mossgate Loc: Phoenix, AZ

Okay.....am I correct in saying that looking at the pdf Olympus manual [page 145], under the Custom Menu, Section D>Control Settings>P/A/S/M....that should read, Live Control AND Live SuperControlPanel? LVSuperControPanel is not listed. However, you do see it if going through the actual camera's menu. The diagram on page 103, however, does have both for P/A/S/M.

Only important if one is using the manual to find it.

.........also..........

I think it would have been helpful if the diagram on page 19 included LiveSuperControlPanel along side the live view images so that you could see that viewfinder mode and live view mode both had the supercontolpanel just in slightly different form.....can see image behind it in LVSCP.
Otherwise you have to wait to page 103-104 to find this.
No references to those pages on page 19.

lukan Loc: Chicago, IL

It's pretty obvious (and very lame) for Olympus to hire a group of Japanese engineers who don't know idiomatic English and have ADD to write the owner's manual to their flagship OMD EM-1!

mossgate Loc: Phoenix, AZ

lukan

I finally copied all the pages having to do with "viewfinder" mode and "live view" mode, cut them into pieces and then repasted them on two separate facing pages....left page for "Viewfinder/SuperControlPanel" and right page for (monitor) "live view and LVSuperControlPanel." Now I can easily see the sequence patterns.

I can remember things much more easily in picture form as opposed to text so my personal manual is predominantly in picture form. I have images of the menu sequences for various functions/options so that I can put them to memory much more easily than just reading text about how the sequences go.

I'm still waiting for the genuine fun part to begin. It's right around the corner.....just what corner I'm not sure yet. :?

lukan Loc: Chicago, IL

Mossy, I bet you're the ONE and ONLY EM-1 shooter alive who has read that manual. I basically just "happen" upon the controls I need from either the menu or the buttons. You must have the patience of a saint!

mossgate Loc: Phoenix, AZ

lukan

I cannot imagine that ANYONE could understand this camera without assistance. It's not that I am patient at all.....I am actually quite impatient to get the heck to where I can start photographing. UNFORTUNATELY everytime I get to feeling that I'm understanding things I find myself bogged down in still another setting problem!

While I am burried in this rediculous manual maybe you can help me out of this mess. I was erasing images from the SD card and doing fine until I came across some files that were totally black. I wondered why they were black. I had never seen something like that before. But I did finally erase them. The BOGDOWN came when I made it to file #1 which had an "on" at the top. I wondered if there were some active WiFi setting attached to this. No matter what I did I couldn't erase the file. So I reformatted the card and it disappeared. Unfortunately while trying to erase file #1 I also accidentally chose some setting that shrank the image to a thumbnail with all sorts of photo info over to the right. As you see in this image of the playback screen, even the image I photo'd is now just a blue rectangle!

I can no longer see my photo images full frame in playback. Actually, I can't see them at all right now. Playback is an absolute disaster.

lukan Loc: Chicago, IL

Wow. Ok, mark down the settings you want (sharpness, Iso range, contrast, etc.). Get on line to Olympusamerica.com and call the toll free number. They're excellent there. I would do a complete reset of the camera, but they might have a better idea.
Two other things: you were right to reformat the card to erase the images and make sure it's right. Second, can you download the images and just erase everything, essentially starting over?

lukan Loc: Chicago, IL

Mossy: You may want to turn off your wi-fi (or deactivate it), turn your exposure comp from +0.7 to 0.0 and the aperature to F4.0 or 4.5 (why 4.8?). Everything else seems just SuperFine (pardon the pun).

mossgate Loc: Phoenix, AZ

lukan

So far I have found nine pages that make reference to record/erase and related submenus in one fashion or other. None show the kind of set up that I showed here. So I finally hit a mental brick wall and did a basic reset. That got rid of the problem and I was back to seeing my images fully displayed on the screen. Whew!!!

Thanks for the suggestions. I think this one is a good one to talk to Olympus about. I'd hate to get that lost again in a procedure that should be such a no-brainer. So many settings are buried within other settings and one push of the wrong button and you wind up in never never land.

Reset is the only saving grace in a situation like this. Easier to reset things that I understand than spend endless hours looking in a manual that doesn't help. :thumbup: :thumbup:

lukan Loc: Chicago, IL

Agreed on the manual and the crappy menu setup. I was waiting for your post to see what the resolution would be, glad it was a simple reset. One word of caution, make sure your images ( whatever size) are downloaded to your computer first, before you reset. Then you can always delete from your computer, and just format (completely erase) the SD card.
I'm glad you got it squared away. Did you get my email, btw?
I think the wifi helped screw things up for you.

mossgate Loc: Phoenix, AZ

lukan

Yes, I did receive the e-mail.

Basic survival tips.

1. Like you said, first of all, save images to the computer...frequently.

2. When one realizes that they hit a wrong setting and don't know what to do.....safest thing to do is shut off the camera and start again.

3. As a last resort when the entanglements get too bad, (as when one tries to undo something and winds up sinking deeper into quicksand) do a reset.

4. If necessary, record your settings somewhere as a quick reference if a reset has to be done. As complex as this camera is, I don't know why Olympus didn't program it so you could plug it into your computer and download your settings from the camera right into a folder on your computer....like a diagnostic readout. Would that have been so hard? I wonder if a firmware update could do this?

lukan Loc: Chicago, IL

This em-1 is an extraordinary achievement for resolution, image quality and color rendition. This is a miracle since I'm convinced the company is run by geniuses that have ADD, and those guys write the manual and set up the menus. Not a user-friendly combo, for sure!
Your points are certainly valid, and I've reset all my olympuses these past years several times, and it has worked every time. As a matter of fact, your numbered points should be adhered to for happy shooting with this unit. I usually set up my menu once, and what I change is picture type from time to time (vivid, natural, portrait, etc.). I change very few if any other things in the menu ( maybe the hi or lo fps rate, depending on my shooting).
Again, I'm very glad you were able to straighten it all out, and those points you posted are to be adhered to.

mossgate Loc: Phoenix, AZ

lukan

Just to eliminate the mystery of that image I posted. Once I dealt with the problem my way and after posting the last message, I just happened to open the manual again and there was the illustration......on page 60 on the top right. The index has no entry for "playback" so I have added it myself with appropriate page numbers.

I must have hit the INFO button while deleting....who knows. Anyway if the INFO button is pushed while in playback the image turns into a thumbnail with shooting settings to the right and histogram underneath. If INFO is pushed again, the image fills the screen again. Hit the OK button and you get a list of things on the right including "JPEG edit." That is where my trouble first started. It was all downhill from there. But now I have been finally able to trace my tracks and understand what happened. :thumbup: :-D Why is it that so often answers come faster when you are no longer looking for them.

lukan Loc: Chicago, IL

Mossy, When the pupil is ready a teacher will come (and that teacher resides within us). I think that was Dr. Confucsius, one of the editors of the Olympus EM-1 manual.
And, by the way, it's actually genius to display EDIT info on a JPEG as completely as how Oly does it.

mossgate Loc: Phoenix, AZ

lukan

You are so right. I like that Jpeg info feature, too, now that I know how to access it and get out of it again.

I am actually going out and doing actual photographic tests now to see where I like my settings most. That is major headway! This morning my cat was my unwitting subject.

Just a grab shot on P to see what would happen. 45mm on my 45-200mm Panasonic zoom is still almost too long. I'm waiting for my 12-40 to show up. It's somewhere between here and Denver right now.

The cropped, enlarged version is quite sharp even at 10inches wide. Unfortunately not so noticeable in such a small photo sample here.

Thank you so much for your helpfulness.

lukan Loc: Chicago, IL

Beautiful execution, very nice image! The color and texture are remarkable!
And, btw, you're very welcome if in fact I was a help. Anytime.