tomh1313 Loc: Burrowsville, VA

Hi, I am a newbie here so I hope I am doing this correctly via forum guidelines. I am at a stumbling block with my D5500 and the differences between the Shooting settings menu and the Custom settings menu. I know that they change different categories of functions but not sure how they interact with each other. Do some settings get overridden by the shooting mode, ex. aperture priority, shutter priority, manual,etc? It seems that some settings in one menu conflict with other settings in the other menu. Thanks for any help you can provide a newbie to this technical concept.

Reinaldokool Loc: San Rafael, CA

You have made a great choice in cameras.

I cannot suggest this strongly enough. Buy (Your local book store or Amazon) the David Busch book on the Nikon D5500. Do not buy the "dummies" book which is a piece of sxxt. But Busch is a clear, informative explainer. He gives the reasons for each setting alternative and then his choice--depending what he is photographing.

That said, the Nikon menu is fairly standard among their cameras and is one of the better ones. I loved my Nikons. The menu structure became clear when I read the book. (Actually, the Darrell Young book for my Nikon, but Busch is similar.) I love my new Sonys, but the menu system is really bad. No rhyme or reason for the locations of items. (I'm sure it was all clear to the engineer(s) who designed it.) Otherwise the Sony camera engineers did a wonderful job on the alpha models.

tomh1313 Loc: Burrowsville, VA

Reinaldo,
The reason I am so confused is the book by David Busch. I can't understand the settings in the Shooting settings menu and the Custom settings menu. They seem to conflict and I am not sure what controls taking a picture. Are custom settings only for creating an "automated" shooting mode. Not exactly an automatic mode but providing parameters in how a type of scene is shot, focus, metering, saturation,etc? Did you find the Darrell Young book easier to understand? Thanks. Sorry for all the questions but this has me so stumped.

tomh1313 Loc: Burrowsville, VA

Reinaldo,
What Darrell Young Nikon book did you mean? He has many versions. Thanks.

Elliern Loc: Myrtle Beach, SC

Furst, welcome!

I am hoping I am understanding your question correctly and can also answer it correctly. Just know, I don't use the custom settings on my D5500. But David Busch has some suggestions for how he has it set up for sports. I think he suggests not using it if you are new to using a dslr in some of his books.

The custom settings can be used if you often shoot the same subject/s in the same type settings often...such as a child's little league/soccer games, or dance recitals. You would choose all the specific settings that work best for you in those situations and save them to your custom settings button. Then you already have them dialed in and ready to go when you are ready to shoot those scenes. Just go to your custom settings button and shoot.

The usual menu settings you might change more frequently (but not always) depending on what you are shooting. Most will stay the same until you change them. But some you cannot change when using auto, P, or one of the scene modes. The most common ones can be quickly changed using the i button and your touch screen.

I hope this helps and I did not confuse you more. I love my D5500 and think the David Busch books are great are a great help. But I understand how things can get confusing.

Good luck and hope you get lots of opportunities to use your new camera.

tomh1313 Loc: Burrowsville, VA

Elliern,
Thanks, I have been receiving a lot of replies here and on Nikonians.Org. You seem to understand my question well and your reply seems pretty clear. It almost seems like setting up the Custom picture control settings are more trouble than they are worth especially since the settings don't carry over in your raw files unless you are using Nikon raw converter software. Thanks again very much.

CO

I just compared the Shooting settings menu items and the Custom settings menu items for my D7000. There doesn't seem to be any functions they have in common. I had a D90 and now have a D7000 and D500. I've never noticed any conflict with items in those menus. Almost everything stays the same in those menus after initial setup. In the Shooting menu pretty much all that I change are the white balance and ISO.

You're right about the picture controls. I use Nikon Capture NX-2 and Capture NX-D. The picture control settings will carry over into those packages. Third party software will ignore those. If you do use .jpeg files out of the camera Nikon expert, Ken Rockwell, recommends going through all of the picture controls and bumping up the sharpening to level 6. Nikon sets the default sharpening low at level 3.

Have you programmed the Fn button on your camera? It's very useful. There are many different functions that can be programmed to that button.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Take a look here for a good video on the previous versions of your camera.

https://www.creativelive.com/courses/nikon-d5100-d5200-dslr-fast-start

tomh1313 Loc: Burrowsville, VA

CO,
Thanks for the response. It just seemed that adjusting one setting in the Custom settings menu would override the settings I made in the Shooting settings menu. I went through and put some of the settings David Busch recommends in his guidebook to the D5500 and I think I figured it out with a lot of help I received here and on Nikonians.Org. It seems once I pick a Shooting settings menu profile and make changes to it there and in the Custom settings menu, once I save the profile under another name, I can recall that preset profile to shoot with. At least that is the way, I am understanding it. Thanks again for responding.

tomh1313 Loc: Burrowsville, VA

Jerry,
Thanks for the link to the video tutorial. It looks pretty good but for some reason, I could not get the preview to play with any sound. Will try it later on my laptop. Probably not working on the Android system. It looks good but just not in the budget right now. Will hang onto it for later. Thanks.