and memorizeable into custom user banks. They are actually, but not the way you'd wish.
Instead Nikon has implemented a two bank system; A Shooting Memory Bank and a Custom Memory Bank. Why Nikon, why?! What this means is that you can set some items, such as exposure mode in the Shooting Bank, and some things like the Focusing modes in the Custom Bank, but there's no way to activate them at the same time without accessing the separate banks, located under different menu headings. Yes, you can put both on the My Menu setting, but one still has to set two separate selections to put the camera into the state that one needs. And, since the point of this is to enable quick changes between shooting modes, the whole process is subverted. Really quite a shame, since it could be so convenient.
Here's a suggestion Nikon – make the Custom Settings Bank a selection in the Custom Memory Bank. It's just firmware, right? A SMOP.
More Bad Bank News
If that was all that was wrong with the Nikon memory bank system on the D800/E, I could live with it (sort of – what choice do I have?). But it's worse than that. Nikon's otherwise prescient engineers were clearly dozing the day that they designed this system, for the following reason...
There is no way to lock settings in a bank. So, for example, let's say that you've set the camera up for "fully manual" mode in Bank B. You work in Bank B, but then decide to make a change to couple of settings. Maybe pop into Aperture priority mode for a few shots. Now, you realize that you actually want to work with your Bank A settings (full auto), so you switch to those.
What happens to your Bank B settings? You guessed it. They now have changed to whatever you set while you were in that Bank. In other words, a memory bank retains the settings that were in effect the last time you were in the bank, not the settings that you want them to retain. This is really lame, and together with needing to set two separate Memory Banks for each individual shooting situations, the whole Memory Bank system becomes close to pointless. This seems more like it was designed by Sony, rather than Nikon.
Come on Nikon, put your "A" team on this for a firmware update ASAP.

No comments: