This autofocus mode selection entry is available only when you are using one of the Exposure mode settings: Program, Sensitivity Priority (Sv), Shutter Priority (Tv), Aperture Priority (Av), Manual (M), or Bulb (B.) In any of the Mode dial Scene modes, or when using one of the SCN settings, the K200D chooses the autofocus method for you.

As I said in Chapter 1, you can manually focus the camera when the MF/AF switch on the left front side of the body is set to MF. You can also adjust focus manually after the camera has automatically focused when in AF mode. Press the shutter release down halfway and rotate the focusing ring on the camera. When the subject is in focus, the green focus indicator hexagon appears and you will hear a beep (unless you’ve disabled the beep for this function, as described later in this chapter). Even though you are focusing manually, the K200D is kind enough to help you by confirming sharp focus.

You might want to use Manual focus when shooting close-ups, because the range of sharpness (depth-of-field) is very shallow, and focusing the image yourself allows more precision in selecting the exact point of focus. Manual focus is also useful when you want to take advantage of the depth-of-field sharpness range to specify exactly what areas of your image are in focus for creative purposes. (This is called selective focus.) Manual focus also is useful if you are using an older lens that doesn’t offer autofocus features. (I’ll explain the use of these lenses in Chapter 7.)

Most of the time, however, you’ll want to use the Pentax K200D’s automatic focus features. This menu selection allows you to specify when the camera applies its focusing magic to your scene—either Single mode, or Continuous mode, as I originally described in Chapter 1:

This menu entry allows you to select the area of the frame the Pentax K200D uses to calculate exposure: from multiple segments in 16 different metering zones; by emphasizing the center of the frame but taking into account the entire measurable area within the 16 zones; or by measuring exposure only from the center of the picture. I’ll provide more details on obtaining the best exposure in Chapter 4. Here are the three choices you have available:

Use this menu entry to specify how the primary autofocus point is selected from among the 11 different zones in the camera’s viewfinder. The active AF point is displayed in the viewfinder screen, unless you’ve disabled that display using Custom Setting #8, as described later in this chapter. Your three AF point selection choices are as follows:

Your options within this menu entry are JPEG, RAW, or RAW+ (both JPEG and RAW file formats). So, you can elect to store only JPEG versions of the images you shoot, or you can save your photos as RAW images, which Pentax calls PEF, for Pentax Electronic Format files. Alternatively, you can choose the Adobe Digital Negative (DNG) RAW format, as described later in this chapter.

RAW images of either PEF or DNG type (with their .PEF or .DNG file extensions) consume more space on your memory card, but have the advantage of offering more flexibility during image editing (read on for more information on that). JPEG files (with their .JPG extensions) are more highly compressed and use less space on your memory card, but offer fewer options during image editing. Many photographers elect to save both JPEG and a RAW using the RAW+ choice, so they’ll have a JPEG version that might be usable as-is, as well as the original “digital negative” RAW file in case they want to do some extensive processing of the image later. You’ll end up with two different versions of the same file: one with a .jpg extension, and one with the .pef or .dng extension that signifies a RAW file. I’ll offer some more detailed advice on choosing a file format later in this chapter.

This setting allows you to choose the resolution of your image when shooting JPEG files. (RAW files are always saved at the highest resolution of 10 megapixels [3872 × 2592].) You can select:

This entry allows you to choose from Good (*), Better (**), or Best (***) JPEG quality levels, which are actually indicators of how much compression is used to make the image file smaller. The Good quality level produces the smallest image files, but with a loss of image detail that might be noticeable, as you can see in Figure 3.5. Best quality offers the clearest images, but the file sizes are as much as three times larger.

Figure 3.5. At low levels of JPEG compression, the image looks sharp even when you enlarge it enough to almost see the actual pixels (top); when using extreme JPEG compression (bottom) an image obviously loses quality.

In practice, you’ll probably use the JPEG Best or RAW+ selections most often. Why so many choices, then? There are some advantages to using the JPEG Better and JPEG Good options. Settings that are less than max allow stretching the capacity of your memory card so you can shoehorn quite a few more pictures onto a single card. That can come in useful when on vacation and you’re running out of storage, or when you’re shooting non-critical work that doesn’t require 10 megapixels of resolution (such as photos taken for real estate listings, web page display, photo ID cards, or similar applications). Some photographers like to record RAW+ so they’ll have an excellent quality JPEG file review for minor manipulations, while retaining access to the original RAW file for serious editing.

For most work, using lower JPEG Recorded Pixels and JPEG Quality settings is false economy. You never know when you might actually need that extra bit of picture detail. Your best bet is to have enough memory cards to handle all the shooting you want to do until you have the chance to transfer your photos to your computer or a personal storage device.

However, reduced image quality can sometimes be beneficial if you’re shooting sequences of photos rapidly, as the Pentax K200D is able to hold more of them in its internal memory buffer before transferring to the memory card. Still, for most sports and other applications, you’d probably rather have better, sharper pictures than longer periods of continuous shooting. Do you really need 10 shots of a pass reception in a football game, or six slightly different versions of your local basketball star driving in for a lay-up?

This setting is the first in the second screen of the Recording Mode menu listings. You have two choices:

Here you can choose between two different sets of colors—called gamuts—which is the range of colors that are available to represent an image. As you can see in Figure 3.6, you can select:

Figure 3.6. Choose a color space.

You’re probably surprised that the Pentax K200D doesn’t automatically capture all the colors we see. Unfortunately, that’s impossible because of the limitations of the sensor and the filters used to capture the fundamental red, green, and blue colors, as well as that of the phosphors used to display those colors on your camera and computer monitors. Nor is it possible to print every color our eyes detect, because the inks or pigments used don’t absorb and reflect colors perfectly.

Instead, the colors that can be reproduced by a given device are represented as a color space that exists within the full range of colors we can see. That full range was defined by scientists at an international organization back in 1931.

As I mentioned, regardless of which color space is used by the K200D, you end up with 16.8 million different colors that can be used in your photograph. (No one image will contain all 16.8 million!) But, the colors available will be different.

Adobe RGB is what is often called an expanded color space, because it can reproduce a range of colors that is spread over a wider range of the visual spectrum. Adobe RGB is useful for commercial and professional printing. You don’t need this range of colors if your images will be displayed primarily on your computer screen or output by your personal printer.

The other color space, sRGB, is recommended for images that will be output locally on the user’s own printer, as this color space matches that of the typical inkjet printer fairly closely, and it’s the color gamut most photofinishers expect to receive from snapshooters. While both Adobe RGB and sRGB can reproduce the exact same 16.8 million absolute colors, Adobe RGB spreads those colors over a larger portion of the visible spectrum. Think of a box of crayons (the jumbo 16.8 million crayon variety). Some of the basic crayons from the original sRGB set have been removed and replaced with new hues not contained in the original box. Your “new” box contains colors that can’t be reproduced by your computer monitor, but which work just fine with a commercial printing press.

Use this setting to specify the behavior of the RAW button, located on the front of the camera next to the K200 logo. What happens when the button is pressed depends on the format you are currently using, and the setting you make here:

Sometimes you make settings that you want to remain in force for the rest of your shooting session, but then revert to their default values when you turn the camera off. This clever option allows you to specify which settings the Pentax K200D should retain even when the camera is powered down and then switched on again. To mark or unmark settings to be memorized, scroll through the two pages of listings and press the left/right controller keys to add or remove a check from the box next to each option.

The settings you can save are as follows:

This menu can save you a lot of frustration if you realize what it can do for you. For example, it’s very common for photographers to forget they have boosted the ISO setting of their camera to a high level, such as ISO 1600, while shooting indoors, only to end up overexposing the daylight exposures they make without first changing back to a lower setting. Or, you might add exposure compensation under particular lighting conditions, and then continue to shoot with that EV boost when you’ve moved on to a new scene. The Memory setting allows you to tell the K200D to return to the default value when you’ve switched the camera off.

The current focal length of the lens mounted on the camera is used by the K200D when calculating the amount of shake reduction that is applied when the camera’s anti-shake feature is switched on. Pentax lenses with DA, D FA, FA J, FA, or F in their names automatically provide this information to the camera. Other lenses do not, but you can input the focal length setting you’d like to use for such lenses using this menu option. It’s available only when the Shake Reduction feature is turned on, and an applicable lens is mounted on the camera.

A listing of 34 different focal lengths, from 8mm to 800mm, appears with a default value of 35mm available in a horizontally scrolling list, as shown in Figure 3.7. You can use the controller left/right keys to select the value appropriate for your lens, or the closest value offered, such as 18mm (if you’re using a 17mm lens). This setting is grayed out and not selectable when using lenses that communicate their focal length to the camera. Set Custom Setting #23, using the aperture ring set to Permitted when using older lenses.

Figure 3.7. Help your camera’s shake reduction operate more accurately by specifying a focal length for lenses that don’t automatically supply this information.

When reviewing images, the K200D can show flashing red pixels to indicate areas that are overexposed, and flashing yellow pixels to mark areas that are underexposed. These are commonly called “blinkies.” This menu entry includes a Bright/Dark Area option with a check box, which can be marked and unmarked with the left/right controller keys. Mark the box to enable blinkies, and unmark the box to disable them (because you find the flashing pixels distracting or prefer to locate over- and under-exposed areas on your own).

The second option within this entry allows you to enable or disable the Quick Zoom feature, which automatically zooms in to a specified magnification when the Playback button is pressed to view an image. When you select Off, the default “zoom” level is 1X. You can also use the up/down controller keys to specify X2, X4, X8, and X16 default zoom levels that are used each time you review an image. This option is useful when you want to zoom in to a particular magnification each time you use picture review.

This menu entry lets you determine whether to display an instant review of the image you’ve just taken on the LCD and whether to show a histogram display and flashing yellow/red “blinkies.” Your choices are:

In Chapter 2, in the sidebar “Using Digital and Optical Preview,” I described the difference between the Pentax K200D’s conventional optical depth-of-field preview, and its innovative digital preview, which is an actual preview picture the camera takes prior to (or instead of) the actual picture. Digital and optical previews are activated by rotating the switch that rings the shutter release all the way clockwise.

This option lets you specify whether the histogram display and/or bright/dark area display are shown along with the Digital Preview image.

I showed you how to activate a slide show of the images on your memory card in Chapter 2, using the Playback Functions menu. This menu entry lets you specify the interval between images, and whether the show should repeat when finished.

Use this setting, the initial entry on the first page of the Set-up menu (see Figure 3.10), to erase everything on your SD memory card and set up a fresh file system ready for use. When you navigate to Format, press the right arrow to get to a page with just two selections: Format and Cancel. If you choose Format and press the OK button, all your data will be deleted; Cancel and OK returns you to the Set-up menu. A progress screen appears while formatting is underway.

Figure 3.10. The first page of the Set-up menu has six entries.

I recommend reformatting your memory card after each shooting session. While you can move files from the memory card to your computer, leaving behind a “blank” card, or delete files using the Trash can button during Playback, both options can leave behind stray files, including those that have been marked as Protected. Format removes those files completely (and beyond retrieval—unless you use a utility program like those described in Chapter 9) and establishes a fresh file system on the card, with all the file allocation table (FAT) pointers (which tell the camera and your computer’s operating system where all the images reside) efficiently pointing where they are supposed to on a blank card.

You can turn the beep on or off individually for five different camera operations, or you can switch it off entirely. You may find the beeper noise for particular functions annoying, or you may be shooting in an environment (such as concerts, religious ceremonies, or museums) where such sounds are impolite. If you’re one of those (bless you!) who turn your cell phones to vibrate when you’re in the company of others (or even dining in a restaurant alone), you’ll like this option.

Just navigate to the Beep menu entry using the four-way controller, highlight the beep item that you want to enable or disable, and use the left/right controller keys to mark or unmark the check box, as shown in Figure 3.11. The following features have beeps associated with them:

Figure 3.11. Mark the items you want to associate with beeps.

Here’s where you can adjust the date applied by your K200D to your “home” time zone. This information is embedded in the image file along with exposure information and other data. You can also specify an additional time zone as a “destination” time using the World Time adjustment, described next.

Your Pentax K200D remembers two different time zones for you, a “home” time zone, which is set using the Date Adjust menu entry, described previously, and a “destination” time zone, which is an additional city that you want to track, usually because you are visiting there. You don’t need to set the time for your Destination setting; once you’ve entered the correct date and time for your Home zone using Date Adjust, when you switch to the Destination time zone, the camera automatically adds or subtracts the correct number of hours to compensate.

This menu entry allows you to specify which world city is your default home time zone, and which is your default destination zone. You can also shift gears, so to speak, and tell your camera whether you are currently in your home zone or destination zone.

For example, if you live on the East Coast of the United States, you would set the time for Eastern Daylight or Eastern Standard time using the Date Adjust option described above. In addition, you might want to specify a second location, perhaps the West Coast, where you might have friends, relatives, colleagues, or another company office. You might find it particularly useful to have the World Time display available when you travel to that second time zone.

To use the World Time feature, follow these steps:

Use this menu entry to select from 18 different languages that will be used to display your menus and other messages. Available languages include English French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Dutch, Danish, Swedish, Finnish, Polish, Czech, Hungarian, Turkish, Russian, Korean, Japanese, and both Traditional and Simplified Chinese.

If you accidentally set the language to a tongue that is incomprehensible to you, don’t panic. Press the Menu button and navigate to the menu marked with a wrench icon (in every language). That’s the Set-up menu. Scroll down to the fifth entry, which is labeled “Language” in English, and press the right key. English will be offered as the choice in the upper-left corner of the screen that appears on the LCD.

If you wear glasses and shoot without them, you may have difficulty reading the menu screens at times (even though you’ve set the viewfinder diopter correction for your vision). Use this menu option to set menu Text Size to Large (or back to Std—Standard) and when any menu item is selected, it will be shown in the text size you’ve specified.

This is the first entry on the second page of the Set-up menu (see Figure 3.14). It can be used to enable or disable a basic Guide Display, as shown in Figure 3.15 (or specify the amount of time the display is visible), each time you turn the camera on or change exposure modes with the Mode dial. Select Off, or choose from 3-second, 10-second, or 30-second display intervals. Most find that turning off the display or setting it for a brief display time works fine, because the same information can be called up by pressing the Info button. Note that when using any of the Scene modes, the Guide Display includes a typical sample thumbnail image of that type of shooting situation.

Figure 3.14. Guide Display is the first entry on the second page of the Setup menu.

Figure 3.15. You can choose how long this informational display is shown each time you turn on the camera or change Exposure modes.

Choose this menu option to adjust the intensity of the LCD display. A grayscale strip appears on the LCD, as shown in Figure 3.16. Use the left/right controller keys to adjust the brightness to a comfortable viewing level over a range of +7 to –7. Under the lighting conditions that exist when you make this adjustment, you should be able to see the full range of tones on the grayscale strip, from black to white. If the dark area at the left of the strip is the same tone for more than one increment, the brightness has been set too low. If the two whitest increments on the right end of the strip blend together, the brightness is too high. Brighter settings use more battery power, but can allow you to view an image on the LCD outdoors in bright sunlight. When you have the brightness you want, press OK to lock it in and return to the menu, or press the Menu button to cancel the adjustment.

Figure 3.16. Adjust the LCD brightness so that all the grayscale tones are visible.

This setting controls the output of the K200D when directed to a conventional video system though the video cable when you’re displaying images. You can show these images on a monitor or connect to a VCR or other video device through the external device’s yellow composite video input jack. You can select either NTSC, used in the United States, Canada, Mexico, many Central, South American, and Caribbean countries, much of Asia, and other countries; or PAL, which is used in the UK, much of Europe, Africa, India, China, and parts of the Middle East.

Your Pentax will select a default value for you, based on the region you select in the World Time settings, described earlier. If you change from Home to Destination, the Video Out setting uses the default for that city. You may need to adjust back to your Home setting in some cases. Perhaps you’ve toted a compact NTSC LCD monitor along with you to Europe, and want to view your images using the NTSC protocol, rather than PAL, even while your camera is using the appropriate European time stamp.

You can link your Pentax K200D to a computer (PC or Macintosh) or to a PictBridge-compatible printer using the USB cable bundled with your camera. This option allows you to specify which of the two types of connections you want to use.

You have just two choices: PC or PictBridge. When using the PC connection, your computer sees the K200D as just another hard disk peripheral device. You can drag and drop image files from the folders on the memory card to a folder on your computer. I’ll provide more details on doing this in Chapter 8.

Printing Images in PictBridge Mode

In PictBridge mode, you can print your JPEG (but not RAW) pictures directly from the camera to a PictBridge-compatible printer (most newer printers are). When you connect the printer to the K200D, the camera in PictBridge mode automatically recognizes the printer. A menu like the one shown in Figure 3.17 appears on the monitor screen of the K200D.

Figure 3.17. Print single images, all images, or use the DPOF Autoprint option.

You can then print single images or all images on the memory card, or choose to print images that have been marked using the DPOF Autoprint option (if no images are already marked for printing, this option will be grayed out and unavailable). The DPOF option, unlike the Single Image or All Image choices, doesn’t allow you to change printer settings for the images being printed. Use the Single Image or All Image modes when you want to choose paper size, paper type, image quality, or whether or not the prints will be borderless.

To print single images or all images, just follow these steps:

1. Choose Single or All Images. Use the up/down keys to select Single Image or All Images and press OK.

2. Select individual images (Single Image only). If printing just a single image, press the left/right keys to choose an image from those available on your memory card. If you are printing All Images, skip this step; the settings you apply in steps 3-8 apply to each image on the card, and cannot be specified individually.

3. Choose number of copies. Use the up/down keys to choose the number of copies, from 1 to 99.

4. Add/remove Date. Press the Fn button to mark or unmark the Date box, which determines whether the date is printed on the image.

5. Confirm number of copies and date imprint. Press the OK button to confirm your settings so far, and you’ll be shown settings for:

   • Paper Size. Only the available paper sizes communicated by your PictBridge printer to the K200D may be selected.

   • Paper Type. Choose from *, **, or *** paper types, which is a somewhat unsatisfactory way of referring to the range between plain paper (*) and photo paper (***).

   • Quality. Again, you can choose from the amorphous * to *** indicators to choose Good, Better, or Best print quality.

   • Border Status. Indicates whether prints should be borderless or with borders.

6. Access settings screen. To change any of these settings, press the Fn button.

7. Select any or all of Paper Size, Paper Type, Quality, and Border Status (with/without). Use the up/down keys to highlight any of the settings you want to change.

8. Change settings. Press the right key to review and adjust any of the four settings. Press OK to confirm each option’s settings.

9. Return to Print According to Settings? Menu. Press OK to return to the printing menu.

10. Send your printing instructions to the printer. Press OK one last time to print your image.

To print all images on the memory card that you have marked with the DPOF option (introduced in Chapter 2), just follow these steps:

1. In Playback mode while viewing an image you want to mark for printing, press the Fn button to view the screen shown in Figure 3.2. The screen shows an image of the four-way controller, with labels representing the functions you can activate by pressing the controller’s keys.

2. Press the Up button to view the DPOF (Digital Print Order Format) screen.

3. Highlight Copies and use the left/right key to specify a number of copies, from 1 to 99.

4. Highlight Date and press the left/right keys to mark or unmark the Date box.

5. If you want to use the same Copies and Date parameters for all images on the memory card, press the Fn button. Each marked image will have a printer icon superimposed on it.

6. To mark or unmark additional images, rotate the e-dial to the right to view the next image, or to the left to see the previous image.

7. Repeat steps 3-5 to mark additional images.

8. When you’re finished, press OK. You’ll see a Data Being Recorded confirmation message before you’re returned to the Playback screen.

9. Connect your K200D to a PictBridge-compatible printer, and when the PictBridge menu appears, select DPOF Autoprint and press OK to automatically print the images you’ve selected, using the number of copies and date imprint option you specified. The marked images can also be given to a photofinisher, which has equipment that can interpret your print order settings.

You might want your Pentax K200D to turn itself off after a brief interval of non-use, saving battery power. Or, you might prefer to keep the camera turned on and active for a longer period, ready for an instant grab shot. This setting allows you to choose automatic power-down intervals of 1, 3, 5, 10, or 30 minutes, or disable automatic shut-off completely with the Off setting. Note that even if the camera powers down, the status LCD on top of the K200D remains active, and you can return the camera to full operation by tapping the shutter release or pressing the Info or Playback buttons.

As you take pictures, the Pentax K200D deposits the images into folders on your memory card containing up to 500 different pictures (unless you’re using Auto Bracketing, in which case all the images in a sequence will be stored in the same folder, even if more than 500 images are created in that folder). You can choose the naming format for those folders here.

If you have viewed one of your memory cards’ contents using a card reader, you noticed that the top-level folder on the card is always named DCIM. Inside that folder is another folder created by your camera. Cameras from different vendors use different folder naming conventions, and they can co-exist on the same card. For example, if your memory card is removed from your Pentax camera and used in, say, a camera from another vendor which also accepts SD, the other camera will create a new folder using a different folder name within the top-level DCIM directory.

By default, the Pentax K200D creates its folders using a three-number prefix (starting with 100 and going up to 999 if necessary), followed by two digits of the month and day, in the format MMDD or a different date format if specified in the Date Adjust menu entry. So, a folder containing images captured on February 8, 2009 might be deposited in a folder named 100_0208. If you happened to fill up that folder with 500 images, a new folder named 101_0208 would be created.

This menu option has just two options: Date, which uses the folder naming convention just described, or PENTX, which uses only a folder number and the string PENTX, as in 100PENTX, 101PENTX, and so forth. Use this option if you’d prefer not to have folders labeled with the current date.

This is the first option on the third screen of the Set-up menu (see Figure 3.18). If you own the optional D-BG3 battery grip, you can specify whether the K200D uses the camera’s internal battery as the primary power source, whether the battery in the grip functions as the primary power source, or whether the camera should select its main battery automatically. Note that if batteries are installed in both, some power will be drawn from each, regardless of which setting you choose. Your options are as follows:

Figure 3.18. Select Battery is the first entry on the third screen of the Set-up menu.

Use this option to tell your Pentax K200D to ignore “bad” pixels in the sensor. You can read more about the causes and fixes for such pixels in Chapter 9. Unlike the majority of digital SLRs, the Pentax has the facility built-in to “map out” these errant photosites.

Using this feature is simplicity itself. When you choose Pixel Mapping from the Set-up menu, a screen appears with the comment, “For checking the image sensor assembly to make adjustments,” which doesn’t really tell you very much (what kind of adjustments will be made?). Choose Pixel Mapping and press OK to start the process, or select Cancel to back out of the screen. A “Data being processed” message appears, and then you’re returned to the Set-up menu. Your defective pixels have been identified and the Pentax’s pixel map updated so their information will be ignored in the future. Note that you cannot use this feature if battery power is low.

This is not a setting, but, rather, it is a function that takes a “picture” of your sensor and provides an image that shows whether or not you have dust and other artifacts on your CCD. I’ll explain how to use this option in Chapter 9.

This is another function, rather than a setting, used to shake off dust on the sensor by shaking the CCD. You can perform the sensor-shaking from this menu, or mark a check box that will activate sensor cleaning each time the camera is turned on. I’ll explain this feature in more detail in Chapter 9.

This function does not clean your sensor, but, instead, lifts up your mirror and opens the shutter so you can clean the sensor yourself using a blower, damp swab, or some other means. The “Troubleshooting” section in Chapter 9 shows you how to do this safely.

If you’ve been playing around with all of the camera’s controls and you want to go back to all the default values for the settings in the menus, navigate to the Reset setting, the last in the Set-up menu. When you press the right arrow of the four-way controller, you’ll be taken to a new page where it will say “Back to initial settings” at the top and give you two options at the bottom: Reset and Cancel. If you press Reset, all settings go to default and the screen goes blank.

The first entry in the Custom Setting menu is labeled Setting (it doesn’t actually have a number), and can function as a sort of a temporary “reset” to restore each of the other custom settings to their default values until you activate your preferred options again.

Highlight the Setting entry and press the left/right keys to mark or unmark the check box. When the box is unmarked, each of the 23 custom settings revert to their default values (represented by the number 1). Mark the box to activate your custom settings instead. The customized options you’ve specified are not actually reset when the check box is unmarked; they are only temporarily ignored. If you want to actually reset the custom functions to their default values, use the Reset Custom Function entry, which follows CS #23 in the listing, and will be described later in this section.

Options:

This setting tells the K200D the size of the “jumps” it should use when making exposure adjustments—either one-third, one-half, or one full stop. The increment you specify here applies to f/stops, shutter speeds, EV changes, and autoexposure bracketing. As with ISO sensitivity step value, you can select from 1/2 EV steps (the default) or 1/3 EV steps increments. Figure 3.20 shows the selection screen, which is typical of all the Custom Setting screens, with one to four options. (Because they are so similar, I won’t provide sample screens for most of the other custom settings that follow.)

Figure 3.20. Choose 1/2 or 1/3 EV Steps.

With 1/2 stop increments, you will have larger and more noticeable changes between settings. The Pentax will use exposure compensation values of + or –0, .5, 1.0, 1.5, or 2.0 stops, and will use shutter speeds such as 1/60th, 1/125th, 1/250th, and 1/500th second, and f/stops including f/5.6, f/6.7, f/8, f/9.5, and f/11. These coarser adjustments are useful when you want more dramatic changes between different exposures.

Choose the 1/3 stop setting when you want the finest increments between shutter speeds and/or f/stops. For example, the Pentax will use exposure compensation values of + or –0, .3, .7, 1.0, 1.3, 1.7, and 2.0 and shutter speeds such as 1/60, 1/80, 1/100, 1/125, 1/160 second, and 1/125th second, or f/stops such as f/5.6, f/6.3, f/7.1, and f/8, giving you (and the autoexposure system) maximum flexibility.

Options:

This setting determines the size of the “jumps” it should use when making ISO adjustments (using the Capture Functions menu, as described in Chapter 2). The values (which don’t appear in the menu themselves) would be:

Options:

This option determines how long the exposure meter remains active before shutting itself off. The default value of 10 seconds is usually enough under most circumstances, and allows a little idle time when you begin using the camera to frame an image. Use the 3-second setting to save power, especially when you expect to be shooting more or less constantly, so the quick time-out won’t have much effect on the availability of the meter’s readings. Use the 30-second option when you want to have the meter alive for longer periods while you contemplate and frame a shot. If your meter does time out, just tap the shutter release button to revive it.

Options:

Use this setting to determine whether both exposure and focus are locked when the focus is locked. As you’ll learn while becoming familiar with your Pentax K200D, the need to lock exposure, focus, or both doesn’t always happen at the same time. At times, you’ll want to freeze one or the other, or lock both simultaneously.

Exposure should be locked when you have framed your photo, are ready to shoot, and don’t anticipate any events (such as a cloud passing in front of the sun) that will change the exposure settings as determined by the K200D’s metering system. Focus should not be locked until the main subject you want as your center of interest is in sharp focus. Sometimes, this main subject is not located in one of the 11 focus zones in the viewfinder, and you may want to use AF.S (single autofocus) mode, adjust framing slightly to allow the camera to focus on your center of interest, lock focus, and then reframe to achieve the composition you want. In other situations, the desired point of focus can change if the subject is moving or begins moving. While AF.S will refocus a subject that begins moving after focus is locked, in such cases, you’re better off using AF.C (continuous autofocus), which refocuses to follow active subjects. The K200D’s Moving Object Scene mode also uses AF.C mode.

To determine how and when you should use this setting, you’ll need to have a better understanding of how the AE-L button and shutter release interact than is provided in the confusing explanation offered in the Pentax manual. I’m going to clear up everything for you.

Options:

When using Multi-Segment metering, the Pentax K200D examines 16 different zones in the frame to calculate exposure. You’ll find more on exposure metering in Chapter 4. This setting can be used to specify whether the camera takes into account the active autofocus point when determining focus settings, as follows:

Options:

This is the first entry on the second screen of Custom Setting options. When using automatic exposure bracketing (explained in Chapter 4 in more detail), you can choose the order in which adjustments are applied. Your choice is generally just a matter of personal preference in how you want your bracketed exposures to be presented.

Options:

When setting White Balance using the Capture Function menu, you can fine-tune the color by adjusting the bias in the blue/amber and magenta/green directions, as I’ll describe in Chapter 4. This setting allows you to enable fine-tuning (giving you the most flexibility) or disable the option (reducing the chance that you’ll accidentally change the color incorrectly). There are two options available with this setting:

Options:

The selected AF point can be optionally highlighted in red in the viewfinder. This is largely a matter of personal preference, as the extra power consumption is minuscule.

Options:

Use this setting to specify whether autofocus should be used while using the optional Pentax Remote Control F. Remote shooting is sometimes used as an alternative to the self-timer to allow you to get into the picture, or simply to take a photo without touching the camera and thereby inducing vibration.

The K200D offers two remote control options in Drive mode (accessed from the Capture Functions screen by pressing the Fn button followed by the controller up key). In Standard remote mode, the shutter is triggered as soon as the release button on the remote is pressed. In Delayed remote mode, the shutter is triggered about three seconds after the button on the remote is pressed. In either case, if you plan to be in the photo yourself, you should already be in position. The Delay mode allows you to tuck the remote control away so it doesn’t show in the picture.

This setting allows you to specify whether the autofocus system operates when the remote’s release button is pressed:

Options:

Visual noise is that awful graininess caused by long exposures and high ISO settings, and which shows up as multicolored specks in images. This setting helps reduce noise caused by long exposures/slow shutter speeds. This noise is rarely desirable in a digital photograph. There are easier and more controllable ways to add texture to your photos.

Slow shutter speeds allow more photons to reach the sensor, increasing your ability to capture a picture under low-light conditions. However, the longer exposures also increase the likelihood that some pixels will register random phantom photons, often because the longer an imager is “hot,” the warmer it gets, and that heat can be mistaken for photons.

Options:

Depending on what kind of subject you are shooting, and how much noise reduction you want to apply, you can use this option to select Off, Weakest, Weak, or Strong High-ISO noise reduction.

Noise can also be caused by higher ISO sensitivity settings. The effects of high ISO noise are something like listening to a CD in your car, and then rolling down all the windows. You’re adding sonic noise to the audio signal, and while increasing the CD player’s volume may help a bit, you’re still contending with an unfavorable signal to noise ratio that probably mutes tones (especially higher treble notes) that you really want to hear.

The same thing happens when the analog image signal is amplified: You’re increasing the image information in the signal, but boosting the background fuzziness at the same time. Tune in a very faint or distant AM radio station on your car stereo. Then turn up the volume. After a certain point, turning up the volume further no longer helps you hear better. There’s a similar point of diminishing returns for digital sensor ISO increases and signal amplification as well.

As the captured information is amplified to produce higher ISO sensitivities, some random noise in the signal is amplified along with the photon information. Increasing the ISO setting of your camera raises the threshold of sensitivity so that fewer and fewer photons are needed to register as an exposed pixel. Yet, that also increases the chances of one of those phantom photons being counted among the real-life light particles, too.

Some kinds of subjects may not require this kind of noise cancellation, particularly with images that have a texture of their own that tends to hide or mask the noise.

Options:

The four-way controller’s center OK button can have several functions. You can choose which of these functions is active while you shoot.

Your options are as follows:

Options:

When using Program exposure mode, the e-dial can be used as a shortcut to several different functions. These include:

Options:

When shooting in Manual Exposure mode you can get help in finding the right exposure. You can set the Green button to temporarily switch from Manual exposure to another exposure mode. This capability would come in handy when you’re setting the exposure values yourself, and see a grab shot with illumination that might be different from the settings you’ve already made. Press the Green button, and the K200D will instantly switch from Manual exposure to one of the autoexposure methods you specified using this menu entry.

Options:

Here’s a simple one. Your Pentax K200D’s built-in flash needs a second or two to recharge after you’ve taken a picture. When you’ve selected Off using this custom setting, the shutter release button is locked until the flash has recharged. Use that option when you want to make sure that you don’t accidentally take a flash photo that might be underexposed.

Options:

As you’ll learn in Chapter 7, you can trigger an external electronic flash without a cord in Wireless mode, using the built-in flash as a controller for the external unit. To use this mode, you must set the power switch of the external flash unit to Wireless and then set it to the SLAVE mode. The camera must be set to Wireless mode, using the Capture Functions menu (press the Fn button) and by pressing the four-way controller’s down key to access the flash options. You can choose from two options in this Custom Setting entry:

Options:

Because the duration of electronic flash varies from very brief (about 1/1,000th second) to very, very brief (1/20,000th second or less with some units), the color temperature also changes. The K200D can automatically set the White Balance to flash when you’re using a Pentax flash unit that is capable of reporting these changes to the camera. There are two options with this setting:

Options:

Use this setting to specify the type of preview provided by the K200D when you rotate the Main switch all the way clockwise while the exposure meter is active. You can see either of two types of previews to gauge your camera’s depth-of-field and composition at the actual f/stop that will be used to take the picture. (The normal view through the viewfinder shows an image at the lens’s widest aperture, which won’t reflect the true depth-of-field unless the picture happens to be exposed at that lens opening. Your options are as follows:

Options:

Use this option to specify whether the number of images remaining or the ISO sensitivity setting will be displayed on the top-panel LCD and in the viewfinder. You can set the OK button to display the attribute you don’t specify here. Choose from:

Options:

The K200D has a function that uses a sensor to rotate the image so that images shot in vertical orientation are rotated on the LCD screen and/or in your image editing application. This setting determines whether the orientation information is embedded in the image file; if you want to have vertical images rotated on your LCD screen, too, you’ll need to use CS #21, described next.

Options:

When you rotate the K200D to photograph vertical subjects in portrait, rather than landscape orientation, you probably don’t want to view them tilted onto their sides later on. The K200D is way ahead of you. It has a directional sensor built in that can detect whether the camera was rotated when the photo was taken. You can apply this information in two different ways—to automatically rotate images when they are displayed on the camera monitor, or to automatically rotate images in your image-editing application.

This menu choice deals with whether the image should be rotated when displayed on the camera monitor. You might or might not want to do that. When Rotate Tall is activated, the Pentax K200D rotates pictures taken in vertical orientation on the LCD screen so you don’t have to turn the camera to view them comfortably. However, this orientation also means that the longest dimension of the image is shown using the shortest dimension of the LCD, so the picture is reduced in size.

Options:

Catch-in, or trap focus is a popular technique for sports photography and other situations in which you know where the action is going to take place (such as at the finish line of a horse race), but you don’t know exactly when. The solution is to prefocus on the point where the action will occur, and then tell your K200D not to actually take the photo until something moves into the prefocused spot. Sound magical? It’s actually not as difficult to achieve as you think. The key is to decouple the focusing operation from the shutter release function.

To do that, you’ll need to use a lens that is not focusing automatically, because you’ll want to set the focus yourself manually on the position where the action will occur. So, use either a Manual focus lens, or a DA or FA lens with an AF/MF switch that has been set to MF. The technique will not work with a lens that does not have its own AF/MF switch (such as the 18-55mm kit lens often furnished with the K200D).

Just follow these steps:

Options:

This setting determines whether or not you can set the f/stop using the aperture ring of a camera equipped with one. As you’ll learn in Chapter 7, some lenses include a physical aperture ring for changing the lens opening on the lens itself, rather than having the f/stop set electronically by the camera. These lenses also may have an A (automatic) setting that enables the camera to set the aperture. Your choices:

The last function follows the last item of the Custom Menu. It resets all 23 of the K200D’s Custom Settings to their default value of 1, returning the CS entries to their factory settings. Unlike the setting I call CS #0, which only disables and restores your custom settings, this one truly resets them. If you want something other than the default value for any setting, you’ll need to adjust each of them manually.