Function Menu

It’s time to drag out the Alpha’s Fn (Function) menu again, mentioned in Chapters 1 and 2, but not explained in a great amount of detail in either. That’s because several of the functions deserve complete descriptions within the context of their respective applications. For example, Autofocus mode, AF area, and metering mode are best deferred to the chapters that explain those features in exhaustive detail. This section will provide an overview that points you to the parts of the book that delve into the functions available from this menu.

The Function menu appears when you press the Fn button when the camera is in Shooting mode or in the main menu system (that is, when you’re not reviewing an image on the LCD). (If the camera is in Playback or Auto Review mode, pressing the Fn button produces a screen that lets you rotate the image on display 90 degrees each time you press the center controller button.) If you have the Display Rec. Data option on the Custom 2 menu set to For Live View, the Fn menu will appear on the LCD superimposed over the Live View of the image. If the Display Rec. Data option is set to For Viewfinder, the Fn menu will appear on a dark background on the LCD. In either case, the Fn menu will appear in the viewfinder when the viewfinder is active, superimposed over the scene being viewed through the viewfinder.

This menu (see Figure 3.15) has up to 12 options, depending on the context. All 12 options are available when the Shooting mode is Program auto, Aperture priority, Shutter priority, or Manual. In other shooting modes, some of these items will not appear on the Function menu screen or will be grayed out and unavailable.

Figure 3.15. The Function menu.

After you press the Fn button, the camera will show all of the available options on the LCD or viewfinder screen. Use the four direction buttons to scroll up and down and left and right among the various options. When the option you want is highlighted, you can press the center controller button to activate a submenu with the settings for that option. Or, if you want to take a quicker route, once the option is highlighted, just spin the control dial left or right to change the settings directly, without having to get into the submenu.

• Drive mode. This is the first option on the top left. There are several choices available through this single item on the screen: continuous shooting mode at high or low speed; self-timer; exposure bracketing; white balance bracketing; and Remote Commander. I discuss bracketing in Chapter 4, and continuous shooting and the other topics in Chapter 5.

• Flash mode. This entry calls forth a submenu that allows you to choose among the several flash modes that are available when the flash is popped up or an external flash is attached: Flash Off, Autoflash, Fill flash, Slow Sync, Rear Sync, and Wireless. Not all of these modes are available at all times. I’ll describe the use of flash in detail in Chapter 8.

• Autofocus mode. This entry summons a terse submenu that allows you to choose when the Alpha locks in focus—either AF-S (single autofocus), AF-C (continuous autofocus), or AF-A (automatic autofocus). These were described in Chapter 1, and will be explained more completely in the autofocus section of Chapter 5.

• AF area. The Alpha includes 15 autofocus sensors arranged around the central portion of the viewfinder. You can elect to have the Alpha always choose which of the sensors to use, you can select any one of the 15 sensors yourself, or you can set the camera to always use the center autofocus point. You’ll find tips for choosing the best AF area mode, from among Wide, Spot, or Local, for the kind of shooting you are doing, in Chapter 5.

• Face Detection. This option causes the camera to search for faces in the scene being photographed. If it detects a face, it adjusts the focus and exposure to produce the best possible image with one or more faces in sharp focus and properly exposed. I introduced this feature in Chapter 2, and will have some more to say about it in Chapter 5, which covers focus and related topics.

• Smile Shutter. I also mentioned this feature briefly in Chapter 2. This function is related to Face Detection; when you turn Smile Shutter on, Face Detection is automatically turned on also. With Smile Shutter, the camera watches for a smile, and fires the shutter automatically each time it sees one. This is an interesting high-tech feature, because the subject’s smile acts as a sort of remote control. Each time a person smiles, the camera clicks the shutter and takes a picture. There is no limit to the number of smiles and images; you, or whoever is in front of the camera, can keep smiling repeatedly, and the camera will keep taking more pictures, until it runs out of memory storage or battery power. Of course, the main purpose of this feature is not to act as a remote control; it’s really intended to make sure your subject is smiling before the shutter fires. When you first activate Smile Shutter, you can use the right/left cursor buttons to adjust the smile sensitivity for a slight, normal, or big smile.

• ISO sensitivity. In addition to using the direct-access ISO button (the down cursor button), you have the option of using the Fn menu to set the camera’s ISO to Auto, or to various values from 100 to 12,800. You also can choose Multi Frame Noise Reduction from this menu, in which case the ISO can be set as high as 25,600. ISO is discussed in detail in Chapter 4.

• Metering mode. The metering mode determines what part of the image is used to determine correct exposure. The Alpha can be set to evaluate multiple points within the image, concentrate only on the center portion of the frame, or measure a small spot in the middle of the shot. You’ll learn how metering mode affects exposure in Chapter 4, which is devoted exclusively to exposure topics.

• Flash compensation. This feature works like exposure compensation (discussed in Chapter 4), and allows you to dial in more or less exposure when using the flash. If your flash photo (such as a test shot) is too dark or too light, access this menu entry. Press the left/right cursor buttons or spin the control dial to reduce or increase flash exposure by up to two steps; then press the center controller button to confirm your choice. This and other flash-related topics are discussed in detail in Chapter 8.

• White balance. The different light sources you shoot under have differing color balances. Indoor light, for example, is much redder than outdoor illumination, which tends to have a bluish bias. The Alpha lets you choose the color/white balance that’s appropriate, or it can make this adjustment automatically. You can choose Auto White Balance, and let the camera select the proper setting, or you can select from several preset options for commonly encountered lighting situations: Daylight, Shade, Cloudy, Incandescent (standard light bulbs), Fluorescent, Flash, Color Temperature, and Custom. I’ll discuss the last two settings in Chapter 5, in the discussion of more advanced shooting options. The Auto White Balance setting works very well on the A55/A33, and one advantage of using it is that you don’t have to worry about changing it for your next shooting session; there’s no risk of having the camera set for, say, Daylight, when you’re shooting indoors. If you shoot in RAW quality, though, you don’t have to worry about white balance at all, because you can easily adjust it in your software after the fact.

• D-Range Optimizer/Auto HDR. The brightness/darkness range of many images is so broad that the sensor has difficulty capturing both the brightest highlight areas and the darkest shadow areas. The Alpha is able to expand its dynamic range using the D-Range Optimizer feature available from this menu entry. You can leave DRO turned off, set it to Auto, letting the camera decide how much processing to apply, or set it manually to any level of processing from 1 (weak) to 5 (strong).

  In addition, this feature of the Alpha offers an Auto HDR setting. If you select Auto HDR, the camera takes three exposures at different exposure levels using an interval that you select, from 1.0 to 6.0 EV. It then combines the three exposures so as to lighten the shadows and darken the highlights of the resulting image, producing an enhanced dynamic range. I’ll provide tips and examples in Chapter 5.

• Creative Style. This option gives you six different combinations of contrast, saturation, and sharpness: Standard, Vivid, Portrait, Landscape, Sunset, and B/W (black-and-white). The Creative Style option is not available in the AUTO or Scene modes, though it is available in all other shooting modes, including Sweep Panorama and Continuous Advance Priority AE.

I explain the “looks” of each of these styles in Chapter 5.