OM-D E-M5-still remarkably relevant-share your favorite menu tricks


MrBolton

New member
I purchased my first Olympus OM-D E-M5 new in 2014, to replace my lost E-PL1. That little camera had been everywhere with me, including to France, Switzerland and Italy and, it had been a trooper. It took great pics (in halfway decent light) even with the humble kit zoom, so it seemed natural to look at Olympus again for its replacement.

Three weeks after I bought it, I was forced to put its weather sealing to the test when I got caught out in a sudden downpour on a bike ride. Just like in the ad copy, the camera had water dripping off of it when I got home-it didn't miss a beat. I felt pretty lucky that my new expensive camera hadn't just been soaked into oblivion :)

Reviewers at the time commented on the Olympus' extensive menu system, which can be daunting. When I got it, I changed some basic things and assigned the function buttons to my taste, and pretty much left it alone for years after that. But this year, I've been delving back into the menu system, and it's really surprising how many new (to me) things I can still find on this old (by digital camera standards) workhorse.

Just today, I discovered that you can assign the movie button to do multiple things-and if you assign it from the cog menu B Button/dial menu to 'multiple function' you can then hold it down and turn the rear dial to change its function, then activate the chosen function with the front dial! The rear dial rotates it through highlight/shadow control, WB, magnify (very useful for adapted manual focus glass) or aspect ratio. Since I've assigned the fn1 button to magnify years ago, and used it so much that it's starting to wear out/be difficult to engage, I was delighted to find that there was another way to access that function.

It seems that many, if not most, of the functions in the menu system can be called with a fn button if you assign them to one. As someone who can't afford a new camera very often, it's refreshing to discover new capabilities in current gear.

What are your favorite shortcuts and settings on your Olympus cameras?

PS Also firsties for non-Admin thread posting :)
 

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