3.5 Things You Probably Didn’t Know about Playback Mode

Before we get into the playback menus and their functions, here are some things you can do while the image is playing back that you might not have been aware of.

• The Trash Can button provides a shortcut to the “delete this image (or movie)” menu item.
• You can zoom into an image to examine it closely using the AF/MF / AEL button (regardless of the position of the lever), then use the arrow keys to navigate around or use the rear control wheel to zoom in or out NEW!! The camera will now zoom in to the AF area automatically when first zooming. This has been universally recognized as a Good Thing.
• When examining images closely like this (zoomed in), you can use the top right control dial to examine similar areas of adjacent images (to see which of the series of shots is the sharpest, for example). Be patient with this one, though…
• The DISPlay button (up-arrow) will alternate between Full-screen with annotations (salient data about that shot like time, date, exposure info, etc.), Full screen without annotations, and Histogram view. Go ahead; try it!
• Hitting the Down arrow button takes you to index mode. Selecting any image and pressing the center button takes you back to play mode. MENU --> 1 --> Image Index lets you choose between 12 and 30 images.
• When in index mode, hitting Left several times and highlighting the small orange strip on the left takes you to an even higher level, to calendar view. Want to go back down a level? Highlight a picture and hit the center button.
• The Fn button invokes the “Send to Smartphone” function where it can send a downsized image to your smartphone via WiFi (See Chapter 5).
• If you have MENU --> 1 --> Display Rotation set to AUTO, you can rotate the image by rotating the camera. In any other mode, if you’re really too lazy to rotate the camera 90 degrees you can rotate the image via MENU --> 1 --> Rotate and then press the center button multiple times to rotate the image counterclockwise. (Which is as much of a pain as it sounds.) (If you like this feature, you can now assign this feature to a button during playback mode.)

When playing back movies, the following arrow keys are functional:

• LEFT and RIGHT will act as fast forward and fast reverse. Press them several times in a row and they will play back faster (note that all it does is jump around – it’s not exactly smooth playback in this mode).
• The CENTER button will pause and unpause the playback. While paused, rotating the rear control dial will control slow playback. LEFT and RIGHT will still work and they will jump ahead by several seconds each.
• The DOWN button brings up a menu that controls playback speed and volume.

TIP: Successful photojournalists have a methodology that they use in the field:

1) First, just “get a shot”. You may never get a second opportunity.

2) If a second opportunity presents itself, think to yourself “Okay, how can I make it better?”

3) (Repeat Step 2 several times until you’re out of ideas.)

4) Finally, think outside the box and go for something unusual or “out there”. (Those turn out to be the most memorable shots!)

I live by this methodology, and that is why, no matter what camera I’m using, my default walk-around mode is “Program” mode and Auto ISO. It takes care of everything for me so I can be ready and quickly get the first shot. For Step 2 I’ll often take it out of Program mode when I try to make it better: “Would it be better if I used a larger f/stop to get a blurrier background to isolate the subject?”, “Would the moving subject be sharper if I used a higher shutter speed?”, or “Is the light good enough so I can lower my ISO and not get too blurry a shot for my subject?” are questions I’ll often ask myself for Step 2.

(Step 4 is usually synonymous with “get down on the floor and shoot up!”, which you can do very easily now with the flip-out screen (or the Camera remote feature!) :-) )