Complete Guide to the Nikon D200- P14 ppt

Note that whatever choice you make stays active, and that if more than one thumbnail is displayed, you can no longer reach other information pages about an image < and > keys on the dire

To show and move the Highlight indicator between channels on this page, hold the ± button and press the <

or > key on the Direction pad

Page 5: overexposed highlights blink—the folder number

and file number appear in the lower right corner (100-68

in this example) Here’s a new wrinkle: the RGB, R, G, and B indicators in the lower left blink to indicate which

channel (or channels) are being shown as overexposed

To move between channels on this page, hold the ± button and press the < or > key on the Direction pad

Page 6: histogram—the folder number and file number

appear in the upper right corner, the histogram overlays the image

You can protect the currently viewed image from deletion (but not from a card format) by pressing the n button while the image is being displayed A n icon appears at the left top

of the image:

Note that protected files are marked with a read-only marker that persists when you move them to a computer

Tip: In Windows, select the read-only file in a Windows Explorer

window Next select PROPERTIES from the FILE menu Uncheck the box labeled Read-only to remove the read-

only attribute

On a Macintosh using OS 9.x or OS X, select the read-only

file and press Apple - I (that’s an i) to see the General

Information box for the file Uncheck the box labeled

Locked to remove the read-only attribute

Note: The page and image browsing keys on the D200 can be 90

degrees different than those for other Nikon DSLRs Don’t despair Use Custom Setting #F3 to set the D200 to match your other Nikon DSLRs

• You can delete the currently viewed image by pressing the

p button You’ll be prompted to confirm the deletion: press the p button again to do so

If the image was protected, you’ll see File Protected

when you press the Delete button Unprotect the image before trying to delete it (press the n button)

• You can display thumbnails of multiple pictures by

holding the ± button and turning the Rear Command dial (which allows you to select 1 image per screen, 4 images per screen, or 9 images per screen) Note that whatever choice you make stays active, and that if more than one thumbnail is displayed, you can no longer reach other information pages about an image (< and > keys on the direction pad control moving between thumbnails when multiple images are displayed; the currently selected image is outlined in yellow) You can, however, still reach the histogram page by pressing the center of the Direction pad (pressing it again takes you back to the thumbnail display, even if the display has gone off or you’ve taken additional pictures)

4 images per screen

9 images per screen

• You can magnify the view by first pressing the ENTER

key to enter the zooming mode, and then using the ± and Rear Command dial to zoom When you first press

ENTER, the following icons are shown in the upper left

corner of the image to remind you of how to zoom:

ENTER pressed Thumbnail + Dial Zoom Complete

While viewing a magnified image, you can use the ± button plus Rear Command dial to zoom in on the

magnified view (center image, above, shows the zoom area as it’s being chosen; right shot shows what you zoomed into when you released the button)

When you hold down the Thumbnail button, the Rear Command dial is used to control a visual representation of the zoom amount (size of the bracketed area) while the Direction pad controls the position of the bracketing area When you release the Thumbnail button the playback zooms to the area and level you selected You can then view additional images with that zoom level applied by rotating the Rear Command dial to move between

Don’t panic if you see the FOLDER CONTAINS NO

IMAGES message The camera is trying to tell you that it can

find no images in the current folder of the card; that doesn’t

mean that there aren’t images on the card Whenever you see

the NO IMAGES message and you know that there are

images on the card:

107

Okay, this is a relatively nice and convenient setup, but now we have multiple Nikon DSLR bodies that work differently for zooming Nikon really needs to pick a method and stick to it for all DSLRs

1 Press the MENU key to show the menu system

2 Use the Direction pad to navigate to the PLAYBACK

menu

3 Use the Direction pad to navigate to Playback

Folder and press the > key on the Direction pad to

select it

4 Use the Direction pad to select All and press the > key

one more time

Rotating Images

Images are usually displayed on the color LCD with the long axis across the long axis (i.e., vertical images aren’t displayed rotated) The D200 has an automatic rotation detector,

however You can activate this so that images are correctly rotated to the proper orientation by Nikon View and Nikon Capture

õ To turn on automatic image rotation:

1 Press the MENU key to show the menu system

2 Use the Direction pad to navigate to the SET UP MENU (wrench icon tab)

3 Use the Direction pad to navigate to Auto Image

Rotation and press the > key on the Direction to

select it

4 Use the Direction pad to navigate to On and press the

> key to complete the setting

If you’ve set Auto Image Rotation to On, Nikon

PictureProject and Nikon View also automatically rotate the images during transfer to your computer so that they’ll show

up in the correct orientation in whatever software you use

However, even if Auto Image Rotation is set to On, that

doesn’t mean the images show up rotated on the color LCD

on the camera For that you have to make a change in the PLAYBACK MENU settings:

1 Press the MENU key to show the menu system

2 Use the Direction pad to navigate to the PLAYBACK MENU (wrench icon tab)

3 Use the Direction pad to navigate to Rotate Tall and

press the > key on the Direction to select it

4 Use the Direction pad to navigate to On and press the

> key to complete the setting

Personally, I don’t like the Rotate Tall option, as it starts to

make the review image too small to quickly evaluate That’s especially true if you use the RGB Histogram page as your

primary review page I leave this option Off on my D200 and

just tilt the camera or my head

The PLAYBACK Menu

õ Pressing the Þ button and selecting the first tab (²) displays a selection of options on the color LCD:

The % or " keys on the Direction pad are used to navigate between these options (the currently selected option is

highlighted; sometimes that’s the tab, as in this case), and you press the < and > key on the Direction pad to select the

highlighted item Note that some of the items can be done directly on the currently shown (or selected) image without

using the menu system (e.g Delete using the p button) The

following sections detail each of the various PLAYBACK MENU options

õ Alternatively, you can use the Delete option on the

PLAYBACK MENU, which can delete either a few images or all of them:

1 PLAYBACK -> Delete -> Selected

2 Images are displayed six at a time:

3 Center press of the Direction pad selects or deselects image(s) for deletion (you’ll see the p icon appear on it (see image 100-101, below)

4 ENTER button deletes the selected images

Selected As just outlined in the screen shots, above, the

D200 displays a thumbnail view of the images, six at a time (Step 2, above) You navigate through them exactly as you would in thumbnail view (< and > key on the Direction pad), pressing the center position on the Direction pad on each image you want to erase (each press is a toggle, and a small trash can appears on any image scheduled for

deletion—Step 3, above) You can also press the

Thumbnail button to see a larger version of the currently selected image (useful when you have a sequence of very similar images and are trying to erase just one) You

confirm the deletion of all the selected images by pressing

the ENTER button, navigating to Yes, and pressing the

ENTER button again when prompted (Step 4, above)

Images marked with a protect symbol cannot be deleted; hidden images aren’t displayed

All The D200 immediately displays a confirmation

prompt Selecting Yes and confirming that by pressing

ENTER immediately deletes all photographs on the card

except for ones that have been marked as PROTECTED or

are HIDDEN

Nikon’s manual says that deleted images cannot be

recovered They can, but not easily, and only if you take immediate action If you accidentally erase an image (or more) on a card, set that card aside until you can access it with your computer Use an image recover utility program such as PhotoRescue

(Hhttp://www.datarescue.com/photorescue/) to recover the deleted file before doing anything else with the card This works because the act of deletion doesn’t actually remove the data for an image, it simply marks the space used by the file

as available Thus, if you write additional images to a card after deleting a file, you often can’t recover the deleted file, as the D200 has probably used the space for the new images

Dealing with Folders

I’ve dealt with it earlier, but it’s worth repeating here as we go

through the PLAYBACK menu options: the D200 uses

folders to organize images stored on the CompactFlash card Because the D200 follows the DCF digital camera standard (Design Rule for Camera File Systems) agreed to by most manufacturers, there are limitations on folder names and locations

If you do nothing (i.e don’t use any of the options on the

Playback Folder selection on the PLAYBACK menu, the

D200 creates a root folder named DCIM, which in turn

contains a folder named 100ND200 The first 999 images stored on the card are stored in that folder, then a new folder named 101ND201 is created and the next 999 images stored there This process of creating new folders every 999 images continues until you fill the card Thus, when you examine the structure of the CompactFlash card on your computer, you’ll see something like this:

DCIM

+ 100ND200

+ 101ND200

etc

You can create new folders, but they always have a number

as the first three characters and the D200 identifier as the last five (e.g 102ND200), which isn’t particularly flexible

Once again, here’s the full extent of what you can do with folders on a D200:

õ Create a new folder:

1 Press the MENU button to see the menus on the LCD

2 Use the Direction pad to navigate to SHOOTING MENU (camera icon tab)

3 Use the Direction pad to navigate to Folders and

press the > key on the Direction pad to select it

4 Use the Direction pad to navigate to New and press

the > key on the Direction pad to select it

5 In the display that appears, use the % and " keys on the Direction pad to change the three digit portion of

the folder name:

6 Press the > key on the Direction pad to complete the creation Note that your new folder becomes the Active Folder automatically!

õ Select which folders to display in playback:

1 Press the MENU button to see the menus on the LCD

2 Use the Direction pad to navigate to PLAYBACK MENU

3 Use the Direction pad to navigate to Playback

Folder and press the > key on the Direction pad to

Images are always stored in the currently selected folder

(called the Active Folder and set by the Folders option on the

Shooting menu)

Folders cannot be renamed (curiously, they can be on the D50, D70 and Coolpix models)

The D200 doesn’t allow you to delete folders To actually get

rid of a folder number, you’d have to first set your Folders

value to a lower number, then delete the folder in question with your card in your card reader connected to the computer (or with the D200 connected to your computer)

Folders are seriously confusing and restraining on the D200,

at least if you start doing things that create new ones I

strongly advise against creating additional folders on the D200 (note that if you shoot more than 999 images on a card, you might have one created automatically by the camera) Not only will it create confusion when transferring images to your computer, but unless you’re disciplined about erasing folders and restoring your Active Folder value to the lowest number, you’ll start folder number creep, which can be annoying

Hiding Images

The D200 allows you to “hide” images, which prevents them from displaying in PLAYBACK mode or in slide shows When copied to a computer, hidden images are marked with both the hidden and read-only attributes, meaning that they don’t normally display in directories

3 Use the Direction pad to navigate to Hide Image and

use the > key on the Direction pad to select it

4 Choose whether you want to hide/unhide individual images or unhide all previously hidden ones by navigating to the appropriate option with the

Direction pad

5 The D200 displays a thumbnail view of the images, six at a time Navigate through them exactly as you would in thumbnail view (using the < and > key), pressing the center of the Direction pad on each image you want to hide (each press toggles between hide and unhide)

6 Confirm the hide action by pressing the ENTER

button Hidden images get a ¼ icon on them (e.g

image 100-97 in the following screen):

Tip: On a Macintosh using OS 9.x, you’ll need a utility such as

ResEdit in order to make a file visible again In ResEdit,

select Get File/Folder Info… from the File menu Uncheck both the File Locked and Invisible boxes to remove the hidden attribute In OS-X you get to the Locked file

attribute by using Get Info (Apple-I) on the file (it’s in the General section, which is usually opened by default; click

on the > next to it if it isn’t)

The easiest way to restore hidden images is to use the

Deselect All? option on the Hide image menu (see Step #4,

above)

Custom Settings

The good news is that many of the camera’s defaults can be overridden or modified The bad news is that Nikon’s method

of making these changes is slightly cumbersome

Having to scroll through 47 Custom Settings choices can be time-consuming (even with the groupings that the D200 menu system uses), especially for those of us who use multiple Nikon bodies Why? Because Nikon keeps changing the Custom Settings number for functions that are identical across the bodies For example, the self-timer function is #16 on the F100, F5 and D1s, but it’s #C4 on the D2 series and D200 Fortunately for D2 series users, the D200 Custom Settings only have a few numbering differences, but if you’re coming from a D50, D70, or D100, you’ll find many

Fortunately, the D200 allows up to four “banks” of Custom Settings If there is a group of settings you use regularly, you should create them in one of the banks and name that bank so that you can remember it Since the banks are the first item in the Custom Setting menu, if you have them set up well you can reconfigure the camera very quickly

Generally, I leave one of the banks set to the camera defaults (well, my version of the camera defaults—as you’ll learn, there are a couple of places where I strongly suggest a

different setting than the default) I use a second bank for demand changes That leaves me two banks for specialized shooting constraints In one of these banks, I make settings

on-that are useful when I’m heavily using flash (Func Button,

Modeling flash, etc.), in the second I optimize the camera for very active sports shooting (my preferred Group Dynamic AF and other autofocus settings, mostly)

Just to be clear here: when I want the camera at its defaults, I

use Bank A (which I usually name Defaults!) When I’m

shooting normally and making Custom Setting changes as

demand warrants, I’m in Bank B (named Thom Norm) When I’m in the studio using flash, I use Bank C (named Thom