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Top Deck: Overview

Lesson 4 from: Fujifilm X-T2 Fast Start

John Greengo

Top Deck: Overview

Lesson 4 from: Fujifilm X-T2 Fast Start

John Greengo

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Lesson Info

4. Top Deck: Overview

Gain an essential overview of the camera's most essential controls, from powering the camera on and off to navigation through the menu and using the new focus stick.

Lesson Info

Top Deck: Overview

First off the basic controls that we're gonna be using, obviously turning the camera on and off, one of the things that that does is it has a little sensor cover that does a vibration that knocks off the dust. And so if you have dust on the sensor, it's gonna hopefully knock off any dust that's there. Now it's possible you may need to manually clean your sensor. And I will talk about that later on in the class. On the back of the camera is what's known as the selector. I will forget this name no doubt and call it the four-way touch pad, the up-down arrows. It's how you navigate, move the focusing points around, left, right, up, and down. Mostly we're gonna be navigating the menu system with that. And in the middle we have the okay button, also the menu button, so when you wanna confirm a particular feature, it's kinda like the enter key on a computer board on a computer. We have a rear control dial which is also a push dial. So it's kind of a button and a dial, and there is a duplicate...

one on the front of the camera. And we will use these for a number of features. So anytime you wanna change something, one of these dials might be a good place to go to make that change. New on this series is the focus stick which is great for anybody who likes to move the focusing point around. This makes it real easy so that you don't have to use the selector. The selector can be used for other functions for the camera. And I love that little focus stick. It's got a good feel. I think they did an excellent job on that. But it is also a push button. And we're gonna see how that push button can be used in a number of those little secret shortcuts. The top deck of the camera. We're gonna start on the top. We're gonna work our way around. We're gonna talk about all the dials and so forth. So, the shutter release is a two-step process. You press halfway down for metering and focusing. Now if the camera is asleep, which it likes to go to, it likes to conserve battery power. So if you haven't touched your camera in a minute or so, it's probably asleep. All you have to do is press halfway down. It wakes the camera up. It also puts the camera in the shooting mode if you're in a playback menu for instance. You know, if you're in a playback menu and you're kinda lost and you don't know how to back out and you wanna take a photo, don't worry about it. Just press halfway down on the shutter release and it kicks you back into the shooting mode. So anytime you think you wanna take a photo pretty soon, press down on that shutter release and it's just gonna get everything up and active and ready to go. And then of course you press all the way down to shoot the photo. But that halfway press is something that you definitely wanna get a good feel for. Now for those of you who enjoy back button focusing, we have a new level of control on the Fuji camera here. And we're gonna be able to go into the setup menu. And you're gonna see these little boxes pop in on the screen from time to time. And this is a shortcut for those of you who don't wanna wait for the menu section to go in and make a particular change. And so, if you wanna set your camera up for back button focusing, the first thing that you need to do is you need to turn off the focusing of the shutter release. And you would do that by going into the setup menu, going to the button dial setting, and turning off the shutter AF option. Now if you don't wanna do that right now and you just wanna follow along with the class, we will eventually get to that when we go through the menu settings. This is just simply for people who like to cut ahead and make those changes right now. Now if you do that, there is no way to autofocus on your camera until you set up another button for focusing. And we'll talk about that as we get further into the class. Now you might notice in the middle of that shutter release is a threaded cable release. And those of us who shot back with a Nikon FM and manual cameras remember this. And some of us kept manual cable releases around. And so we have three different types of releases that we can use. There's two different electronic ones and there is this threaded cable release. So if you wanna mount one of these $10 cable releases-- I opted to get the better quality one 'cause I wanted it to last a long time. I think I spent about 30 bucks on it. Because the cheap ones do wear out pretty quickly. And so, it's a perfectly usable cable release. Be careful because it is threaded and if you're not careful with it, you might strip those threads. But great simple system for firing the camera without touching the camera itself.

Class Materials

Bonus Materials with Purchase

Fuji X-T2 Recommended Settings

Ratings and Reviews

John Simpson
 

I highly recommend this class! Been shooting Nikon for 40+ years and decided to give my Nikon gear to my daughter and go the smaller and lighter Fuji X-T2 for travel. Excellent camera and this course was outstanding in helping me learn how to use the camera. I have watched a number of Nikon oriented instructional videos. This video by John Greengo is the best organized and informative presentation I have ever watched.

Monroe Nevels
 

We all learn from different methods. I, for one, learn best by watching you while teaching, and being able to work along side you, with my camera in hand, and then follow you. I highly recommend this class if you really want to know how to use your camera. Thank you John for helping me to relive my film days, and integrating into Digital. I now have my Fujo X-T2 programmed and I LOVE IT!

a Creativelive Student
 

Really appreciate John putting these Fast Start Series together. Went through part of the training waiting on my Fujifilm X-T20 to arrive, which did today. That allowed me to dive into the menu settings and get the camera ready to use. I found that we are on Firmware 3.0, so, I have some updates to get installed. The training was great and informative as always. Don't hesitate to look for his Fast Start for your particular camera, and the in-depth training on Photography Fundamentals. It is well worth your time and money to get this training, especially if you are an amateur like myself, but, thanks to John Greengo I am quickly learning to use my camera in Manual Mode, most of the time.

Student Work

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