"DoN. Nichols" wrote in message
...
According to Neil Harrington :

"Alan Browne" wrote in message
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[ ... ]

The "pictograms" in question are the exposure mode ones such as little
flowers, a background in or out of focus, "sunny" "backlit" etc. These
are for people who really do not have a care for what goes into
photography.

The little flower is a logical pictogram for close-up mode. It takes up
less
space than printing "CLOSE-UP" on or near the button would, which is
important for compact and ultracompact cameras. Since it's a function of
the
lens rather than the body, it does not appear on any digital SLR as far
as I
know, and the others you mention rarely if ever appear on any type of
camera
I've seen.

Well ... there is a flower pictogram (icon) (along with others)
on the "mode dial" to the left of the pentaprism hump on the Nikon D70.

Right, I see it's on the D70s also. (Slightly red face. :-) )

I think I have too many cameras.


But what it does there is adjust the priorities of the automatic
exposure control to favor close-ups. There are several other selections
on the dial, other than "Auto", "Program", "Shutter-preferred",
"Aperture-preferred" and "Manual".

I haven't had the D70s long enough to get really familiar with it, and have
never even looked into that close-up mode. I knew it does have other icons
on that dial that are more or less equivalent in purpose to those on the
Maxxum 5D, just didn't remember the flower icon.



The close-up icon seems to change the color balance, among other things.
It switches focus area to center focus (which can be overridden).
It sets flash to front-curtain sync.

The manual does not truly detail exactly what it does, this is
(in part) from reading between the lines.

Other fancy modes (with icons) offered:
================================================== ====================
Portrait Favors larger apertures
Front curtain flash sync

Landscape Apparently turns on image enhancement.

Sports High shutter speeds.
Continuous focus tracking while shutter is half-pressed.
Turns *off* built in flash and autofocus assist (not
that useful at a distance, anyway.)

The continuous tracking mode for the autofocus might be
a reason for me to use that mode, rather than diving
into a menu to change from one-shot focus to continuous.

Night Landscape Turns off flash and autofocus assist.

Night Portrait Balances flash for foreground and background illumination.
================================================== ====================


Interesting. Most of those I knew or would have assumed, but the Landscape
turning on image enhancement is news to me. Using Sports mode as a quickie
way to get continuous AF is a good tip. In most cases, I suppose when you
want continuous AF you want relatively high shutter speeds too.



I didn't bother to describe the icons.

So -- I might wind up using the "sports" setting from time to
time. (to get quick access to the continuous-focus AF) The rest, I can
usually accomplish on my own in P, A, S, or M modes.

So -- there are serious cameras with the icons to assist
non-serious users.

Absolutely! I have no problem at all with icons or the modes they represent.
With most compact cameras you can see in the Exif data what the mode does
exactly, which I find useful, and in many cases it's just about what I'd
want to do anyway. For example, in Pentax compacts going into "Autumn
colors" (on a menu) mode changes exposure -1/3 stop and boosts saturation
slightly. That works quite well. With Nikon compacts it's easier to go into
"Library" mode which turns off the flash and sets the camera in Best Shot
Selector mode, than to do those two things separately. And I find BSS to be
extremely useful in low light -- almost a "poor man's image stabilization."



One (of many) thing that I wish the D70 had which the D200 does
is the lock to keep the mode wheel from turning unless you push the lock
to release it. Every so often, I discover that rubbing against my body
or my arm has shifted the mode dial from my default "P" setting, used
for quick response to sudden opportunities. Program "P" mode turns off
the two most offensive auto features (autofocus zone selects the nearest
subject in the viewfinder, and pops up the flash even when I don't want
it), but gives me "quick grab" capabilities, otherwise.

I'm not familiar at all with the D200. However, a couple of my older Minolta
DiMAGE cameras (7i, 7Hi) do have a lock on the mode dial and I find it
annoying. It's a spring-loaded tab on the dial, so it's not always in the
same place -- its location depends on what the dial is turned to, so you
always have to look to see where it is before you can turn the dial, and
though that's hardly a major impediment it often seems awkward to me. The
mostly similar A200 doesn't have the lock and I like that a lot better. I
see your point about accidentally moving the dial, though. Mostly that's
happened to me with cameras that had too-weak detents in the dial, and that
was a nuisance.

Neil